''You looked for a moment as if you might be going to smile at me,'' he remarked. ''But I see I was mistaken; I suspect your smiles are precious and you hoard them so they are seen only by very special people.'' Anna is a child living in a remote Hebridean community when she meets the enigmatic and romantic Jimmy Pearl. She carries the memory of their meeting through to adult life - a life that is full of hardships. Anna''s parents die and her brother and his wife sell the family croft, forcing Anna into a loveless marriage with the heartless Fergus. Anna, however, doesn''t reckon on the return of Jimmy Pearl . . .