This is the touching story of a vivacious, talented girl growing up in splendid freedom in Transylvania, then Hungary but now part of Rumania, until a tragic event transplants her and three older siblings to eighteenth century Vienna and the house of a cardinal, whose wards they have become. The four youngsters know they have no choice but to adjust to their drastically changed life and a demanding curriculum of studies. In time, all four teenagers are placed with religious orders and eventually take their vows. The youngest, Tessa, enters the abbey of Goss in Styria, a contemplative order of choir women from noble families, and she eventually becomes Choir woman Maria Columba. Her great talent and love of singing, especially the Gregorian chant, as well as an understanding abbess, help her adjust to the strict rules and grueling daily schedule. Over time, however, circumstances change and her always strong temper revolts against what she perceives as unjust and abhorred decisions by her superiors, causing her to be confined to a cell under prisonlike conditions. She is freed years later when Joseph II of Austria decrees the dissolution of contemplative abbeys, monasteries, and convents. Realizing that having been confined for so long was an injustice, the state grants her as the only member of the congregation the means to live out her life as a private woman.