It is winter in Marshmallows. Mr. Walton visits the poor, and now and then, the rich. He finds that Mr. Stoddart is not really serious about anything, yet somehow plays the church organ with something like inspiration.

Mrs. Oldcastle is as impossible to like as she ever was. She is attended by a frightening servant named Sarah whose face is overly white.

Mr. Walton feels sympathy and interest for Ethelwyn Oldcastle, who is forced to put up with tyrannical Mrs. Oldcastle and to be educated by the wishy-washy Mr. Stoddart.