This warm comedy intrduces us to Maggie, housekeeper for twenty years to Elijah Watson, a parsimonious North Country draper. Hoping to save money, Elijah unexpectedly asks Maggie to leave at a month's notice. Trying to claim unemployment benefit Maggie learns that her former employer has "forgotten" to pay National Insurance for her during the whole twenty years! Confronted bny Maggie, Elijah's solution to the problem is to mary her. But Maggie is not as simple as she first appears and, after a battle of wits elicits Elijah's agreement to a period of courtship before consummation of marriage!