Before Martha Finley had completed the first six titles of The Elsie Books in 1876, she began a new series based upon the Dinsmore's Midwestern relatives, the Keiths. The resulting seven-book series, The Mildred Series, introduces Mildred Keith, their sixteen-year-old daughter. Her father, a lawyer by trade, had moved with his wife and eight children from Ohio to the frontier of Indiana in the 1830s (not unlike Martha Finley's identical journey as a girl with her family).

At the end of the first book, Mildred becomes very ill with a fever and is slow to recover. Arthur Dinsmore Sr., Elsie's...

Mildred and Charlie Landreth, the proud parents of a baby boy, have settled into quiet domestic life. An invitation from cousins Horace and Elsie to visit the Oaks, near Roselands, brings Charlie, Mildred, and her youngest sister, Annis, to spend the winter in the sunny South. Family gatherings, studies, visits to Ion, daily walks, and pony rides fill up Annis and Mildred's days before the visitors return home.

The Landreths and Annis meet Aunt Wealthy in Philadelphia on their way home from the Oaks and complete their journey with her at their side. Mildred and Zillah, her sister, welcome daughters into their homes and learn much about raising children. Don and Rupert, Mildred's brothers, heed the call to Go West, young man "" When they are attacked by Indians, the Keith family mourns their likely loss but rejoices in the knowledge that if they are dead they are in a far better place with the Lord.""

The Landreths harbor a family of fugitive slaves. The family fears the oncoming civil war and the possibility of sending fathers and sons, brothers and cousins off to fight. Rupert, Cyril, and Donald Keith, Wallace and Stuart Ormsby, and young Percy Landreth are eager to defend the Union they revere and love, but they are also anxious to return to family and friends at home.

Young orphans Ethel, Blanche, Harry, and Nannette Eldon have suffered much since the loss of their parents -- their British father after a prolonged illness and their mother suddenly over the shock of her husband's death. Now these youngsters are sent across the Atlantic to live with their uncles in Philadelphia. Ethel, who is eager to do her share to support her brother and sisters, takes a job running a shop, and she and Blanche become engaged to cousins Stuart Ormsby and Percy Landreth. The boys bring their brides home to Pleasant Plans, and Mildred gains a daughter.