Mabel Hart has kept one candle burning in her candle shop window for twenty-eight years, so walkers can find the lane in the dark. On a stormy November evening, a new schoolteacher, lost in her first week in Port Lowell, follows that light in — and learns how candles are dipped, one slow layer at a time, while the storm passes. A gentle story about being expected somewhere new.

Edith Marlowe has made tiny lit Port Lowells inside snow globes for thirty years. On the first cold night of November, a young man who has moved away comes home looking for one globe to send to his sister, far away, who misses the lights most of all. A gentle story about a whole town kept glowing under glass.

Hazel Brennan has kept her greenhouse lamps burning through the first frost for fifty years. Tonight, with a hard frost coming, a neighbour brings soup and keeps watch with her among the plants until dawn. A gentle story about keeping summer alive one more night.

For thirty-one years, Captain Ruth Callahan has steered the night ferry home by a lantern in a cottage window — lit by a woman she has never met. On the foggiest night of her last week, the window is dark. A gentle story about promises kept across dark water.