With Tristan gone and thus the practice being down one body, what has been neglected, especially in the current busy season, are the administrative duties, with areas related to the practice having to do with paperwork, notably Siegfried's office, a total mess. Siegfried, as is James in knowing nothing about it, is somewhat surprised, partly in forgetting that he made the casual offer, that Miss Harbottle, who he met on the dance floor at the Farmer's Ball, comes unannounced into Skeldale House ready to take over as the practice's secretary/clerk/bookkeeper in considering herself an administrative whiz. While she is able to clear up some of the items that have fallen through the cracks, she, in believing that she knows best in unilaterally implementing changes to the practice, causes an uproar with everyone else: with Siegfried in his dealings with Mr. Dakin, who is dealing with the end of productive life of his oldest dairy cow, Blossom; with James, who wants to help a slightly reluctant Joe Coney, who James and Helen met at the Drovers, with his pet ferret, Wilf, and a growth of some sort on Wilf's head; and even with Mrs. Hall in her personal life, in she not yet having told anyone, except Siegfried but least of all Gerald, about filing for divorce.
—Huggo