Mistress Masham's Repose

A young orphan, Maria, lives in a vast, dilapidated mansion with no one but a kindly cook, a distracted professor and a spiteful governess for company. That is, until she discovers a colony of tiny people - each no more than six inches high - living in secrecy on an overgrown island on the estate grounds. These people are Lilliputians, descended from those first encountered in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. They are determined to keep their whereabouts hidden from the human world. But when they are accidentally discovered by an interfering governess and the scheming local vicar, they must join forces with Maria to save themselves from a terrible fate.