At the opening of the play, Granny Nichols' only daughter is leaving the farm to go to the city in search of employment. Next, she is in the city, married to a wealthy man who has forbidden her to make their marriage public as he is afraid his family will object. One day, after a year of happy married life, the husband leaves his wife and baby daughter to go downtown on business. Through a case of mistaken identity, he is arrested and before he can prove his innocence to the satisfaction of the police, his wife, believing he deserted her, takes her baby and returns to her mother. The husband, upon regaining his freedom and returning home, finds only a note from his wife saying that he will never see her or the baby again. He mourns his loved ones as dead, thinking that his wife left him contemplating the death of herself and her child. The mother and child return to the farm and there, with her dying breath the mother entrusts baby Lena to the care of Granny Nichols. On the farm, Lena grows to womanhood never knowing her father's name. When Lena is sixteen her Uncle John decides to take his mother to live with him in the city. Granny refuses to leave without Lena, so she also moves to Uncle John's home. In the meantime, Lena's father is a frequent visitor at the home of Uncle John, whom he little thinks is any relation to his dead wife. Here he meets Lena, and espying a locket containing the picture of her mother, which she wears around her neck, he recognizes her as his daughter. Not only this, but lucky Lena is enabled to marry the man she loves.