Orphanage superintendent Sarah Prue so abuses young Samanthy that the girl decides to run away. Bidding farewell to her friends, Samanthy escapes into the woods, where she encounters handsome George Stuart. George entrusts Samanthy to his governess, and under the kindly old woman's care, Samanthy blossoms into a true beauty. Quite taken with her, George decides to become her legal guardian, but his father James insists that she be returned to the orphanage. Heartbroken, Samanthy departs for the asylum, but George, and soon afterwards James, follows her there. When Sarah threatens to blackmail James, he reveals that he placed Samanthy, actually his old business partner's daughter, on the orphanage steps following his partner's death, so that the latter's estate would fall to him. Her fortune restored to her, Samanthy agrees to marry George.