Two sisters, Grace and Marion, live happily in an English village with their two servants, Clemency Newcome and Ben Britain, and their good-natured widower father Dr Jeddler.

Marion, the younger sister, is betrothed to Alfred Heathfield, Jeddler's ward, who is leaving the village to complete his studies.

Michael Warden, a libertine who is about to leave the country, is thought by the solicitors Snitchey and Craggs to be about to seduce the younger sister into an elopement.

On the day of the child's birth, six years after her disappearance, Marion re-appears to explain herself: she had not eloped with Warden, but had moved away to live with her aunt Martha, so as to allow Alfred the chance to fall in love with Grace.

The novella is one of Dickens's lesser-known works and has never attained any high level of popularity, in contrast to some of his other Christmas Books.