Margaret Fowler is a daughter of the city. Her mother, mean and avaricious, ground down to poverty, is willing to sacrifice her daughter's happiness and love for wealth and position. The girl longs for the beautiful things of life. Prompted by her own mother's pleadings, she turns her back on love.

Jimmy, a waif chimney sweep, sees Joyce while cleaning a chimney in Colonel Wynne's magnificent home, and believes that she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He clips a curl while she sleeps and leaves note explaining that he "Tuk the kurl bekawse yure the purtiest gurl I ever saw." Donaldson, the colonel's close friend, adopts Jimmy, who grows up into a well-educated young man. Joyce likes him immediately, but he has a rival, Carl Bellou. Jimmy writes a note to Joyce informing her that one of her suitors is the little chimney sweep who has striven ever since to make himself worthy of her. He tells Bellou about it and the latter hurries to announce himself as the chimney sweep. "I had hoped it was Jimmy," she tells him, and Jimmy enters in time to hear her words. He has the ring with him.

The country school board assigns a new teacher, and the lot falls to none other than Sweedie.