Ada Prentice, a girl in a knitting factory, is forbidden by her parents to marry John Horrocks. She confides in her Aunt Sarah, the oldest worker in the factory. Aunt Sarah tells Ada that she has every right to live her own life and to marry the partner of her own choice. The old woman knows what she is talking about, since in her youth she had given up her chance for happiness by rejecting the only man she could have loved.