Hilda O'Shaunnessey lives in a New York City tenement with her younger, invalid brother, Mickey, and relatives Mr. and Mrs. Brady. Because of Mickey's frail health, the boy spends most of his time on the roof, and Hilda works as a clerk in a department store toy department to raise enough money to send him to a sanitarium. Mickey befriends a little girl, Susan Gray, who lives with her single, artist father, Emery Gray, in a bungalow on the adjoining roof; when Emery meets Hilda, he is impressed by her devotion to her brother. As Christmas season approaches, Hilda takes an extra job in the toy department dressing up as animated dolls. Soon she catches the attention of the store's leering proprietor, Gregory Stearns, who makes several advances toward the young beauty, and asks what gift she would like for Christmas. Knowing what the older, wealthy man has in store for her, and seeing a way out of her troubles, Hilda asks for an expensive fur coat. When Stearns delivers the gift, Hilda pawns it to pay for Mickey's treatment at the sanitarium, then hurries to the roof to commit suicide before yielding to her employer's desires. However, Emery Gray prevents her from jumping, and exposes Stearns as the man who stole his wife. Emery asks for Hilda's hand in marriage, and Mickey is cured in the hospital.
—AFI