Pavla has been put in an orphanage, also a home for underprivileged children, while her father is "free" to concentrate on his own life. Pavla develops an unhealthy dependence on her group's housemother, Jarmila, to the point where she is jealous of Jarmila's fiance -- and has raised the shackles of the forbidding Mrs. Moravek. Finally, Jarmila cannot continue in the role that Pavla has placed on her, and she takes measures to end the dependence, no matter what the outcome.