Hester, the old nurse, is telling Miss Rosamond’s children a story from their mother’s youth. In the story, Miss Rosamond’s mother comes to the village school and chose Hester to be Miss Rosamond’s nursemaid. When Miss Rosamond is four or five years old and Hester is eighteen, both of Miss Rosamond’s parents get sick and die within a couple weeks of each other. Miss Rosamond’s mother comes from an influential family, the Furnivalls, and her cousin, Lord Furnivall, arrives to handle affairs. It is decided that Hester will continue to care for Miss Rosamond at Manor House, the home of Miss Grace Furnivall (Lord Furnivall’s great aunt) and Mrs. Stark (her maid). Hester initially finds Manor House to be a cold and gloomy place, neglected out in the wilderness. But by James, Dorothy, and Agnes (members of the staff) welcome her, and she and Miss Rosamond become comfortable there.
The house has two wings, and the east wing is locked and off limits. Hester and Dorothy become good friends, and Dorothy shares what she knows about the Furnivalls, namely identifying the portrait of Miss Maude Furnivall, Miss Grace’s older sister. Dorothy is afraid to show this portrait to her and makes Hester promise to never tell anyone she had seen it. As winter sets in, Hester becomes convinced she sometimes hears someone playing on the organ, but the rest of the staff deny it. After interrogating Agnes, she learns that it is rumored that the old lord’s ghost plays the organ on stormy winter nights, though Agnes does not know who the old lord is. Hester only half believes this story, until she opens the organ and sees that it is destroyed inside.
One night, Hester decides it is too cold to take Miss Rosamond with her to church and leaves her in the charge of Dorothy. However, when she returns, she discovers that Miss Rosamond is missing. They search the whole house until Hester finally spots a set of footprints in the snow outside from a window. She rushes out to intercept a shepherd carrying a nearly frozen Miss Rosamond. When Miss Rosamond finally regains consciousness, she tells Hester that she saw a little girl out in the snow, and that the little girl had walked her up the Fells to a crying lady who then rocked her to sleep. Hester doesn’t believe her, but Miss Rosamond insists it’s the truth. Miss Grace is terrified by Miss Rosamond’s story and tells Hester to keep Miss Rosamond away from that “evil child.” From then on, Hester never leaves Miss Rosamond alone.
In December, Hester and Miss Rosamond are playing together when suddenly they see the little girl out in the snow, banging on the window. Miss Rosamond runs to let the little girl in, but with a sudden blast of organ music, Hester realizes the little girl makes no noise, and that she is a ghost. She grabs Miss Rosamond before she can open the door and carries her off into the house.
Dorothy finally admits that the old lord who plays the organ is Miss Grace and Miss Maude’s father, and that the old lord was too proud to ever allow anyone to marry his daughters. But when he invited a foreigner to play music in their home, both sisters fell in love with the same man. The foreigner brought the organ for the old lord to learn to play, and while their father was distracted, he flirted with both daughters. Miss Maude triumphed over her sister and secretly married the foreigner, later giving birth to a daughter (the little girl who became the ghost outside Manor House).
But jealousy grew between the sisters as the foreigner continued to flirt with both of them, and he eventually abandoned both sisters and his daughter. The two sisters retreated to their respective sides of the house, Miss Maude in the east wing and Miss Grace in the west. Miss Maude loved her daughter and decided to have her live secretly in the east wing with her. Rumor had it Miss Maude one day revealed to her sister that she had won and had married the foreigner in secret. This led Miss Grace and Miss Stark to spy on the east wing and discover the little girl. Miss Grace then told the old lord, who was furious and threw both Miss Maude and the little girl out into the snow. Miss Grace did nothing as the old lord ordered the staff not to help them, and ultimately Miss Maude and the little girl froze to death. The old lord never played his organ again.
Having heard this story, Hester guards Miss Rosamond even more vigilantly. One night, Hester, Miss Rosamond, Miss Grace, and Mrs. Stark are all in the drawing room when the wind begins to howl, and Miss Grace declares she can hear her father’s voice. Miss Rosamond says she hears the little girl. They all hurry out into the great hall, the screams coming from the east wing. Suddenly, the east wing door slams open, and the ghost of the old lord drives the ghosts of Miss Maude and the little girl through it. They watch as the ghosts reenact the night that Miss Maude and the little girl died. As the old lord strikes the little girl with his crutch, Miss Grace begs him to spare the child, but then a phantom of her younger self appears and looks onto the scene coldly. Then, all of the fires go out, and Miss Grace is left lying on the ground. She is carried to bed and spends the rest of her days facing the wall, muttering, “what is done in youth can never be undone in age!”
