Leila, a gypsy maiden, is in love with a handsome youth who came to her rescue when she was attacked by a couple of ruffians. An innocent flirtation follows and the ardent blood of the gypsy becomes inflamed. She takes the attentions of the youth seriously. He later marries a young woman of his choice and after an interval of a few years they have a beautiful child. This little one, left in charge of a careless maid, wanders away across the fields and is soon lost to view in a meadow of goldenrod. The child becomes weary, seats itself in the midst of the flowers. It so transpires that the band of gypsies passes. Leila, the gypsy maiden is among them. They see the child. Thinking that they will receive a reward for finding it, they carry the little one away. The distracted parents, after a vain search, believe their darling dead, yet continue the search, heart-broken, with hope abandoned. Through a newspaper, inadvertently dropped, Leila learns the identity of the child, and in a spirit of vengeance concludes to keep it. She places the little girl in a fashionable seminary and toils for years for its maintenance and education. Eleven years later, Leila visits the child, who has now grown to girlhood, and remorseful, tells her story to one of the good sisters, who persuades her to return the little girl to its parents. Accompanied by one of the sisters, she visits the home of her former sweetheart and makes a full and complete confession, and disappears in a maze of memories, friendless, abandoned, and alone.