This is an excellent adaptation of Catherine Cookson's novel of the same name. This is the story takes place in a large and bustling English village in 1854. It tells the tale of Millicent "Millie" Forester, a beautiful young child whose desperate mother, having had a change in fortune, looks to earn their daily bread by reluctantly indulging in the world's oldest profession. When her mother is caught and dragged off to the local jail, rag picker Agnes Winkowski takes Millie under her wing. Her rough demeanor and bluster hides a heart of gold, as she already shelters a handsome hunchbacked teen named Ben, whose values and goodness do Aggie credit.

When Millie's mother is abducted by the local pimp and brothel owner, she hangs herself. This degenerate then sets his sights on Millie, as he has a clientele who will appreciate what she has to offer them. When Aggie becomes aware of the perfidy that is afoot, she sets Millie off to a convent school, where she hopes that she will be kept safe. When she finally returns home, Aggie and Ben both keep an eye out for Millie, knowing that the danger has only intensified, as child prostitution proliferates in Victorian England.

As Millie blossoms into a beautiful teenager, she goes to the country to work as a nursemaid. There, she is happy, until a sordid incident at a servants' party at a neighboring manor forces her to return home to Aggie and Ben. A wealthy suitor soon convinces her that she is in love, but this romance is not all that it seems, as Millie will soon discover.

Moreover, her father, whom she has long thought dead, reappears and is nothing more than a scoundrel of the worst sort. To complicate matters further, the brothel owner still has Millie in his sights and will stop at nothing to get her into his clutches, as he has a ready made roster of willing and depraved men who will pay handsomely for Millie's sexual favors. As an added twist, the saintly and forbearing Ben is in love with Millie and waiting patiently in the wings. What is a girl to do?