From a tiny shtetl in Czarist Russia, Miriam Aronowitch is transported to the countryside of Victorian England, where she and her mother Anya begin to build a new life. But when Anya becomes critically ill, fifteen-year-old Miriam finds herself alone and at the mercy of the cruel Miss Grimshaw, matron of Greytowers Orphanage. Only the strength of her devotion to Hashem, imbued in her by her beloved mother, enables her to withstand the torments and bleakness of Greytowers and to rekindle the light of Yiddishkeit in the hearts of her young companions.