When a child's father dies only a few days after her birth, she is taken in by her grandparents, according to her mother's wishes. While the girl grows up in her grandparents' care, her mother marries a Colonel, and, in addition to having two step-children, the couple have a daughter together. The child visits her mother and step-family every Christmas but is not otherwise in touch with them, aside from her mother's occasional letter or gift. When she visits for Christmas, she sees her mother drink wine all day and watches her half-sister, Fairlee, perform dances for everyone at her mother's insistence. She remains distant from the family but is pleasantly surprised when her step-brother John attends her grandmother's funeral after her death.

Now grown up and living on her own, the woman eventually learns that Fairlee has recently gotten married. The woman had not been invited to her half-sister's wedding, and only finds out about it when her mother mentions that she gave Fairlee their grandmother's silver as a wedding gift. She also learns that her mother greatly dislikes her new son-in-law. In her letters, the mother makes up various stories as to why he cannot be trusted. The woman finally meets Fairlee's husband, Edmond de la Tour, when she goes to visit her half-sister for Easter seven years later.

After this visit, the girls keep in touch, often spending the weekend together at Fairlee's house. The woman feels out of place in Fairlee's perfect estate where there are always fresh cookies and flowers, but she grows to enjoy her half-sister's company, though she also pities her. When she invites Fairlee to visit her house, however, Fairlee always makes up some excuse, and the woman soon realizes Fairlee is severely afraid of the outside world. When she mentions it to Fairlee and Edmond one weekend, Edmond argues that it is not a real phobia but is just the cowardly nature of an American.

The woman visits her half-sister again for Thanksgiving, and this time Fairlee reveals that she and Edmond are badly in debt and that Edmond's anxiety around finances has led to him drinking. According to Fairlee, he even sold her grandmother's silver, the wedding gift from her mother. Fairlee then tells her sister that her husband injured their dog by hitting her with the car when he was drunk the night before. Apparently, this has been an ongoing problem, since the same thing happened to their previous dog. Later, when Fairlee is out of the room, Edmond tells the woman that it was Fairlee who hit both dogs and that she has been going mad for the past few years due to heavy drinking.

The next time she sees Fairlee, the woman notices her health has severely declined. She has been diagnosed with pneumonia and has been given medication, but her health has only gotten worse. When Fairlee develops a high fever, the woman calls an ambulance, but since there is a blizzard outside, she knows it will not arrive anytime soon. The woman remembers that Edmond has a vaporizer for his asthma, but he is drunk and asleep, so she cannot ask him where it is. Instead, she searches the house on her own. In a chest in Fairlee's room, she finds many bottles of pills and the grandmother's silver. Just before Fairlee is carried away on a stretcher, she sees the silver and, shocked, tells the woman that Edmond must have hidden it there to make Fairlee seem crazy. Fairlee dies the next morning, and even after the funeral, the woman is unsure who she believes.