This is a short story concerning a working class couple, Jem and Jane Foster and their otherwordly young daughter, Judith. Judith is imaginative and solitary, she frequently dreams of her Aunt Hester, who died quietly at a very young age.
Judith and her parents live in a hot, airless flat near the City's noisy Elevated Railroad. The father is offered the temporary position of caretaker at large house by the Park. The small family relocates to the beautiful deserted mansion. Judith and her mother discover a locked room on the fourth floor of the house. There is a mystery to the empty house and the locked room.