This film is a moody, even tragic drama about a neglected spinster whose saving fantasy life is savaged by her deeply unsatisfactory encounters with "real life." Having devoted her youth to caring for her unloved and unloving mother in her final years, when her mother dies, she has no life of her own. She knows no one. On a shopping expedition, she succumbs to a saleswoman's hard sell and buys a doll. The doll soon becomes an important focus in her life, especially in helping her daydream about sleeping with a young man she has seen. To the puzzlement of her neighbors, baby clothing begins to appear on her clothesline, though they know full well she has neither husband nor baby. She does, finally, meet and get to know the young man, and even goes to bed with him. However, the reproaches she thinks she hears from her dolls send her into a frenzy, as they have told her the man will leave her because she's too old.