Handsome Jackson Baring, heir to grand Southern horse farm Kilronan, choose to build a life in New York while it's run by his domineering mother Martha. When Jackson returns to present his Yankee bride Helen, the young couple gets lured into staying for the Christmastide, then to help Martha save the farm from financial trouble or at least until Jackson son's birth. As cripple grandmother Alice Baring suggested, Martha is playing a ruthless game, just as she lied about the seven year old, traumatized Jackson's father Jack's deadly fall.