The movie begins during the Civil War. Socialite Delia Lovell [Miriam Hopkins] is about to be wed, and her cousin Charlotte is in attendance. When Delia learns that the man she promised to marry two years earlier is in town, she sends Charlotte to beg him not to make a scene. The guy is one Charlotte is secretly in love with, and she winds up consoling him in a very intimate fashion. Several years pass. The man has been killed in the war, and Charlotte is running a home for war orphans. When Delia learns that one of the children is actually one Charlotte had out of wedlock and that the father was the dead soldier, she destroys Charlotte's chance to marry a very prominent man. In a cruel twist of fate, Charlotte's daughter grows up in Delia's home and is led to believe that her mother is her aunt.

Bette Davis was a rather unusual star for her time because she was also a consummate actress. As such, she demanded roles in which glamour and beauty were often cast aside. Stunningly pretty in the first part of the movie, she spends the rest of it heavily made up to look like a dowdy old maid aunt. It's a startling transformation. By contrast, her co-star, Ms. Hopkins, typical of female stars at the time, barely ages at all. Hopkins actually gives a sensitive, studied performance, but, because of her determination to portray her character as realistically as possible, Davis totally dominates the picture.