Vivenot, miser, old and helpless, lives in an attic. Little Jessie, daughter of the landlord of the house, is good to him. In her visits to the attic, Jessie has seen a bag of money and jewels, which the miser tucks away in a hidden cranny of the chimney. Dying, the old miser names Jessie as his heir, but her father and the lawyer find only a few pennies in the box. These they give to the little girl with the will, jestingly calling her "the little heiress." Jessie, grown up, married, with a little daughter of her own, is a flood victim. In the wrecks of her household goods she finds the old will. At the same time her husband brings her the news that her childhood home has been condemned at a menace and is to be torn down. A vague recollection of seeing the old miser with a bag in his hand when she was a child comes to Jessie. She slips away to her old home and searches in the chimney and is attacked by a ghoul, as she triumphantly brings forth the bag. She is rescued by her husband in the desperate struggle that ensues.
