Bridget and Sally are leaving rural Ireland for New York, to stay with a distant relative, Catherine, who has found jobs for them. On the journey they meet a young orphaned girl, Julia, who is travelling alone in hopes of staying with her long-absent brother.

When they get to the brother's address, he is no longer there, and no one knows where he has gone to. In the following weeks they do their best to search for him, but are unsuccessful as he has a common name, and the police are not particularly interested in finding yet another lost Irish man.

The girls slowly get used to their strange new life and their jobs, which are demanding in different ways. (Bridget is a lady's companion, and Josie is a childminder, while Julia is forced to take a job in a factory.) Catherine turns out to be unpleasant and grasping and not the welcoming link with home they had hoped for.