The poverty and mean-spirited atmosphere of an orphanage do little to suppress the youthful prankishness and compassion of Judy Abbott, an orphan found in an ash can. When she becomes a teenager, an anonymous new trustee pays for her to go to college on the condition she never meet him. Seeing only his tall shadow, Judy deems him "Daddy-Long-Legs" and soon begins to write him long letters telling him about her life. During the next year, Princeton freshman Jimmie McBride and Jarvis Pendleton, the wealthy uncle of one of Judy's classmates, become attentive to Judy and jealous of each other. Judy rejects Jimmie because he is too young and although she loves Jarvis, she fears revealing her orphanage background, so she tells him that their age difference is too great. Despite her humble beginnings, after graduating from college, Judy becomes a successful writer and begins sending money to her Daddy-Long-Legs to repay his kindness. Although she never has received a response from her benefactor, she determines to visit him after he fails to answer her most recent letter only to find that Daddy-Long-Legs is Jarvis. Having been seriously ill, he had not seen her letter until that morning, but his joyful embrace calms her immediate confusion.