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Mr. Bretton's wife decides she would rather pursue an opera career, so they separate, leaving him to raise their young daughter Daphne (Mildred Harris). She is expelled from boarding school after Richard Wiltoner is found in her room under innocent circumstances. Her father sends her to the Adirondacks, where she meets a rogue and soon elopes with him. When her father discovers that he is a bigamist, he has their marriage annulled. Happily, Mrs. Bretton returns to her husband and Daphne and Richard fall in love and marry.

When his honeymoon is over, Knox Randall shifts his attention from his wife Ailsa to his business. Feeling neglected, Ailsa accepts her sister-in-law Clarissa's advice that a little jealousy might re-ignite her husband's interest. Undertaking a harmless flirtation with playboy Porter Maddox, Ailsa discovers that Clarissa has fallen madly in love with Maddox, who is using her to accumulate confidential information regarding Wall Street secrets. When Ailsa overhears Clarissa making plans to elope with Maddox, she hurries to save her sister-in-law. Rumor spreads that Ailsa is a faithless wife and, upon hearing the gossip, George Mott-Smith, Clarissa's husband, notifies Knox and the two set out to intercept the guilty pair. Once they overtake the threesome, Ailsa tells all and Knox finally realizes the value of his wife.

Hilda, a fisherman's daughter, and Philip Emerson, a noted physician, fall in love and marry, but the doctor soon becomes increasingly involved in his medical work, neglecting Hilda and their young son Philip, Jr. He then leaves her in the company of his friends, kind Peter and philandering Robert. When an epidemic of infantile paralysis breaks out, taking up even more of the doctor's time, his own son contracts the disease, and by all appearances dies from it. Heartbroken, Hilda collapses. However, the doctor discovers that the boy is in fact alive, although paralyzed. Believing that Hilda would be even more disturbed to know this, he hides the boy in his laboratory and works on trying to cure him, but cannot. Peter finally reunites Hilda with her son, and her presence and the miracle of motherly love succeed where science has failed: the boy is cured and walks toward his mother.

The Hopkinses are a family of squatters struggling against the wealthy landowners or "hilltoppers." When Jerry Hopkins is unjustly imprisoned, his young wife and baby die as a result of the shock, but his sister Polly maintains the faith that has been instilled in her by her grandmother. Later, Polly meets hilltopper Robert Robertson and the two fall in love. Their courtship is disrupted when Robert's sister Evelyn is blackmailed by Oscar Bennett, the man to whom she is secretly wed. In her efforts to help Evelyn, Polly falls under unjust suspicion. Meanwhile, MacKenzie, one of the vindictive landowners, arrests Polly's father and sends her brother to an orphanage. Devastated by these events, Polly's grandmother dies of grief and Polly swears revenge. She has Evelyn kidnapped and brought to her cabin, but the memory of her grandmother prevents Polly from harming her tormentor. Polly's nobility inspires Evelyn, who exonerates Polly, thus clearing the path for her marriage to Robert.

Irene Fletcher, the pampered daughter of a Long Island millionaire on the brink of bankruptcy, has two suitors - struggling architect John Marshall, and wealthy clothing designer Charles Munson. Scorning her father's plea for her to curb her passion for beautiful clothes and live more modestly, she trips and is knocked unconscious. In a dream, Irene's father goes to Munson for financial assistance and Munson agrees, in exchange for her father agreeing to try to influence Irene to marry him. When it is announced at Irene's birthday party that she and Marshall have secretly married, Munson refuses to lend the money to Irene's father, who then kills himself with a pistol. After a series of tragic events, Irene awakens, and decides to marry Marshall.