A spoiled rich young woman overspends from her parents' savings and ruthlessly vamps on young men that she calls up randomly on the telephone. When her fiancée and his friends get word of this, they hatch a plan to teach her a valuable lesson.
A young woman spurns her too conventional fiancé and flees to an artists' colony.
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is taken into the lives of a generous farmer and his sister. She grows from an adventuresome young lass into a charming and much sought-after young lady.
Orphaned Ruth Sheldon reads an article on "Love Charms" on her way to live in the home of her Aunt Julia and Cousin Hattie Nast. Upon her arrival, Ruth is put to work as housekeeper, cook, and seamstress. When Thomas Morgan, a young banker, is invited to dinner, he focuses his attention on Ruth, prompting the envious Hattie to claim him as her own. To oblige her cousin, Ruth attempts to discourage Thomas by behaving like a frivolous society "vampire," rather than the old-fashioned girl he believes her to be.
The wife of sculptor Roger Heath is killed by a maniac because of Roger's madly jealous admirer Olivia Larkin. To care for his home and son Peter, Roger hires Irish immigrant Nora O'Hallahan as a nursemaid whom he realizes is possessed by the soul of his departed wife.
Although loved by a respectable doctor, a society-girl is fascinated by a prince and follows him to Rome. When he reveals himself in his true colours, she has a nervous breakdown and her faithful doctor restores her to health - and to himself.
The eldest daughter of a poor preacher, Penelope Penn leaves her country home to seek her fortune in the big city.
Dancer Florence Maddis marries Ross Van Beekman, son of an aristocratic New York family, and despite her friends’ doubts manages to fit into the family. Her scheming mother-in-law disapproves of her however colluding with Ned Ormsby, who wants Flo for himself, to make her appear faithless. When Ross suspects Flo of harboring Ormsby, he fires a pistol at her closet. Later when Ormsby is found shot in his house, Ross confesses, believing himself guilty. Sick at heart, Flo returns to the stage of the Winter Palace. Ross is freed, however, when Ormsby’s enemy, Maddox, confesses to the crime, and Flo is happily reconciled with Ross.
On her journey to the United States, Marya Nisko falls in love with another immigrant, Sascha Rabinoff. Arriving and discovering her sister's poverty, she fails as a lady's maid and then arranges an introduction to a theatrical manager, though Sascha is opposed to her becoming a professional dancer.
Tillie Getz, the eldest daughter of Jacob Getz, a brutal, driving father, lives in a Pennsylvania Mennonite village. Her Mennonite aunt leaves a will by the terms of which Tillie will inherit a small fortune if she has joined the Mennonite church by age eighteen. A plot is hatched by the lawyer who drew up the will and an attempt is made to force Tillie into a marriage with Absalom Puntz, an undesirable young man, sharing her fortune being its end.
New York police sergeant Jim Dark is determined that his daughter, Jenny, will be shielded from any knowledge of evil. Consequently, she lives in a dream world, imagining herself to be a descendant of Saint Jeanne d'Arc, but has a loyal friend in reporter Pep Mullins. Her school friend, Adele, also raised by overly protective parents, is ejected from her home when she becomes inebriated after spending an evening with a disreputable young man.
Lizbeth Palmer is known as "The March Hare" among her friends, and the daughter of a Los Angeles millionaire, comes to New York with a chaperon to visit her aunt. After betting the chaperon that she can live on 75c for an entire week, she assumes the part of a flower girl in a restaurant and there makes a hit with young millionaire Tod Rollins, who invites her to his home.
Hilda lives in a tenement apartment with her aunt, Mrs. Brady, and her crippled younger brother Micky, and works in a department store where her boss lusts after her. But happiness comes into her life when she meets artist Emery Gray. Gray's wife deserted him long ago, leaving him with their daughter Susan (Mary Jane Irving) to raise. While Susan and Micky become playmates, Hilda restores Gray's faith in womanhood.
The O'Donnells are a typical, everyday family -- Tad (George Hernandez) is a sensible working man, his wife (Fannie Midgely) is a good mother and their daughter Kathleen (Constance Binney) is pretty and innocent to the point of naiveté. Kathleen works in a factory and its owner, Donald Holiday (Warner Baxter), has taken a shine to her. But instead she falls for slick cab driver Harry Stanton (George Webb), who insists, "Honest, kid, you're the only girl I ever loved." Kathleen falls for this, and when her perceptive father makes clear he doesn't approve of Stanton, she moves out on her own.
Removed from an orphanage, Nance Olden is taken to live at Mother Hogan's boarding-house for crooks. There she becomes Tom Morgan's partner, helping him steal a jewel from Edward Ramsey at Union Station.
A French orphan girl is adopted into the home of wealthy Americans. There she becomes romantically involved with a farm worker and at the same time entangled in the deteriorating marriage of the American couple who rescued her.
The only daughter of wealthy Wall Street banker, Evelyn Murray, while with her aristocratic fiancé, Bert Van Vliet, runs down and injures newsboy Terry McGuire. To avoid an embarrassing outcome, Bert persuades her to flee the scene of the accident. Evelyn is conscience-stricken and informs her father; he is then forced to pay "hush money" to a garage attendant who has witnessed the accident.
Pansy O'Donnell, a salesgirl, is given a two-week vacation at a summer resort, where she advertises clothing made by her company. The hotel clerk mistakes her for movie actress Marie La Tour, and gossip spreads that she is staying incognito.
