To send her daughter Annabel to New York to develop her artistic abilities, Mrs. Lee, a poor farm widow, increases her work. Annabel's inability to sell more than one painting leads her to consider quitting, but first she pawns a locket for money to visit a nearby resort to receive a famous artist's advice. On hearing his appraisal that she will never succeed financially, Annabel plans to go home, but she is persuaded to stay by a friend of the artist's, bored multi-millionaire Richard Norton, who has fallen in love with her. After Richard introduces Annabel to his mother as the sister of a friend, Annabel's pawnbroker, Mr. Armsberg, who wants to break into society, arrives and agrees to finance her stay if she will introduce him as her uncle. Mrs. Vance, who wants Richard to marry her daughter, reveals Armsberg's identity to Mrs. Norton, but after Armsberg discloses that Mr. Vance attempted to pawn phony jewels, Mrs. Norton accepts Annabel as Richard's fiancée.