Henrietta Tubbs is the crusty, plain-speaking cook for a railroad-construction camp in Kansas until she inherits a fortune, which she intends to use to further the romance and possible marriage her niece/ward, Wynne Howard, has with the high-society son, Phil Ash-Orcutt... of the snobbish Ash-Orcutts of Staten Island. Phil's mother is a title-worshiping socialite who looks with disdain toward Wynne because she lacks the acceptable family connections much favored by such clans as the Ash-Orcutts of Staten Island. Henrietta hies herself off to England to acquire some table manners and a bought Ladyship. She then returns to New York and things are never quite the same again for the Ash-Orcutts of Staten Island.