Wealthy American widow Elizabeth Carter plans to marry the Earl of Dettminster when lawyer Augustus Tucker informs her of a codicil in her late husband's will. The Carter fortune will go to nephew Pitney Carter, who is in love with Elizabeth, if her second husband is not an American. Elizabeth therefore pays penniless playwright Jasper Mallory $50,000 to marry her and schemes with actress Mme. Albani to provide grounds for divorce so that she may then make the earl her third husband.

Betty Brown is an egregious coquette and flirt. She fools a pair of lovers, and her indecision lands her in a pretty mess at a Hartford hotel, where she is cajoled into passing herself off as the wife of a man whose real wife is on her way to meet him. Betty just butts into a sea of trouble, for the man and his wife are to receive some money from the former's uncle on condition that the wife meets with his approval. The general mix-up at the hotel caused by the meeting there of all these opposing interests is the cause of a great deal of fun and confusion, the central figure of which is always Little Miss Betty Brown.