A movie serial from 1914

Elspeth Marner is a seventeen-year-old premiere danseuse. Frank Masterson is the most hated as well as the most respected critic of dramatic art in New York. When the story opens, Elspeth, flushed with applause, enters her dressing room where her mother and the maid rush to do her bidding. The next morning, in bed, Elspeth reads Masterson's scathing criticism: that her real name is doubtless Lizzie Schmitt; that she is spoiled and petulant and not at all a lady, etc. Elspeth is furious, hysterical, angry and her mother, after telephoning Masterson to tell him her opinion of him, calls in the doctor.

Nora, the waif, is forced to attend school. She warms to her teacher for the way that he defends her against the taunts of some of the students, but when she's made to wear a dunce cap, she flees the schoolhouse in shame. Unsupervised by her alcoholic father, Nora becomes a determined truant, wandering the town during school hours. There she catches the attention of a huckster, who convinces her that they will run away and be married. The schoolmaster, meanwhile, preoccupied by Nora's absence, leaves his other students to go find her. He encounters her at a crossroads, being spirited away by the huckster, and calls the man's bluff by saying that he'll find them a minister.

The brother, a ne'er-do-well, is strongly influenced by the crook, who in turn has designs on Little Sister who works in a factory.

In an English mining town during the 1870's, Joan Lowrie falls in love with Fergus Derrick, the new chief engineer who vows to improve working conditions. Joan's father Don, however, runs the mine and likes conditions just as they are. As a result, he quickly learns to detest the crusading Fergus, even to the point of trying to murder him.

Diana Grave's husband has left her, preferring any life to that of living with a woman who is not congenial to him. Howbeit, her husband gone is a different matter than her husband present. She commissioned a detective to locate him.

A girl is hypnotized and kidnapped by the swami her aunt is devoted to.

Jimmie, a small-town boy, visits a traveling circus passing through town. he falls in love with Pansy, the daughter of the circus' tightrope walker, after he saves her from a gang of thugs...

Because Dan McDowell is unable to operate the new mechanized fire equipment, he is retired with a small pension; his son, Johnny, quits school to work in the fire department; and his old horse, Bullet, is sold to a dirt-hauler. Dan is charged with stealing Bullet and is jailed, but he is cleared in time to give valuable aid in a fire that traps Johnny's sweetheart, June Rutherford.

Aside from the fact that Polly had red hair in abundance, she was not otherwise an exceptional child, save for one thing. She was willing to work and slave, if need be, to keep her baby brother, affectionately termed "The Lump," from being sent to the poor house. So she did housework and prepared breakfasts for John Ruffin, an attorney, and Hon. Gedge-Tompkins. John Ruffin's sister, Lady Osterly, has separated from her husband, and he holds their child. When Lady Osterly calls on Ruffin she is struck with the remarkable resemblance Polly bears to her own child. Ruffin and Lady Osterly formulate a plan to come into possession of her daughter, by using Polly as a substitute.