Margaret Widdemer

Forced to wear quaint short dresses and pigtails so that she will inspire her grandfather's sentimental poetry, nineteen-year-old Joy Havenith longs for companions of her own age.

After receiving an inheritance from an uncle, a woman starts a fortune telling business designed to make her dreams come true.

Phyllis Narcissa, an underpaid children's librarian, eagerly accepts a dinner invitation from Horace de Guenther, one of her patrons, and happily entertains his invalid wife. Later, Mrs. de Guenther encourages Phyllis to meet with Mrs. Harrington, a dying rich woman whose son Allan, once a vigorous young man, was paralyzed in an auto accident. When Mrs. Harrington proposes to the librarian that she marry and take care of Allan in exchange for his wealth, Phyllis reluctantly consents. While struggling to cheer up the eternally gloomy Allan, Phyllis welcomes the visits of his friend, a doctor who informs her that her husband's paralysis may be psychosomatic.