A middle aged widower Sanna has emigrated to Sweden after her husband's death . She lives in Linköping with her two children and works in the local library. During one of the lectures held for the immigrants in the library, she meets doctor Peter Mackus and starts exchange letters. Quite soon they fall in love.
Martha's problem is balancing work and family. According to her husband Juho and father-in-law Kalle, the mother's place is at home with the child and not at work. Only her mother-in-law Ilona encourages Martta to advance in her career.
An artist bases a painting for a revealing lingerie ad on a photo of a girl he had found torn from a magazine, not knowing that the girl is in fact the daughter of the Finnish minister of finance. A scandal is about to erupt, and the artist is given 48 hours to find a strikingly similar-looking female model who could serve as his alibi. The minister's daughter decides to fool the artist by pretending to be a lowly girl of the streets, whom the artist then recruits as his "model".
St.Petersburg, 1830. An arrogant Finnish baron is playing cards with a Russian officer. Needless to say, the Finn wins and the Russian gets extremely annoyed. The situation is not helped by the fact that the baron has been seeing a girl that the Russian officer has also set his eyes on. They decide to have a duel and after the Finn wins fair and square, he has to escape because the untrustworthy Russians are after him.
The priest's daughter, Vappu Kankare first irritates and then admires the ambitious habitant, Jalmar "Jali" Kinnunen. After the studies, Vappu and Jali get married, but the marriage is disappointing.
Aarne marries Martta because his mother tells him it is his duty as the eldest son to marry a wealthy girl. However, the attractive school teacher Ilona arrives in the village and causes complications when Aarne falls in love with her.
