When Joe Bigelow, a rich youth with companions of questionable character, is arrested for reckless driving, his lawyer and supposed friend pleads to the judge on behalf of Joe's "poor old mother" not to send him to jail. As Joe has no living mother, the lawyer convinces him to obtain one at an old ladies' home. He finds a kindly spinster, Cynthia Wilson, who is happy that Joe wants to "adopt" her as a mother. Joe is not sent to jail, and soon he develops a real fondness for Cynthia, while becoming romantically involved with Mary Somerset, the young woman in charge of the old ladies' home. When the lawyer and his girl friend, Lola Butler, scheme to get Joe's money by claiming that Joe and Lola got engaged, Cynthia, to save Joe from marrying Lola, confesses to the judge that she is not really Joe's mother, and he is sent to jail for thirty days. After Joe is paroled, he refuses to marry Lola. She pulls a gun on him, but during their altercation, Cynthia shoots Lola. In court, both Cynthia and Joe attempt to sacrifice themselves for the other; however, Cynthia is acquitted and Joe is reunited with Mary.