After accidentally killing her lecherous producer, a famous actress tries to hide her guilt.

Horace Vendig always gets what he wants. Even as a poor youth, he charmed his way into high society by getting the father of his friend, Martha, to foot the bill for his Harvard education. When Vic, another childhood pal, is invited to Horace's mansion for a party, he brings along Mallory Flagg, who happens to bear a striking resemblance to Martha. As Vic and Horace reunite, old resentments rise to the surface.

A mysterious Civil War veteran courts a Missouri farmer's daughter amid postwar unrest.

Elnora Comstock lives on the edge of a great swamp and collects butterflies to sell in order to go to high school and pay for violin lessons. Her mother, Kate Comstock, hates her as she blames the girl for the father's death as he drowned in a quagmire on the way home the night the girl was born. The years-late revelation that the husband had been off courting a neighbor woman that night brings an attitude adjustment to the mother.

The story revolves around the efforts of the middle-class family Fairweather, newly impoverished by the financial panic, to survive against the villainous banker Gideon Bloodgood.