Mary Morris is employed in the toy section of a department store; her wages are small and she has to support a young sister who is an invalid. The child is very ill. The doctor has just told Mary that Nellie (her sister) must be kept constantly in the pure western air or she will die. Mary realizes the impossibility of this with her very limited means and is in consequence broken-hearted. It so happens that Jim Hunt, a very good-natured, wealthy rancher who has just arrived in the city for a visit, sees Mary on the street as she is going to work, and it is a case of love at first sight. He follows her to the store and enters with the intention of proposing right away but when he sees her at the counter of the toy department he fails to pull his courage up to the sticking point and covers his confusion by purchasing a big doll, which he takes with him to his hotel. Alone in his room he decides that after seeing Mary the second time he is more in love than before, and will go right back and propose to her. On leaving the hotel he is given a telegram that has just arrived from his foreman at the ranch calling him home immediately. In his big, good natured, blundering way he rushes into the store, tells Mary he wants to marry her and before she has time to speak in reply, he hands her a roll of bills and tells her to buy what things she needs and come to be married. He rushes from the store, leaving the girl with more money than she has ever thought of owning, and before she really has time to get over her surprise, a messenger brings her a note to be at a certain minister's house within two hours. This decides her; she does not know the man and she needs the money to save her sister's life. She does not even wait to consider the right or wrong of the action, but abruptly leaving the store, rushes home and hurriedly packing, takes her sister away. Her destination is within a mile of Jim Hunt's home. Hunt returns home disheartened. He learns of the sick child through his friend, the doctor, and without knowing who she is, orders all sorts of luxuries to be sent to the cottage and pays for the services of a nurse. When Nellie has quite recovered, Mary, who has many times asked the doctor the name of her unknown benefactor, begs him to take a note asking him to let her thank him personally before they leave for the east. Of course at the meeting there is a mutual recognition and an explanation on the part of Mary. Jim forgives her before she has finished her story and there is another proposal, not so hurried, but more successful.
