When Mary and Fannie Graham, daughters of a good mother but a father with criminal instincts, are left motherless, Mary flees from her unhappy surroundings while Fannie, inheriting her father's disposition, remains and is raised as a thief.
Little Betty has a luxurious home, an army of servants and the costliest of toys. But she hasn't what a child wants most of all, other children to play with.
Truthful Tulliver, a Westerner and a journeying newspaperman, followed by Silver Lode Thompson, printer and compositor, arrives in Glory Hole to start a newspaper.
John Howland travels to the frozen North to build a branch of the Hudson Bay Railroad. There he meets and falls in love with Meleese Thoreau who warns him that her three bloodthirsty brothers, Max, Pierre and François, have sworn vengeance against a man named John Howland, the son of a man who killed their mother, and that torture and death await him along the route to his station.
A.J. Raffles, an educated and handsome cricket champ with entry to the best social circles steals precious trinkets and jewels, purely for the love of the game and the thrill of the chase, outwitting police and detectives.
While traveling to meet her sweetheart, Richard Carr, in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Bonaluria, Peggy Dare's train compartment door is thrust open and a little boy is thrown at her feet.
Lola Montrose ignores the scorn of society to live with Dr. John Hampton, the man she loves. After tiring of his mistress, Hampton tells Lola that he is planning to marry a "good woman" who will exert the proper influence over his son Irwin.