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The Beggar Maid Synopsis

The painter Burne-Jones and his famed painting "The Beggar Maid" are depicted in this speculative drama about the creation of the painting. Burne-Jones plays matchmaker for a young British nobleman who has fallen in love with a servant girl on his estate. The artist shows that love can thrive between members of different classes by depicting on canvas a picture from Tennyson's poem about the love of King Cophetua for a beggar maid. As he relates the story of the poem in words and through his painting, the young earl sees the application to his own situation.

The Shadows of a Great City Synopsis

A young profligate son of a wealthy merchant falls in love with the daughter of an inventor, who has devoted the best years of his life to perfecting the machinery of his employer's plants. After an accident has caused the death of the inventor, the merchant, none too scrupulous, lays claim to an unpatented invention. Not aware of his father's acts, the merchant's son is courting the inventor's daughter, but parental opposition is interposed. Offering his son a half interest in his business if he will renounce his love for the girl, the father is dumbfounded when his son refuses and decides he wants the girl more than the money. Ordered from home, the son secures a job as stevedore on the docks. The foreman takes a dislike to the boy and tries to browbeat him. After a quarrel, the boy accidentally pushes the foreman into the river, runs away and tells his sweetheart that he has committed murder. Detectives pursuing him, arrest and bring him to headquarters, where he is sentenced to Blackwell's Island. During his sojourn on Blackwell's Island, he learns that the man he is supposed to have murdered is alive, and, enraged at the injustice of his sentence, he breaks jail. In the meantime his young sweetheart has also discovered his innocence through a friendly attaché of the Governor's office, and with his assistance dashes to Albany, where the Governor is persuaded to issue a pardon for her young hero. The next and last scene discloses the happy couple in their own little home.