Summary
A guttersnipe in laceless boots—ink on her fingertips, headlines on her tongue—Sallie O’Brien hawks the morning rag while the city’s church bells toll her mother’s requiem. Enter Bridget Cassidy, venomous matriarch of a sagging boardinghouse, who lifts the orphan by the scruff yet binds her wrists with invisible barbed wire. Salvation arrives in silk gloves: James Wilson, copper-baron philanthropist, spirits the waif to a mansion where chandeliers blush like guilty angels. Within those marble corridors, Richard’s kindness drips honey over her wounds, while sister Marjorie’s gaze drips icicles. Courtship blooms like stunted ivy: Frederick Mason, courteous but timorous, kneels, yet Marjorie spurns the tame heart. Overhearing, Sallie cooks up a masquerade—Patrick Cassidy, boorish and brawny, becomes the fabricated Duke of Galway, swaggering through drawing rooms with counterfeit medals and borrowed brogue. Marjorie’s pulse quickens; promises flutter like trapped larks. The masquerade implodes when Bridget, eyes aflame, drags her counterfeit prince into the merciless light. Richard, now knight-errant, interposes his body between whip and child, while Marjorie, chastened, finally perceives valor in Frederick’s quiet constancy.
Synopsis
Little Sallie O'Brien, who sells newspapers on the city streets, is adopted by Bridget Cassidy, the landlady, when her mother dies. Mrs. Cassidy treats the child cruelly, but soon the wealthy James Wilson befriends Sallie and takes her into his home. Sallie is befriended by Wilson's son Richard, but his daughter Marjorie dislikes the impish little girl. Although Frederick Mason is in love with Marjorie, she refuses to marry him because she finds him too lacking in boldness and chivalry to suit her romantic temperament. Having overheard Frederick's proposal, Sallie induces Bridget's son Patrick to visit the house in the guise of "the Duke of Galway." Marjorie becomes infatuated with the "duke" and promises to marry him, but Mrs. Cassidy appears and exposes her prodigal son. Richard saves Sallie from a whipping, while Marjorie finally accepts Frederick.
