Phoebe Throssel lives with her sister, Susan, and cheerfully suffers the prying eyes of the three Willoughby sisters, her busybody neighbors. Phoebe's suitor is the young Doctor Valentine Brown. Phoebe is devastated when Dr Brown pays her a call one day, and, instead of proposing marriage as she expects him to, announces that he is going off to fight in the Napoleonic wars. Years later, he returns, intending at long last to propose marriage to Phoebe. Phoebe and Susan are now keeping school, a job that has turned Phoebe into an old maid. Dr Brown is disappointed in the appearance of his onetime sweetheart. Outraged that he now considers her to be old, Phoebe disguises herself as her own niece and sets out to test the loyalty of the man she loves.