A Hoosier Romance

Newland Archer is engaged to May Mingott of a prominent New York family. Shortly after the engagement is announced, Newland finds himself attracted to May's older married cousin Countess Ellen Olenska.

Harlander, a media mogul and war profiteer, has been told that he has six months before his sanity will leave him completely. He hires a young nurse, and decides to spend all his money before his six months are up.

Jim, a cowboy, comes to town with the boys of the Lazy B, and stops at the Last Chance Saloon. One of the girls of the dancehall is Madge. Hardy, owner of a distant ranch, comes to her and offers her a position as housekeeper, which proposition she spurns. Jim has a flirtation with Madge, and she interests him. Late that night, Jim, well under the influence of liquor, chances to meet her again. On the impulse of the moment he asks her to marry him.

Dr. Charles Matthews, professor of philosophy in a small New England college, is dismissed, and though heartbroken he and his daughter, Prudence, start in a prairie schooner for the west. At St. Jo, which in 1850 was the outfitting point for the great west, they meet Calliope, so named because of the vast carrying quality of his lungs. He accompanies them on their journey. On the way west, it falls to Calliope's lot to do them many little services, which, on account of the native modesty of Pru and the innate manhood of Calliope, are necessarily surreptitious.

In medieval Italy, a group of men plot to kill a cruel and despotic duke.