A banker has his son taken away from the boy's mother on the grounds that she is not fit to rear him. The woman becomes a peddler and, known as Matches Mary, roams the streets looking for the boy. Unknown to her, the boy, now grown to manhood, has married a young girl and goes to the banker (whom he supposes to be his uncle) and asks him to recognize his new wife. Believing the girl to be a gold digger, the banker refuses; when the banker is murdered sometime later, the youth is accused of the crime on circumstantial evidence. The boy's mother comes forward at the trial and confesses to the murder, but before she can be incriminated by her story, a detective tells the court that two yegg men have confessed to the crime. Mary is reunited with her son.