A reformed streetwalker falls in love with the man her family wants her to fleece.

Anna Lucasta is a wisecracking young beauty who supports herself on the streets near the San Diego naval station. As she sits in her friend Noah's waterfront café one evening, she suddenly looks lost and murmurs, "I wish someone would find me." Meanwhile, her parents, Joe and Theresa, who live in Los Angeles with their son Stanley, a mailman, his wife Katie, their daughter Stella and her scheming husband Frank, receive a letter from an old friend in Alabama, Otis Slocum. Otis asks old Joe to find a wife for his son Rudolph, who has been given four thousand dollars and a train ticket to California. Theresa thinks a marriage to Rudolph would give her wayward daughter Anna a fresh start, but Joe, who kicked his daughter out of the house sometime earlier for reasons he has never explained to the others, angrily refuses even to mention her name. Pressured by his family, Joe finally agrees to fetch Anna from San Diego, but when he arrives at the café, he finds his daughter drinking with a sailor named Danny Johnson. The cocky young man has just asked Anna to live with him, but because his plans do not include marriage, Anna decides to return to her family. When Rudolph arrives from Alabama, he explains to the Lucasta family that what he really wants in California is a job. An honors graduate of an agricultural college, Rudolph soon lands a teaching job at a junior college and falls deeply in love with Anna. When he confesses his feelings, Anna tells him why her father threw her out: On the night of her high school prom, Joe had found her holding hands with a young man he had forbidden her to see. Wild with anger, Joe had given his daughter twenty dollars and sent her away. She took a bus to San Diego, where she was forced to earn her living on the streets. Despite Anna's confession, Rudolph proposes, but during the wedding, Joe visits the college and tells the dean that Rudolph's new wife is a tramp. After the wedding, Danny arrives, determined to take Anna away with him. Anna wants to remain with Rudolph, but when Joe comes in and shouts that he plans to ruin all of Rudolph's future job prospects, Anna decides to go with Danny. The two carouse in San Diego for a week, and when Danny's bank account runs low, he suggests they use Anna's trousseau money to buy passage to Brazil. Danny and Anna sneak into the Lucasta home one Sunday to retrieve the money, but as they are leaving, they hear her father moaning in the next room. Calling Anna his little angel, Joe takes her hand and dies. Anna collapses in tears, and Danny leaves the house for good. As the rest of the family arrive home from church, Rudolph, seeing Danny drive away, realizes Anna must be in the house and happily runs up the stairs.