Ben Darwin had been a widower since Hilda’s birth. Ribbons or anything that suggested finery to the old man was most sternly forbidden his daughter. Darwin was troubled over Hilda’s friendship for Frank Boardman, a stranger in the place. It is in her nook in the mountains that Hilda finds Frank’s note asking her to meet him the next day. Before the old man can be persuaded to give his consent, the elder Boardman arrives, and learning that his son is on the verge of marrying the mountaineer’s daughter, he showed Darwin a letter in which Frank declared he didn’t love, and had no intention of marrying “the girl in question.” “The girl in question” is Miss Grace Elkins, and although Mr. Boardman knew this, he silenced his conscience with the “all’s fair in love” adage. White with rage, old Darwin insisted that his daughter at once make preparations to visit her aunt. Frank learns of their departure and hastens to head them off. Sending the astonished father up the road at the point of his gun, Frank jumped into the buggy beside Hilda and dashed off to the minister’s. The deception is later acknowledged by Frank’s father and all ends happily.