Agnes, a garment maker in a factory which manufactures khaki outing suits, is tortured by the oppressive heat in a great eastern metropolis. She toils for a small wage, which goes for the support of an old mother. The doctor informs Agnes that if she does not arrange to remove the mother to some cool place she will succumb to the heat. As a desperate resort, Agnes writes a pitiful appeal for aid in getting her mother away from the city to some cool resort. She sews a number of copies of the appeal in the outing shirts at the factory. A wealthy bachelor who is a philanthropist buys one of the shirts and departs on a fishing trip in the mountains. Agnes' mother grows weaker and the girl anxiously inquires at the office for mail, hoping to receive some answer from the appeals sewed in the shirts. The only replies are a vulgarly-written scrawl trying to date her, and a suggestion from a "charitably inclined" person that she place her old mother in a certain well-appointed poorhouse. In despair, Agnes steals money from the factory cash drawer, but in doing so, drops her handkerchief, which is initialed. The factory manager accompanies the police to her tenement that night, and they find part of the money, the rest having been spent to get things for her mother. Meanwhile the wealthy philanthropist is on his fishing trip when he discovers Agnes' appeal sewed in the shirt. At first he does not give it serious thought, but that night his imagination pictures to him the old woman suffocating in the garret, and he cannot sleep. The next morning he leaves for the city to find the girl and save her mother. At the store they give him Agnes' address, and he arrives at the tenement just as she is pleading with the police not to take her to jail, as she is her mother's sole support. She tells them that she stole the money to save her mother's life, but they do not believe her. The philanthropist stops the police and reimburses the manager. He displays Agnes' letter as a proof of her statement that she stole for her mother's sake. The philanthropist takes Agnes and her mother to the cool mountain resort where he was fishing, and the old lady's life is saved. Stimulated by the refreshing out-of-doors, Agnes is transformed from sullen factory slave to joyous, carefree girl. The bachelor's tender affection toward Agnes is suggested in the concluding scene.