Pretty schoolteacher Hetty Gandy,, visits a chicken farm and falls in love with John Smith, who soon proposes marriage to her. Before she can give her consent, she is called away, leaving behind an egg inscribed with the date on which she will marry John. The egg is to be given to John for his breakfast, but it goes into cold storage instead. Five years pass, and Hetty waits in vain for John to come and claim her as his bride, meanwhile turning away the proposals of Norman Frisbie, a real estate salesman. One day a wire arrives from "John Smith" telling her to be ready to go to an adjoining town with him. The entire town knows of John's coming, and a reception is arranged. When he arrives, Hetty is appalled to find that the John Smith who wired her is not her beloved, but rather a hypochondriac, who, believing himself to have become sick from the cold-storage egg on which Hetty had written years earlier, is suing the dealer from whom he purchased it.