The story opens with the family patriarch marching off to the Boer war at the turn of the century, and ends thirty years later, with the now-aged principal characters coping with the Depression and the bleak days following Queen Victoria's death.

Detective Mark McPherson is assigned to the case of a murdered fashion model only to find that the murder victim is someone else. During the investigation he finds himself taking a more than professional interest in the intended victim, the mysterious Laura.

The daughter of a socially prominent family rebels against her father's snobbery. He opposes the marriage of his daughter to a young man from the wrong side of the tracks.

A country doctor learns his housekeeper is in possession of valuable painting given to her from an artist she befriended. Art collectors and swindlers attempt to get hold of these paintings.

One Kris Kringle, a department-store Santa Claus, causes quite a commotion by suggesting customers go to a rival store for their purchases. But this is nothing to the stir he causes by announcing that he is not merely a make-believe St. Nick, but the real McCoy.

Sure and it's a fine St. Paddy's dawn in New York City, and beat cop Bragan is finishing up his all-night midtown shift and heading back to his family. Mrs. Bragan is making waffles today, and there's no school for young Mike, and they're all looking forward to the big parade. It's Bragan's day. He's got his buttons already polished.

But he won't make it home after all. A scream pierces the daybreak, and Bragan looks up and gasps: Way up high, near the top of one of the avenue's fine hotels, there's a guy standing on a ledge, clinging to a cornice, looking down, teetering.

Jumper. Bragan breaks into a run, straightaway gets up to the hotel's 15th floor, collides with the manager who's fretting that his suicidal guest is going to bring unwelcome publicity. ""This is the worst possible thing that can happen to a hotel!"" the manager moans. Bragan disgustedly shoos him out, and now he's alone with the man on the ledge, the first cop on the scene, and he leans out the window, high over the d

After years of neglect from her abrasive husband, Joan has decided to leave him. He asks that she come to his last business meeting in Nassau, and tells her what she needs is a child. After being repeatedly warned to turn back because of the hurricane, he is biligerent and refuses to let anyone tell him what to do. Coast guard requests his help in aiding a stranded fisherman and his son, but his hard and selfish demeanor denies any help except for himself. A rude awakening to his wife and a strong will not to let him continue to control her.

A bored housewife unhappy with her professor husband who is too busy with work to pay attention to her, ends up with her best friends husband, before realizing the consequences and how good her life actually is.

Bed ridden invalid Marie is visited by Trask, the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her husband.

The death of his only son makes it difficult for him to go on living.

A British Intelligence officer is captured and forced to divulge information, after which he moves to the West Indies in shame.

An outlaw's son is torn between affection for his father and his own belief in law and order. While riding with the outlaw band, he is captured and imprisoned, and then learns the gang abandoned his wife to die, leaving his newborn son homeless. Furious, he turns against the gang and joins forces with the law.

All is not well on Hummingbird Hill, the King's are at their wits end. Their three children are full of mischief and trouble that desperate measures are needed. When an ad is placed in the paper, Lynn Belvedere responds, thinking that Lynn Belvedere is a woman, the King's are surprised yet pleasantly pleased by the self-proclaimed genius Mr. Lynn Belvedere, who takes on the task of looking after the King children. With a nosy busybody of a neighbor and jealous husband and a Boss who is not happy with the scandalous behavior of his employs family, all is still not well on Hummingbird Hill.

Jeffords talks to Cochise about letting the mail carriers thru the pass without being attacked. During which time he falls in love with the ""White Painted Lady"". After an attack both sides are unwilling to agree until General Howard arranges for peace talks. Jeffords asks Cochise for Sonseeahrays hand in marriage. A set up from the towns people leads to death for some.

When his young stepson is accidentally pinned under a truck, the driver frantically tries to rouse help in a nearby town. But he is caught taking equipment from a closed service station and is unable to convince anyone the boy is in trouble.

A young Englishwoman and her American husband become entangled when Audrey's divorced mother comes to visit, the girl's natural warning system begins buzzing. Audrey endeavors to keep her scheming mother from being reunited with her father, who has been perfectly happy since the split.

A well-meaning do-gooder spends so much time doing favors for others that he falls behind in his personal obligations. Meanwhile his long suffering wife has had enough of his money-making schemes she decides to take in boarders.