Having recently met at a literary tea, emancipated Ann Murray has invited Titus Jaywood, referred to as Jay in familiar circumstances, to spend the weekend with her and her family in New Brighton for some much needed relaxation and for him to read and possibly publish her stories. Ann's husband, Lewis Murray, is much more conservative than his liberal wife but is generally broad minded. Jay's hope for that relaxing weekend is quickly thrown out the window with the goings-on of Ann's family. Her mother, septuagenarian Mrs. Whitman, is overly inquisitive and slyly meddling. Lewis' sister, Connie Nevins, is arriving from Reno following her third divorce, no single man, like Jay, safe in her search for husband number four. But most of the commotion this weekend surrounds Lewis and Ann's twenty year old daughter, recent college graduate and yet to be employed Ellen Murray. Ellen and her Boston-residing boyfriend Douglas Hall, who the family has yet to meet, have had one problem after another in their relationship. However this weekend, they have finally come to a mutual understanding that they love each other, bad timing in that Doug is leaving at the end of the weekend for two years to work in Belgium to earn money to start his life. As such, it isn't the right time for them to get married without that financial foundation with both Doug and Ellen having no money of their own. Instead of spending the weekend in Hartford at a girlfriend's as was her plan, Ellen suggests she and Doug spend the weekend together alone before he goes away, something she doesn't want to tell anyone in they probably viewing it with suspicion. When Ann gets wind of what Ellen is planning on doing, she has to decide whether to stop her or to trust her in that they will not do anything inappropriate, she knowing Lewis never approving of Ellen's plan. A factor in the situation is the secret or not so secret fact that Ann and Jay really used to be in Ellen and Doug's position when they were younger - Jay the nameless poet in Ann's life, a poet of who the family is aware - they losing touch possibly the only reason why they aren't married to each other today, with Ann's invitation to Jay for this weekend truly only for the aforementioned reasons and nothing more.