At home, Andy finds it hard to be cheerful, even though his mother Emily, his father, Judge James K. Hardy, and his aunt Milly are celebrating his sister Marian's return from New York.

Marian thinks that Carvel is too unsophisticated for her and is annoyed by her family's worries that she is dating Jeff Willis, a local young man who is considered a "wolf."

The judge promises to sort things out if Andy will help him by befriending Melodie Nesbit, a teenager at the center of a custody battle between her mother Olivia and her father Roderick.

Jeff arrives, announcing his presence on a loudspeaker set up in his car, and broadcasts his invitation to Marian to come with him to the Red Door Inn on the 19th.

On the night of Marian's date with Jeff, she becomes annoyed when her family makes fun of her choice of a dress, which is really a fancy nightgown, and promises that she "will show them."

That night, a man from a collection agency comes to the house and demands that Emily pay the full amount of the coat or be taken to court and have her husband's salary attached.

The judge alleviates her fears by letting her know that he inadvertently found out about the agency and discovered that the entire mail-order business was run by confidence men who tricked unsuspecting customers into paying more than the advertised price for the suit.