Poor Little Peppina (1916)

Holding a grudge against Robert Torrens and his wife who live in Italy a member of the Mafia kidnaps their infant daughter Lois Fifteen years later after having been raised by Italian peasants Lois now called Peppina dresses as a boy and stows away on a ship to America in order to avoid a marriage to a particularly loathsome count While aboard ship she befriends Hugh Carroll an assistant district attorney who arranges firstclass transportation for the boy In New York she once again meets her kidnapper who fled to America after the crime He forces Peppina to maintain the masculine disguise and to pass counterfeit bills for him for which she is arrested Peppina gladly exposes the kidnappers operation to the authorities one of whom Hugh recognizes her as the boy he met on the ship Then once the kidnapper has been apprehended Peppina is reunited with her parents after which she and Hugh who has finally discovered that she is female get married