Walter Trask, a young college man, receives news of his father’s death and the loss of his fortune. He resolves to go to work and try to retrieve his loss. With the aid of the family lawyer, he secures a position as bookkeeper with a large lumber firm in the South, and, bidding his fiancée farewell, departs. On his arrival he finds favor in the eyes of the superintendent, who takes him to his boarding house and introduces him to his landlady and her daughter, a pretty, frivolous, village coquette. The young lady immediately begins a conquest of the new boarder’s heart and plays off one young man against the other. Trask and the superintendent finally become piqued and begin to quarrel. One day after a slight discussion in which Balk, the superintendent is the victor, Trask moodily walks away, and in strolling along by an old oyster bed, accidentally unearths a wonderful pearl. Balk and Myrtle follow him, a new quarrel ensues in which Trask drops the pearl. Balk picks it up and Myrtle greedily demands it. Trask comes up and asks for the pearl. Balk and he have words and Myrtle slyly runs away with the pearl. She jumps into a buggy and drives to the village jewelers. Balk and Trask discover her absence and follow her. They find her trying to sell the pearl. Balk insists she return the pearl to Trask. He, much disgusted with her, refuses to receive it and tells Balk to keep it. Balk refuses also and Myrtle retains the gem. On Trask’s return to the boarding house he receives a telegram from his betrothed telling him to return at once, as much of his fortune has been discovered. He determines to do so, and, reconciled to Balk, leaves tor the North. Some weeks later Myrtle, anxious to regain her influence with Balk, makes overtures of peace, but he gently repulses her, having discovered her unworthiness. She accepts Balk’s rebuff calmly and goes to her room to gloat over her great pearl. While admiring it, it suddenly explodes, thus exemplifying, “All is vanity and shall crumble to dust.”