Jim started work Monday morning and found his task no sinecure. Jarrod had a lot of correspondence to answer and a good many papers to be copied. Also there was an inventory to be made of the property covered by the option given by Easton and Wilder, and their books to be gone over. But Jim was both industrious and intelligent, and seemed to "fit the job" very well indeed. Katie Glaston's triumph was brief. She had actually boosted Jim several pegs on the road to fortune, and when the girl discovered this she was so provoked that she left Tamawaca and went to visit friends at Spring Lake. The other girls began to be properly ashamed of themselves, although the heiress refused to alter her opinion that "a poor young man had no business at a summer resort." Gladys and Betty began nodding to Jim as he passed by, and although he returned the salutations with graceful politeness he never stopped or attempted to resume the old friendly relations. He had grown wonderfully fond of plain little Susie, who had remained his faithful adherent, and her society seemed just now fully sufficient to satisfy all his needs. He even took her to some of the dances, and found her a much more satisfactory partner than on that first evening when he met her and tested her accomplishments as a Terpsichore. She was still a bit awkward, but the little speeches they whispered to each other made them forget they were dancing until the music stopped and reminded them of the fact. The heiress had a new beau--a bulky blond named Neddie Roper--who was reputed a social lion and a railway magnate, although it afterward transpired he worked in the Pullman shops. Therefore Clara positively ignored "that Smith girl and her dry-goods clerk," who ought to have felt properly humiliated, but didn't. Wilder came to Jarrod in a day or so and said: "Well, dear boy, I've got the cold cash in hand to take up that option; so if you'll turn it over to me I'll settle the matter in a jiffy." "In what way?" asked Jarrod. "Why, I'll pay Easton his twenty thousand and let him go. And then I'll begin an era of public improvements, and try to induce the cottagers to fix things up a bit." "I can't let you have the option," replied Jarrod. "It was given to me as trustee for the cottagers, and belongs to them." "Have they got thirty thousand dollars to take it up?" "No; not yet." "And they never will have it," declared Wilder. "Your cottagers are a lot of corn-cobs, and you couldn't squeeze any juice out of them with a cider-press." "I'm not sure of that," returned Jarrod, smiling. "Anyhow, the option is theirs to accept or reject, and I've called a meeting for Saturday night to find out what they wish to do." That worried Wilder a little until he reflected that the cottagers' meetings were all "hot air and soap-bubbles." They couldn't raise thirty thousand dollars for Tamawaca in thirty years, and sooner or later the option would be turned over to him as a matter of course.