stay where she was if
she could. It would be pretty hard to do everything alone, etc. As the
trust officer, puzzled by the situation, continued to ply her with
questions so that he might gain a clearer understanding of the
circumstances, he became more and more perplexed. This was something
quite out of his experience as a trust officer. He had supposed in
making this call that he would have merely a perfunctory duty to
perform, to ratify some obviously "sensible" plan for the future of the
institution's ward. As he happened to have other business in Alton, he
called personally instead of writing a note.

But now he discovered that this fifteen-year-old girl had absolutely no
relatives, nor "proper friends," nor visible means of support except the
income from "a third-class boarding-house," as he told the president of
the trust company the next day. Clearly the company must do something
for its ward, whose fortune they were now beginning to discuss in seven
figures.

"She must have a suitable allowance."

That the good Mr. Gardiner saw at once. For to his thrifty, suburban
soul the situation of a girl of fifteen with large prospects in a
third-class rooming-house was truly deplorable. The dignities and
proprieties of life were being outraged: it might affect the character
of the trust company should it become known....

Rising at last from the dusty sofa where he had placed his large person
for this talk, the trust officer said kindly,--

"We must consider what is best to be done, my girl. Can you come to the
bank to see me next Monday?"

Adelle saw no reason why she should not go to see him Monday, as high
school still seemed impossible with the house on her hands.

"Come in, then, Monday morning!" And the trust officer went homewards to
confide his perplexity to his wife as trust officers sometimes do. It
was a queer business, his. As trust officer he had once gone out to some
awful place in Dakota to take charge of the remains of a client who had
got himself shot in a brawl, and brought the body back and buried it
decently in a New England graveyard with his ancestors. He had advised
young widows how to conduct themselves so that they should not be
exposed to the wiles of rapacious men. Once even he had counseled
matrimony to a client who was difficult to control and had approved,
unofficially, of her selection of a mate. A good many of the social
burdens of humanity came upon his desk in the course of the d