What had she done with the golden spoon he
had thrust into her mouth and what would she do with it now? Ah, that
was always the question with these inheritances which he was called upon
to administer according to the complicated rules of law--and the law
books afforded no answer to such questions!...

"My dear," he said, with one of his beautiful smiles that seemed to
irradiate the "case" before him with its personal kindliness and
sympathy, "so you have been living in Europe the last few years and are
now married?"

Adelle said "yes" to both questions, while the trust officer who had
accompanied her to court--not our Mr. Ashly Crane--fussed inwardly
because he saw that Judge Orcutt was in one of his "wandering" and
leisurely moods, and might detain them to discourse upon Europe or
anything that happened into his mind before signing the necessary order.
But after this introduction, the judge was silent, while his smile still
lingered in the gaze he directed to the young woman before him.

Adelle, as has been amply admitted in these pages, was neither beautiful
nor compelling. But she was very different indeed from the small, shabby
girl of fourteen. She was taller, with a well-trained figure that showed
the efforts of all the deft maids and skillful dressmakers through which
it had passed. She was dressed in the very height of the prevailing
fashions--a high-water mark of eccentricity that Judge Orcutt rarely
encountered in the staid circles of the good city of B----. Her skirt
was slit so as to accentuate all there was of hips, and the bodice did
the same for the bust. And the hat--well, even in New York its long
aigrette and daring folds had caused women to look around in the
streets. She carried in one hand a large bunch of mauve orchids and wore
an abundance of chains and coarse, bizarre jewelry. Her face was still
pale, and the gray eyes were almost as empty of expression as they had
been seven years before. But altogether Adelle was _chic_ and modern, as
she felt with satisfaction, of a type that might find more approval in
Paris than in America, where a pretty face and fresh coloring still win
distinction. She was _new_ all over from head to foot, of a loud, hard
newness that gave the impression of impertinence, even defiance.

This was accentuated by Adelle's new manner--the one that had grown upon
her ever since her elopement. Then she had taken a great step in
defiance of authority, and to support her self-