alue of one thousand per cent
in--let me see--a little over forty-five years, less than fifty years,
less than a lifetime, less than my own lifetime!"

Here the judge seemed to come to a dead stop, forgetting himself in
reverie. But rousing himself suddenly he asked Adelle,--

"Have you ever seen Clark's Field?"

Adelle thought she remembered being taken there as a young girl by her
aunt.

"I mean have you been there recently, since it has been subdivided and
brought into human use?"

No, she had not been in Alton since her return to America, in fact not
for seven years.

"Then, Mrs. Davis," the judge said very earnestly, almost sternly, "I
most strongly advise you to go there at once and see what has happened
to your grandfather's old pasture. Look at the source of your wealth! It
must interest you deeply, I should think! The changes that you will find
in Clark's Field are very great, the spiritual changes even greater than
the physical ones, perhaps. Go to Clark's Field, by all means, before
you leave the city. Go at once! And take your husband with you.... And
now, Mr. Niver," he said to the astonished trust officer, "if you have
all the papers--yes, I have examined the inventory of the estate
sufficiently. Mr. Smith brought it to me some time ago...."

There followed certain legal exchanges between the court and the trust
officer, while Adelle thought over what the judge had said to her about
Clark's Field and felt rather queer, uncomfortably so, as if the probate
judge had distilled a subtle medicine in her cup of joy, or had clouded
the clear horizon of her young life with a mysterious veil of
unintelligible considerations. Yet he seemed to be, as she had always
thought him, a good old man, and wise. And he was making no trouble
about giving her and Archie the money they so much wanted to have. Even
now he was writing his signature with the old-fashioned steel pen he
used, a clear, beautiful signature, upon several documents. As he
finished the last one, he glanced up at her and with another of his fine
smiles, as if he wished to reassure her after his little sermon, said to
Adelle,--

"Now, Mrs. Davis, it is yours,--your own property, to do with as you
will. You are no longer a ward of my court!"

He rose from his judge's chair and took her hand, which he held a trifle
longer than necessary, smiling down upon the woman-girl, his lips
apparently forming themselves for another little speech, but he did n