some lawyer; that in fact was
what the trust people had advised--that she should see their lawyers.
But Adelle shrewdly concluded that it would be useless to see the
Washington Trust Company's lawyers, who would doubtless tell her again
in less intelligible language precisely what the trust officers had
said. And she knew of no other lawyers in the city whom she might
consult independently. Besides, she thought it better to see her cousin
before going to the lawyers, feeling that this self-reliant, if socially
inexperienced, young workman might have pertinent suggestions to offer.
In the mean time, not having anything else to do immediately, she turned
in the direction of her hotel.

Any of the preoccupied citizens of B---- who might have encountered this
black-dressed, pale young woman sauntering up their crowded street this
morning, could scarcely have divined what was going on behind those
still, gray eyes. She was not thinking of the goods displayed in the
shop windows, though her eyes mechanically flitted over them, nor was
she musing upon a lover, though Tom Clark often crossed her mind, nor
was she considering the weather, which was puritanically raw and
ruffling, nor of any other thing than how she might divest herself of a
large part of that fortune which the Washington Trust Company had so
meritoriously preserved for her! There was a very simple way out of her
dilemma, of course, but it had never occurred to her; and if it had
occurred to the trust officers, they had thought best not to suggest it
to their scatter-brained client. So she knitted her brows and thought,
without heeding where she was.

When she came to a certain small square, she turned off the main street
unconsciously and walked up a quiet block towards the court-house. It
was the path she had trod eleven years before, only in the reverse
direction when she had led her aunt from Judge Orcutt's courtroom to the
home of the Washington Trust Company. Her mind took charge of her
without calling upon her will, as it did so often, and presently she
entered the great granite court-house with no clear purpose in her mind,
other than a hidden desire, perhaps, to see the probate judge once more.
Judge Orcutt was not in the room on the second floor which she
remembered. Instead, there was a stranger holding court there, a
dull-eyed, fat gentleman with drooping black mustache and a snappy
voice, who did not attract Adelle. She thought she had made a mista