aged to get herself transferred into a class of her contemporaries.
She had never studied before, because in old times it had seemed to her
the highest achievement lay in thwarting her governesses. But the
instant it became desirable to attain knowledge she found no difficulty
in attaining it. It had amused her studying late into the night when
Miss Bennett thought she was asleep.

In the same way she had decided to make a friend of Eleanor, who was a
class above her and prominent in school life. There had been nothing
sentimental about the friendship. She had admired Eleanor's clear mind
and moral courage then, just as she admired them now.

It was of that little girl twisting one leg about the other that Eleanor
thought now with a warm affection that the later Lydia had not
destroyed. She ordered her car and drove into town to the Thorne house.
At the door Morson betrayed just the proper solemnity--the proper
additional solemnity--for he was never gay.

Yes, Miss Thorne was in, but he could not be sure that she could see
Miss Bellington at the moment. Mr. Wiley was in the drawing-room.

"Mr. Wiley?" said Eleanor, trying to remember.

"The lawyer, madam."

Eleanor hesitated.

"Tell her I'm here," she said, and presently Morson came back and
conducted her to the drawing-room.

Lydia's drawing-room was brilliant with vermilion lacquer, jade, rock
crystal, a Chinese painting or two and huge cushioned armchairs and
sofas. Here she and Miss Bennett and Mr. Wiley were sitting--at least
Mr. Wiley and Miss Bennett were sitting, and Lydia was standing, playing
with a jade dog from the mantelpiece, pressing its cold surface against
her cheek.

As Eleanor entered, Lydia, with hardly a sound, did a thing she had
occasionally seen her do before--she suddenly seemed to radiate greeting
and love and gratitude. Miss Bennett introduced Mr. Wiley.

Wiley had established his position early in life--early for a lawyer; so
now at fifty-eight he had thirty years of crowded practice behind him.
In the nineties, a young man of thirty, his slim frock-coated figure,
his narrow, fine features and dark, heavy mustache were familiar in most
important court cases, and in the published accounts of them his name
always had a prominent place. His enemies at one time had been
contemptuous of his legal profundity and had said that he was more of an
actor than a lawyer; but if so juries seemed to be more swayed by art
than law, for Wiley had