As to what they might do to each other in the course of their mutual education, the judge left that wisely to that other Providence of his fathers, sure that Adelle this time would not take such a long and painful road to wisdom as she had done in marrying Archie. But we must not mistake the judge's last foolish remark,--interpret it, at least in a merely sentimental sense, too literally. Like a poet the judge spoke in symbols of matters that cannot be phrased in any tongue precisely. He did not think of their marrying each other, because they were deeply concerned together, although I am aware that my readers are speculating on this point already. The judge left that to Adelle and Tom Clark and Providence, and we can safely do the same thing. He set them forth on their jaunt after the stray members of the Clark tribe and other deeds with a favorable expectation that they would commit along the road only the necessary minimum of folly, and above all, sure of Adelle's destination. For at twenty-six she had passed through crude desire, through passion and pain and sorrow, and had discovered for herself the last commonplace of human thinking--that the end of life is not the "pursuit of happiness," as our materialistic forefathers put it in the Constitution they made for us, and cannot be "guaranteed" to any mortal. With that bedrock axiom of human wisdom embedded in her steadfast nature, to what heights might not the dumb Adelle, the pale, passive, inarticulate woman creature, ultimately rise?