The first occasion when Adelle had an opinion all her own and announced it publicly and unasked was due to the judge. Of course the question of guardianship was much discussed in their very limited circle. Joseph Lovejoy, the manager of Pike's Livery at the corner of Church Street,--the Pike whose son Addie Clark had disdained,--was the oldest and most important of the "roomers." Mr. Lovejoy was of the opinion that trust companies were risky inventions that might some day disappear in smoke. He advised the perplexed widow to "hire a smart lawyer" to look out for her business interests. What did an old probate judge know about real estate? This was the occasion on which Adelle made her one contribution: she thought that "Judge Orcutt must be wiser than any lawyer because he was a judge." A silly answer as the liveryman said, yet surprising to her aunt. And she added--"He's a gentleman, too," though how the little girl discovered it is inexplicable. The news of the prospective importance of Clark's Field had quickly spread through Church Street and the Square, where the widow's credit much improved. Something really seemed about to happen of consequence to the old Field and the modest remnants of the Clark family. Emissaries from the routed speculators came to see the widow. It dribbled down from the magnates of the local bank, the River National, by way of the cashier to the chief clerk, that the widow Clark might easily get herself into trouble and lose her property if she took everybody's advice. It should be said that the River National Bank disliked these rich upstart trust companies; also that the capitalists who had laid envious eyes on the Field were associated with the local bank, which expected to derive profit from this deal,-the largest that Alton had ever known even during the boom years at the turn of the century.