Here was something tangible that a man could get hold of. The girl looked pale and probably needed healthful exercise. If other girls had their own horses, she could have one. It was really ridiculous how little she was spending of her swelling income. And he proceeded at once to take up this topic with Miss Thompson, who presently arrived upon the scene. Mr. Ashly Crane was much more successful in impressing the head mistress of Herndon Hall with the importance of the ward of the Washington Trust Company than in probing the heart of the lonely little girl. He gave the elegant Miss Thompson to understand clearly that Miss Adelle Clark was to have every advantage that money could buy, not merely music and art as extras, but horses,--he even put it in the plural,--a groom, and if she wanted it a private maid, which he was told was never permitted. Miss Thompson quickly gathered from his tone and his words that Miss Adelle Clark's expectations were such as to insure her the most careful consideration in every respect, and if Herndon Hall could not provide her with all the advantages to which wealth was entitled, her guardians would quickly remove her from the school. Miss Thompson accompanied the trust officer to the door out of earshot of Adelle and assured him haughtily that Herndon Hall which sheltered a Steigman of Philadelphia, a Dyboy of Baltimore, not to mention a Miss Saltonsby from his own city, knew quite as well as he what was fitting under the circumstances. However, they shook hands as two persons from the same world and parted in complete understanding. Adelle had already slipped off with her armful of roses. XIII From the moment, when she emerged upon the corridor that led to the schoolrooms with that huge bunch of American Beauty roses in her arms, a new period of her school life began. The girls, of course, had seen from their desks the arrival of the motor-car and its single occupant,--a Man,--and the older girls who had peeked into the drawing-room reported that Mr. Ashly Crane was a very smart-looking man, indeed. When a woman first receives flowers from a man, an event of importance in her existence has happened. Senorita Diane, who was an incorrigible sentimentalist, went into ecstasies over the roses and at once whispered about the school that they were the fruit of an admirer, not of a mere relative. Miss Thompson talked to her teachers, especially to "Rosy," and it became known throughout the Hall that the ugly duckling was undoubtedly Somebody, and she was treated thereafter with more consideration. If the trust company had thought to take notice of its ward's existence earlier in her school career, Adelle might have been saved a very disagreeable year of her life.