Horseback riding was a beneficial pleasure in more than one way. Adelle, of course, profited from the exercise in the open air: she began to grow slowly and to promise womanhood at some not distant day. It also brought her into close relations with some of the leading girls, who had thus far ignored her existence; among them the breezy California sisters, "the two Pols," as they were known in school. These girls profited by Adelle's groom to dispense with the chaperonage of the old riding-master, and before long Adelle learned why this arrangement was made. In their long expeditions across country, with the discreet groom well in the rear, the girls put their heads together in the most intimate gossip, from which Adelle learned much that completed her knowledge of life. Most of this was innocent enough, though some was not, as when one afternoon, when "the Pols" judged that Adelle was a "good sport," they led the way to a remote road-house where a couple of men were waiting evidently by appointment. One of them, a fair-haired, overdressed young man, Adelle was given to understand was Sadie Pol's "artist" friend. She herself was sent back to entertain the groom while the two sisters went into the road-house with their "friends." Conduct, even conduct that came near being vice, was largely meaningless to Adelle: she silently observed. She had no evil impulses herself, very few impulses, in fact, of any kind. But she was the last person to tell tales, and "the two Pols," having tested her and pronounced her "safe," she was allowed to see more and went more than once to the rendezvous at the quiet road-house. In this way she raised herself nearly to a plane of equality with the leaders of the school. Indeed, it was Adelle who assisted Irene Paul to escape from the Hall one winter night, and stayed awake far into the morning in order to let the girl in. But that was a year later.... When Adelle discovered the power of her magic lamp, she was generous with her pocket-money, ordering and buying whatever the older girls desired. In this way she rapidly attained favor in the Hall, where few even of the richer girls could procure money so easily as the ward of the Washington Trust Company. "Get Adelle to do it," or "Adelle will dig up the money," "Ask Adelle to write her bank," became familiar expressions, and Adelle never failed to "make good." It is safe to say that if contact with any sort of human experience gives education, Adelle was being educated rapidly, although she was completely ignorant of books and as nearly illiterate as a carefully protected rich girl can be. Before Nature had completed within her its mission, Adelle was cognizant of many kinds of knowledge, some of which included depravity. For in the exclusive, protected, rich world of Herndon Hall she had met everything she might have encountered in the Alton Girls' High and a good deal more beside.