This was the first positive expression of any sort that the trust officer had ever heard from the ward. It was one of the very few that Adelle Clark had ever made in the eighteen years of her existence. Under Mr. Crane's inquiries it soon developed that Adelle did not like "Rosy" Stevens,--as nearly hated her as she was capable of hating any one,--nor had she any great fondness for the girls who were to compose this year's "Travel Class." They belonged to the snobbiest element in the school.... What, then, did she wish to do with herself--remain another year at Herndon Hall? Here again the ward amazed Mr. Crane, for she had ready a definite plan of her own--a small plan to be sure and imitative, but a plan. She wished to go with her new friend Eveline Glynn and the California sisters to Paris. Eveline's parents, it seemed, were spending the next season in Europe, and after the manner of their kind they did not propose to be encumbered with a young daughter. So they had arranged to send her to Miss Catherine Comstock at Neuilly, and "the two Pols" had decided to do the same thing. It was not a school,--oh, no, not even a "finishing school,"--but the home of an accomplished and brilliant American woman, who had long lived abroad and who undertook to chaperone in the French capital a very few desirable girls. The banker could not see how Miss Comstock's establishment in Neuilly differed essentially from the "Travel Class," except that it was more permanent, which shows how socially blunt Mr. Crane was. But after an interview with Miss Thompson he satisfied himself that the Glynns were "our very best people"; anything they thought right for their daughter must be fit for the Washington Trust Company's ward. So her guardian's assent to the plan was easily obtained, and the four friends rejoiced in their coming freedom....