horse arrived in due
season, and now she lent the beast to her little friend, carefully
refraining from giving up her title to him. For a second time she felt
the sweet sense of unlimited power in response to desire. She wrote her
letter as Aladdin rubbed his magic lamp, and straightway her desire
became fact! It was modern magic. This time it happened that her desire
was a generous one and brought her the approval as well as the envy of
the small social world at the Hall. But that was purely accidental: the
next time she should try her lamp, as likely as not the cause might be
purely selfish. As a matter of fact she soon discovered that, by
distributing her favors and lending her extra horse to a number of
schoolmates, she could enlarge her circle of influence and
consideration. So the little Mexican by no means had all the rides.

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 qui