et 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.

By the end of this second year she was not much happier, perhaps, but
she was perfectly comfortable at the Hall and thoroughly used to her new
environment. The blonde Irene had given her a diploma,--

"Dell's all right--she's a good little kid."

XIV

That summer she did not have to mope by herself in the empty Hall. The
little Mexican carried her away for a long visit to her distant home.
The trouble in Morelos had temporarily subsided, so that Senor Merelda
felt that it was safe to gather his large family at the hacienda. The
journey, which the two girls made alone as far as St. Louis, where
Diane's elder brother met them, was the first view of the large world
that Adelle had ever had. They were both filled with the excitements of
their journey so that even Adelle's pale cheeks glowed with a happy
sense of the mystery of living. This ecstasy was somewhat broken by the
presence of Carlos, a gentlemanly enough young man; but Adelle was
afraid of all men. She failed also to assimilate the strange sights that
she encountered south of St. Louis. The journey became a jumble in her
memory of heat and red sunsets and dirty Indians and stuffy d