plans for the cheap capture
of the property would ultimately miscarry. But John's death must cause
further delay, which might possibly be improved by other interested
speculators. And so the legal representatives of the capitalists
concerned in the "deal" constituted themselves at once friends and
advisers of the widow. They assured her that a mere formality must be
satisfied before she could actually touch her husband's estate, and
promised to attend to the legal matters without expense to her, it being
understood, of course, that whenever the law allowed she should carry
out her husband's agreement to sell the Clark interest in the Field.
They even went so far as to offer further small advances to the widow if
she found herself in immediate need. But this the widow resolutely
refused. She was becoming a little suspicious of so much thoughtful
kindliness from these lawyers, whom after the prejudice of her sort she
was wont to regard as human harpies. She had her widow's pension and her
roomers, and her expenses would be considerably lessened by the death of
the incompetent veteran, who would no longer be begging money for his
"reunions."

There was, of course, Adelle. Her uncle had been her legal guardian and
as such had intended to sell her interest in the Field for a pittance.
The lawyers assumed that her aunt would be appointed by the probate
court to the empty honor of guardianship. Otherwise they regarded her,
as everybody always did, as entirely negligible. And she so regarded
herself. The lawyers were prompt in having the guardianship question
brought up in the probate court for settlement first. It was introduced
there as a motion early in the fall term of court, the papers being
presented to the judge by the junior member of the distinguished firm of
B---- lawyers, Bright, Seagrove, and Bright. Any other judge, probably,
would have scribbled his initials then and there upon the printed
application for guardianship,--the affair being in charge of such
eminent counsel,--and there must have been an end altogether to Adelle's
expectations and of this story. That was what the lawyers naturally
expected. But this judge, after a hasty glance or two at the
application, took the matter under advisement.

"Of course the old boy had to sleep upon it!" young Bright reported to
the senior members of the firm. The lawyers of B---- were accustomed to
make fun of Judge Orcutt or grumble about his ways of doing things. He
w