That was the question that disturbed the few persons who had any interest in the Clark women,—the manager of the livery-stable among them. It was plainly not the "proper thing" for the girl to continue long in a house full of men, and irresponsible men at that. Adelle was not aware what was the "proper thing," but she felt herself inadequate to keeping up the establishment unaided by her aunt, although that is what she would have liked to do, go on sweeping and making beds and counting out the wash and making up the bills, with or without school. But the liveryman hinted to her on her return from the funeral that she ought to go immediately to some friend's house, or have some married woman stay with her until her future had been determined upon. Adelle knew of no house where she could make such a visit, nor of any one whom she could invite to stay with her. It may seem incredible, as it did to Mr. Lovejoy, that "folks could live all their lives in Alton like the Clarks" and have no relatives or friends to lean upon in an emergency. But the truth is that when a family begins to go down in this world, after having some pretensions, it is likely to shed social relations very fast instead of acquiring new ones. A family in a settled social equilibrium (rarely the case in America), or one that is going up in the human scale, is apt to acquire connections, quite apart from the accidents of birth and social gifts, because the mental attitude is an open and optimistic one, attracting to itself humanity instead of timidly withdrawing into itself. Strength attracts and weakness repels in the long run here as elsewhere. The Clarks, who had never been considerable or numerous, had in the course of three generations gradually lost their hold upon the complex threads of life, shiftlessly shedding relationships as the Veteran had done, or proudly refusing inferior connections as Addie had, until the family was left solitary in the person of this one fifteen-year-old girl, in whom the social habit seemed utterly atrophied. Of course, Adelle could have appealed to her aunt's pastor, but it never occurred to her to do that or to make use of any other social machinery. She went back to the Church Street house, occupied her old room, and for the next few days continued the catlike routine of her life as nearly as she could under the changed conditions.
Mr. Lovejoy, who continued to be the one most concerned in her welfare, induced her to write a crude little note to the "Washington Trust Company, Dear Sirs," notifying them of the demise of her aunt. The livery-stable man, who was a widower and not beyond middle age, which does not necessarily mean in his class that the wife is dead and buried, but merely permanently absent for one reason or another, might have thrown sentimental eyes upon the girl if she had been different, more of a woman.
"She'll likely enough be an heiress some of these days," he said to his employer, old John Pike.
Pike was an old resident of Alton and had known all the Clarks. He grunted as if he had heard that song before. "That's what they used to say of her mother, Addie Clark," he remarked, remembering Addie's superior air towards his son.
"Well," his manager continued, "I see that trust company's got its signs up all over the Field."
"'T ain't the first time there's been signs there," Pike retorted, eyeing a succulent cigar he had succeeded in extracting from an inner pocket, "nor the last either, I expect!"
"It looks as if they meant business this time."
"They can't get no title," Pike averred, for he banked with the River National, which was now quite bearish on Clark's Field. After a pause the old liveryman asked with a broad smile,—"Why don't you go in for the heiress, Jim?"
(Mr. Lovejoy was accounted "gay," a man to please the ladies.)
"Me! I never thought of it—she's nothing but a girl. The old one pleased me better—she was a smart woman!"