"Twenty-five thousand dollars, Mrs. Davis, is a considerable sum of money, but it is a small mess of pottage compared with what awaits you in the hands of the Washington Trust Company. Let me see how much the estate amounts to now!"
Hereupon the trust officer handed to the judge an inventory of the estate, which the judge ran over through his glasses, muttering the items,—"Stocks, bonds, mortgages, interest in the Clark's Field Associates," etc.
At last he laid the paper aside, and looking up announced in grave tones,—
"It comes very near being five millions of dollars."
Adelle had already been told the figures by the trust company, but in the mouth of the probate judge the sum took on a new solemnity.
"Five millions of dollars," he repeated slowly. "Even in our day of large accumulations, that is a very considerable sum of money, Mrs. Davis. It is just one thousand times more than the amount your grandfather hoped to derive from the same piece of property."
The trust officer smiled, and thrusting his hands deep into his trousers' pockets gazed at the ceiling. Of course five millions was a lot of cash, but the judge seemed to forget the hour in which they were, when everyday transactions involved millions. The young woman, who had expensive tastes, would not find the income of five millions such a huge fortune to spend. She didn't look as if she would have any trouble in spending it, nor the red-headed chap she had married. Still a comfortable little fortune, all in "gilt-edge stuff"....
"Your estate represents an increment in value of one thousand per cent in—let me see—a little over forty-five years, less than fifty years, less than a lifetime, less than my own lifetime!"
Here the judge seemed to come to a dead stop, forgetting himself in reverie. But rousing himself suddenly he asked Adelle,—
"Have you ever seen Clark's Field?"