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Youth has its sway. Adele was most delightfully enthusiastic at times, often bent upon what she called “having a good time.” Then she was a picture worthy of Fortuny’s art in a sunny Spanish patio; but in quieter moments as introspective as one of Millais’ peasants; rather over-confident in her own resources, having really not met as yet any opposition worthy of the name, unless perhaps a weak patient who refused to take medicine. Then she took a sip herself, and told him “Now you’ve got to take it,” and he did,—because her actions spoke louder even than her words.

Her father had several times told her to read the world as if it were a book, and she had heard her mother refer to certain society leaders who acted a part that did not suit their own style. She determined to know and read all passers-by, from cooks with a sauce-pan to princesses with a crooked coronet, including Tom, Dick and Harry of course; and she found it so highly interesting, that when about eighteen she thought she might—yes—she might, in time,—write a novel herself; in fact she did write the title page, and the chapter on “Direful Conflict,” in which the sauce-pan and coronet almost came to blows. Whether to make that chapter the beginning of her novel or the ending, proved the poser, so it too was put upon the shelf with the heroes.