“I’ve seen so many estates,” he continued, “shrink into next to nothing—­so many widows who thought they were well off, suddenly waking up and finding themselves at the mercy of the world—­the little they have often being taken away from them by the first glib sharper who comes long—­that I sometimes think every man should give his family a show-down once a year.  It would surely save a lot of worries and heartaches later on—­

“Still,” he smiled, looking down at the inventory, with its noble line of figures at the bottom of the column, “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble in keeping the wolf from the door.”

Mary turned the pages in a helpless sort of way.

“You’ll have to explain some of this,” she said at last.  But before giving it back to him she looked out of the window for a time—­one of her slow, thoughtful glances—­and added, “I wonder why girls aren’t brought up to know something about business—­the way boys are.”

“Perhaps it’s because they have no head for business.”

She thought that over.

“Can you speak French?” she suddenly asked.

“No.”

“...I can.  I can speak it, and read it, and write it, and think it....  Now don’t you think that if a girl can do that—­if she can learn thousands and thousands of new words, how to pronounce them, and spell them, and parse them, and inflect them—­how to supply hundreds of rules of grammar—­and if she can learn to do this so well that she can chat away in French without giving it a thought—­don’t you think she might be able to learn something about the language and rules of business, too, if they were only taught to her?  Then perhaps there wouldn’t be so many helpless widows in the world, as you said just now, at the mercy of the first glib sharper who comes along.”

This time it was the judge’s turn to think it over.

“You’re an exceptional girl, Mary,” he said at last.

“No, really I’m not,” she earnestly told him.  “Any girl can learn anything that a boy can learn—­if she is only given a chance.  Where boys and girls go to school together—­at the grammar schools and high schools—­the girls are just as quick as the boys, and their average marks are quite as high.  It was true at college, too.  The girls could learn anything that the men could learn—­and do it just as well.”

As one result of this, Judge Cutler began giving Mary lessons in business, using the inventory as a text and explaining each item in the settlement of the estate.  He also taught her some of the simpler maxims, beginning with that grand old caution, “Never sign a paper for a stranger—­”

It wasn’t long after this that Uncle Stanley called at the house on the hill.  He talked for a time about some of the improvements which were being made at the factory and then arose as if to go.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” he said, turning back and smiling at his oversight.  “We need a new director to take your father’s place.  When I’m away Burdon looks after things, so I suppose he may as well take the responsibility.  It’s a thankless position, but some one has to fill it.”