I'm glad you liked the . . .

"How do you spell breeches, Wally?"

"What?"

"_Breeches._"

"B-r-e-e-c-h-e-s. What are you saying about them?" he inquired, coming
to look over her shoulder.

"This is private," she said, and wrote:

. . . breeches. Wally did not mind your license. He thought you
ought to have it. The police are so crooel.
Your loving friend,
ISABELLE.

She folded and addressed it carefully.

"Here it is."

"What do I get for running the blockade for you like this?" he inquired.

"Much obliged, Wally," she answered, returning to her chair and her
book.

"You don't appreciate me!" he protested.

"Yes, I do, Wally. I like you the best of all my parents."

Upon her subsequent release, Isabelle turned her entire attention to a
continuous presentation of the "Idylls." Every day the story progressed,
and it would have occupied her abilities for some time, save for an
accident.

The company, including Tommy Page and Teddy Horton, had gathered at
Margie Hunter's, where there was a swimming pool. Isabelle planned to
stage a scene with herself as "Elaine, the fair, the beautiful,"
floating in the Hunters' canoe, laboriously carried up from the shore by
the entire company.

They launched the craft, and laid out Elaine, with flowers about her,
hastily plucked from the garden, and the play was all ready to go on,
when Herbert's crowd came by, on the way to a baseball match. At the
arresting sight of the Lily Maid of Astelot, they halted and demanded
explanations. These were received with exclamations of derision and
delight, so that the incensed leading lady rose from her barge, landed,
and pursued them with the canoe paddle. They gave her a race to the
baseball diamond, where they disarmed her by force, and forgot her.

She sat down and watched their preparations. She heard their mighty
oaths against the ninth man of the team, who hadn't "showed up." She
offered to play, but they jeered at the idea. Herbert Hunter urged her
acceptance as a sub, saying that they could throw her out when the
regular fellow came.

The game was new to Isabelle but she concentrated fiercely upon Herbert
Hunter's orders. By happy accident when she came to bat, she shut her
eyes, fanned the air, and knocked a home run. She sped around the bases
like a "greased rabbit" as Herbert said. When it came to pitching, she