you," he repeated.

Mrs. Bryce ignored him.

"I have decided that your punishment this time is to be a severe one,"
she said sternly. "You are to be sent away to school. We will see if
that can save you."

"School? Boarding school?"

"Yes."

"Not a girls' school?"

"I suppose you'd prefer a boys' school?" Max said, sarcastically.

"Yes, I would," her daughter answered, literally.

"There's no use!" exclaimed Mrs. Bryce. "Take her away, Wally. I shall
decide upon a school--a very strict one--and she shall be sent there
next month. It is evident Miss Watts cannot cope with her."

Isabelle, somewhat dazed, walked back to the schoolroom. She grasped the
idea that this time she had exceeded her limit. She had never seen her
mother so angry, and even Wally was as grave as a judge.

"Why is it wicked for me to play Indian with the boys?" she demanded of
Miss Watts.

"It isn't playing Indian; it's--little girls can't spend the night in
the woods with boys," she replied.

"But why not? They were my regular friends."

"Didn't your mother tell you why it is wrong?"

"No."

"Then I must speak to her, Isabelle, before we discuss it."

It was only the beginning of the revelation of her ignominy. She was not
allowed to go anywhere or to see her friends. Once when she saw Margie
Hunter on the road, and waved to her, Margie looked the other way and
did not wave back. She smuggled off a letter to Herbert and he smuggled
one to say that he was not allowed to see her, or write to her--that he
was being sent away to school.

When she questioned Miss Watts she met with pained reticence--no frank
explanation. The girl felt that she was a prisoner, under sentence for
something which she could not understand. She turned hither and thither
in her appeal for help and understanding, and everybody turned aside as
if she were an outcast. The iron of injustice began to enter her soul.
She was at the impressionable age, when she felt deeply every injury
done her. She thought much of Ann Barnes and Martin Christiansen, her
two friends. They would have understood. They would have answered the
questions, told her the truth which her mother hinted at yet failed to
explain. It was a period of bitterness and revolt, of enforced inaction
and isolation. It was to bear fruit in her whole life, and no one
guessed it--or cared.

But it so happened that Christiansen, all unknown to her, was to help
her. He happened to meet Mrs. Bryce, full