here. I love it here, I love you and
Mrs. Benjamin. Oh, why does Max always interfere with me? I hate her!"
she cried, passionately.

Mr. Benjamin laid a steadying hand on her shoulder, and walked beside
her.

"I understand what a blow this is to thee, and how unhappy it makes
thee. But one of the things that we want our girls to learn is to honour
and respect their parents," he said gently.

"But how can I respect Max, Mr. Benjamin? She never respects me."

He saw the justice of her remark and strove not to play the moralist.

"Thee can put a curb on thy lips, my dear. I wish that thee might show
Mrs. Benjamin and me that thy life here with us has meant something to
thee, by obeying thy mother as cheerfully and willingly as thee can."

He felt the young body under his hand shudder with the effort for
control. She lifted stricken eyes to him, as he said afterward, and
nodded without a word. He helped her as well as he could, by talking of
other things, but he felt her suffering as keenly as if it had been his
own.

When they came back to the house, she went to her room, and he carried
the report to his wife.

"Sorrow goes so deep with them, at this age," he said, tenderly.

"Poor, passionate child; she will always be torn by life," sighed Mrs.
Benjamin. "I will not go to her yet. I'll let her try solitude first."

She did not appear at lunch, so Mrs. Benjamin carried a tray to her. The
girl was not crying, she was sitting by the window, looking out over
the hills, in a sort of dumb agony.

"I want thee to eat some lunch, my Isabelle."

A white face turned toward her. The very sun-brown seemed to have been
seared off by suffering.

"I can't eat, dear Mrs. Benjamin," she said.

"I've been thinking that we might make a plan, dear," the older woman
said, setting the tray aside and dismissing it. She drew a chair beside
the girl and took her cold hands. "Thou wilt go to this school, as thy
mother wishes, but when thou hast finished--it is only two years--if
thee thinks the kind of life thy mother plans for thee too uncongenial,
thee must come back to us, and help us with the school. There will
always be a place for thee here, my child."

"But two years in that loathsome school!"

"Thee dost not know that it's loathsome. I've no doubt that if thee will
take the right spirit with thee, it may be very good for thee. There are
opportunities in that great city which Hill Top cannot offer."

"But there won't