a handsome young man better than you do, for all your
age."

"I think you're extremely impertinent!"

"You ought to make a friend of me. I can tell you a thing or two. For
one thing, he's too sure of you."

Althea rose, white with fury.

"I shall certainly report this impudence to your mother," she said,
haughtily, moving away. But Isabelle fired the last shot.

"Oh, Max will agree with me. You ought to watch her. She's got some
technique herself."

After that encounter Althea looked over and through Isabelle, as if she
were thin air. It amused the girl immensely, and in her wise head she
made a fair judgment of Miss Morton's mind and disposition. She decided
that she was entirely unworthy of the god-like Jerry, and she was glad
he hesitated.

She began to watch him with increased interest. She made romances about
him, with herself as heroine. She played scenes in which she outwitted
the haughty beauty, and fled with the hero. She began to pity Jerry. He
was the unwilling victim of Althea and Mrs. Brendon. How could she,
Isabelle Bryce, rescue him from their clutches?

In the process of her dreaming she wrecked the yacht, Jerry saved her, and
as soon as they reached shore they were married. In one version, Althea,
seeing that he loved Isabelle, threw herself overboard and perished. There
were many stories, but they always had one ending--Isabelle won and wed
the handsome young man.

One windy morning when the other "stuffies" (as she called them to
herself) were playing bridge inside, Isabelle squatted on deck, her chin
on her knees, watching the big breakers, listening to the scream of the
petrels, and as usual building air castles about herself and Jerry,
when lo! her hero came striding down the deck and all at once he stopped
before her.

"Hello! Aren't you afraid you'll blow overboard?" he inquired.

"No, I'm not. You've waked up, have you?"

"Have I been asleep?"

"You haven't seen me before," she retorted.

"Well, I see you now. Do you know what you look like?" He smiled down at
her.

"Yes. I look like a ripe olive."

"No, you look like a cricket. Are you always so silent? Don't you ever
chirp?"

"Me, silent? I've given the Wallys the blow of their lives. They think
I'm sick, I've been so good on this rotten cruise."

"What caused the reform--good company?"

"No, I'm getting ready to break it to them, that I may not be taken back
at that school. I got into the devil of a row."

"Did yo