rned her.

"I haven't any new leaf," she said.

"To turn over a new leaf means to make a new beginning, to be good, to
act like a lady," he explained.

They found Miss Barnes waiting for them. As soon as they were in their
seats, aboard the train, Isabelle went to sleep, leaning against her new
friend. Miss Barnes smiled, made the child comfortable, and opened a
magazine, thus relieving Wally of any necessity of conversation.

As they drove up to the house, they saw Mrs. Bryce come out on the
terrace, where the butler was arranging the tea-table and chairs. She
wore a soft pink gown, and a broad, rose-laden hat. She looked very
young and lovely. She sauntered to meet them with her slightly
disdainful smile.

"Well?" she said.

Wally turned to present Miss Barnes, but Isabelle was before him.

"Max, this is Ann Barnes," she explained.

Mrs. Bryce nodded at the newcomer.

"What did you do in town?" she inquired of the child.

"The Zoo, and Wally's club."

"I hope you don't confuse them," laughed her mother.

"I don't envy you your job," she added, over her shoulder to Miss
Barnes.

"What room is Miss Barnes to have, Max?" Wally called.

"You'll have to attend to that," she replied, with a sort of arrogant
disregard of Wally's protegee.

"I'll show you, Ann," said Isabelle, adding: "nasty old Max!"

"Isabelle! your own mother!" protested Miss Barnes.

The child took her by the hand and led her into the house, with a
dignity which would have been admirable, had it not been so pathetic.
Miss Barnes felt that she was stepping off terra firma, and lighting on
Mars, so strange and muddled was this new world she had entered upon.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was a strange throw of Chance that tossed Ann Barnes into the heart
of the Bryce family--or rather into its midst, for it seemed to Ann that
there wasn't any heart to the family. The first weeks she spent at The
Beeches were positively bewildering.

She was the eldest daughter of a small-town lawyer, in Vermont. There
were five younger children, and after Ann's graduation at the State
University, she set forth to make fame and fortune, with the ultimate
object of rescuing her father and mother from the financial anxieties
which had always beset them.

She was just an average healthy, fine American girl brought up in a
normal, small-town American family. As the eldest, she had been her
mother's assistant. She had served he