y self-contained, she's not excitable as you and I
are," he tried to explain.

"I hate to leave Isabelle. Oh, Mr. Bryce, try to look after her a
little, try to love her a little, she does need it so!"

The next day as she stepped to the platform of the train the chauffeur
handed her a letter from Wally. There was an enclosure of two hundred
dollars, which he begged she would accept as a present from Isabelle.
He thanked her and regretted the necessity of her going.

So Ann passed out of Isabelle's life, mourned and lamented for months by
the child. She represented the only tenderness, the only understanding
and sympathy that came into Isabelle's childhood. The little belated
tendrils of affection she had put forth toward her world, under Ann's
warm influence, shrivelled and died. Her wits against them all, that was
the motto she decided upon, in the bitter wisdom of her four brief
years.

CHAPTER SIX

During the years that followed many were the governesses set up by Mrs.
Bryce to be promptly knocked down, as it were, by Isabelle. They would
either depart of their own accord, or they would be sent flying by the
irate Mrs. Bryce after some escapade of her incorrigible offspring.

"She'll end in a reform school!" she remarked to Wally one day, upon the
dismissal of the latest one.

He sought out his daughter and laboured with her.

"Look here, kid, how many governesses have you had lately?"

"Oodles of 'em."

"But what do you do to them?"

"Get rid of 'em, they're no good. Can't you get Max to let me have Ann
again?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I won't have any of these she gets me--old snoops!"

"She does the best she can," Wally defended.

"She does not. She doesn't even look at 'em, just telephones for one to
be sent out. Let's you and me go pick out another one, Wally."

"I'm sorry, but your mother won't stand for it. Ann gave her a piece of
her mind before she left, and Max blames me for it."

"If she'd get Ann, I'd be so good she'd never have to change again."

"Why don't you tell her that?"

"I did. It makes her mad. You tell her, Wally."

"She gets mad at me, too."

"If you get mad back and yell at her, she stops. That's what I do," she
advised him.

"Look here, it would be a lot more comfortable for you to put up with
some woman, even if you don't like her. You always have to get used to a
new one."

"I don't. They have to get used to me," the imp repli