?"

"Well, if you want her to go to this party, you'd better make a bargain
with her. I know her."

"Come on. Hurry up, Miss Wilder; I want to go after Patsy myself,"
cried the tyrant, racing down the hall.

Miss Wilder followed, and Mrs. Bryce turned to her book, with a sense of
irritated futility which her only child always aroused in her. But the
party soon faded from her mind, save when shrill shouts from the lawn
below caught her attention.

Eventually Mr. Walter Bryce, familiarly known as Wally, appeared at his
wife's door. He was an undersized, dapper little man, with almost no
chin. His sole claim to attention lay in the millions accumulated by his
father.

"Nice row you've got on down stairs," he remarked.

"Isabelle's birthday party," yawned his wife.

"Looks to me like poor old Wilder's birthday party. Just as I came
along, a line of kids was marching up to give their hostess their
presents. Old Wilder was hanging on to Isabelle so she wouldn't bolt,
and the little beast wouldn't take one of the packages. Said she didn't
want their presents. The poor Wilder appealed to me, and I told Isabelle
to act like a lady, and whadye think she said to me--right there before
all those smart-aleck kids?--'Get out, Wally, this is my party'!"

Mrs. Bryce laughed.

"You ought to know better than to give her a chance like that."

"Look here now, Max, she's got to be attended to. She's the limit. She's
got no more manners than an alley cat."

"That's no news to me, Wally."

"Why don't you do something about it?"

"Do something? Don't I get her a new governess every month? Nobody can
do anything with her."

"I don't see where she gets it," said Wally.

"She gets it from you, and she gets it from me. She's the worst of both
of us personified."

"Poor kid, that's tough luck for her"--seriously.

"A little late for vain regrets"--sarcastically.

He went over to the window and looked down at the party scattered about
below.

"Why wouldn't it be a good idea to keep her with you awhile every day,
Max?"

"Not much! I come down here to rest, not to play nursemaid. You might
take her round with you, if you feel that she needs uplifting."

"She's beyond me. I don't understand her; and, on the whole, I don't
like her."

"Nobody likes her; she's _queer_. And plain; my word, why do you suppose
I had to have a child that looks like that? She hasn't one good point."

"Um--she's got eyes."

"Great big goopy eye