Wally was surprised to find the trip to town shorter than usual. His daughter conducted herself with great dignity, and never missed a thing. An unbroken stream of conversation flowed from her lips, to the amusement of the people in the seats near by.

There was one difficult moment, when in hurrying for their seats, Mrs. Page spied them out.

“For goodness sake, Wally, where are you going?”

“Taking Isabelle to town.”

“Without a nurse?”

“I have a governess, not a nurse,” protested Isabelle, indignantly.

“Oh, excuse me,” laughed Mrs.Page. “Where’s Max?”

“Home in bed,” replied Isabelle, before Wally had formed an excuse.

“I hear your infant introduced an Adam-and-Eve scene into her party,” Mrs.Page continued.

Wally glanced anxiously at Isabelle.

“This is Tommy Page’s mother,” he explained.

“I know. He’s a horrid boy,” she answered, feelingly.

Mrs.Page retired after this, and Wally undertook to argue with his daughter about unbecoming frankness.

“It’s true,” she protested.

“You don’t have to tell everything you know.”

“Don’t you have to tell the truth?”

“Not when it hurts people’s feelings.”

She thought that over, and he wondered what she would make of it. The little monkey seemed to remember every word that was said to her.

“Let’s have a punkin coach taxi,” she said when they arrived in town.

“What kind is that?”

“All yellow, like the Cinderella one.”

“They don’t have them at this station.”

“Make them get us one,” urged the young arrogant.

He laughed and they went out into the street and waited until a yellow taxi came. As they took their seats in the coach, Isabelle gazed at her father speculatively.

“I am Cinderella, an’ you’ve got to be the Fairy God-mother, I s’pose, but you don’t look like her.”

“Couldn’t I be the Prince?” inquired Wally.

“No. Besides, he didn’t ride in the coach,” she corrected him, scornfully.

They stopped at a drug shop to get a list of agencies, picked at random from the telephone book. The first one was very depressing. There were several governesses, but Isabelle would have none of them, and Wally did not blame her. The second agency offered to summon a dozen candidates if he would come back in two hours. He agreed to that, and made the same arrangement with the third place.

“Now, we’ve got two hours to kill. What do you want to do?” he inquired.

“I want to go on top the ’bus.”

“It’s too hot.”

“Well, that’s what I want to do.”

Wally sighed.

“All right, come along,” he said, aware of what her determination usually accomplished.

He thought of Max, and felt himself absolutely martyred. This was her job. She was a slacker to put it off on him. In his irritation he glanced down at the cause of it, and found her looking at him.

“Wally, does the hot make you sick?”

“Why?”

“We could go to the Zoo in a taxi.”

“Thank you, I should prefer that.”

“All right”—cheerfully.

“You’re a good old thing!” he remarked, as he called a second coach.

They inspected the animals, and endured the awful smells thereof, with great satisfaction on the part of Isabelle and much self-restraint on the part of her parent.

“Couldn’t we have a gorilla out at The Beeches, Wally?” she inquired.

“Lord, no! What do you want of a beast like that?”

“I like them. They’re so ... different!” she said, hesitating over the adjective.

Wally burst out laughing.

“Don’t you think they are?” she inquired politely.

“Yes, all of that.”

On the way back to the agency, he counselled her on her behaviour.

“Now, don’t be fresh, Isabelle, and say, ‘I don’t like the wart on your nose,’ or that kind of thing.”

“Do I have to get one with a wart on her nose?” she asked seriously.

“No, no. I mean—don’t say the wrong thing all the time.”

“But I don’t know what is the wrong thing, Wally,” she assured him.

“I should say you didn’t! You just let me do the talking. If you like the one I’m interviewing, just nod; if you don’t, why shake your head. Get me?”

“Like this?”—with neck-breaking violence of the head.

“No—no. Gently, like this.”

They seated themselves in the agency room, and the governesses were presented. The usual drab, rather faded women, used to living in the background. Some of them resented Isabelle’s presence, some of them spoke to her as to a baby. After about three sentences had been spoken, her head would move violently, and Wally got rid of the candidate.

“Lord! they’re a sad lot,” he exclaimed.

“What makes them sad?” she inquired.

“Kids like you.”

They finished the first consignment without any luck, and went to the second place. It was simply a repetition. Isabelle seemed to sense their adhesion to type, for she finally burst out with:

“Wally, I’d like one with a wart on the nose.”

He finally approached the woman in charge.

“Look here,” he said, “we want a young one, with some pep.”

The woman stared in amazement.

“Isn’t there some place where the new ones go to register?” he continued.

“You might try the college agencies. Their graduates sometimes try governessing.”

She gave him some addresses.

“Thanks. I think we’ll try them. My daughter, here, is rather exacting.”

The manager peered over her desk at the child, hostilely.

“I don’t like you, either,” said Isabelle, promptly.

Wally hurried her out. He was about worn out with this unaccustomed and exhausting strain. It had been years since Wally spent a whole day boring himself. His rage at Max grew, and he vented it on Isabelle.

“For God’s sake, don’t sass the managers! We may have to go back there.”

“Does God care?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘for God’s sake.’”

“Did I? Excuse me. Now go easy this time. We’ve got to get somebody, and we won’t find an archangel, either.”

“I’d like an archangel,” she remarked earnestly, her flagging interest reviving. “But she couldn’t swim with wings, could she?”

Wally groaned, but made no reply. At the college agency, they telephoned for two applicants, and after what seemed to Wally a week of tedium, they arrived. The first one was pretty and she knew it. She talked a great deal, and was saccharine to the little girl. Isabelle shook her head twice, but Wally seemed hypnotized by the woman’s eloquence.

“Don’t let her talk, Wally; I won’t have her,” announced Isabelle.

It took considerable finesse on Wally’s part to get this explained and to get the young woman out of the room.

“One more remark from you, like that last one, and I will engage the next hatchet-face that appears,” he thundered.

“What is a hatchet-face?” she asked, with interest.

The other girl was tall, and undeniably plain. She was deeply tanned by the sun. She looked athletic, boyish in fact. She had a nice voice, and clear grey eyes. She met Isabelle’s inspection with a grin. The child slid off her chair and went over to her.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ann. Ann Barnes.”

“Can you swim?”

“Yes,” smiled the girl.

Isabelle took her hand.

“I’ll take you,” she said.

The girl stared at Wally, who, so far, had made no explanation.

“Is she your child?” she inquired.

“Yes.”

“Is her mother dead?”

“No, Max is my mother,” explained the youngster.

“You see,” said Wally, “Isabelle is a little devil. You might as well know the worst at once. She’s got no manners at all, and she’s spoiled to death.”

“Wally, you don’t have to tell everything you know,” quoted Isabelle, sharply.

“Upon my word!” said Miss Barnes. “How old is she?”

“She’s just had her fourth birthday.”

“But she needs a nurse, not a governess.”

“I won’t have a nurse. I want you.”

“She’s had a lot of women, mostly old ones. I told Mrs.Bryce I thought she ought to have a young woman with her, and she told me that if I knew so much about it, I could get her a governess myself.”

“I see,” said Miss Barnes; “and just what do you want her governess to do?”

“Ride and swim with her, and keep her out of mischief. I suppose you would teach her something—letters and counting, and all that?”

“A governess usually does,” she smiled.

“You would have full charge of her. We live in the country from April till Thanksgiving, and in town the rest of the time.”

“Come on, Ann, let’s go; I’m tired,” interrupted Isabelle.

“But you aren’t letting this baby decide who is to take care of her?” she protested.

“I thought it was better. She gets rid of one a month, so in the end she does decide.”

“But it’s so absurd.”

“We’re—we’re an absurd family,” he admitted, gravely.

“Don’t talk, Wally; come on.”

“What does she call you?” Miss Barnes inquired.

“Wally. My name is Walter, but every one calls me Wally. She calls her mother Max. We try to break her of it, but we can’t.”

Miss Barnes shook her head.

“I want to be a governess, you know, not a nurse.”

Isabelle realized that a crisis was at hand.

“Sometimes I’m nice, aren’t I, Wally?” she appealed.

Miss Barnes could not have told why, but for the first time this abnormal, prissy child, with her self-assurance, and her impertinence, caught at her sympathies. Wally saw that she wavered.

“Suppose that we call it an experiment for a month. I’ll pay a hundred dollars a month. Come out with us this afternoon and try it. She’s the limit of a kid, but she’s got a lot of sense for her age, and maybe she’d be all right if somebody just gave her mind to her.”

“I’m willing to try it for a month, if I may have full charge of her. Would her mother agree to that?”

“Oh, Max is never home; besides, she never sees me,” spoke up the child.

“She does see you,” protested Wally.

Isabelle made no reply, but somehow Miss Barnes caught the situation—the sense of neglect, of the child’s loneliness.

“I’ll come for a month at the salary you mentioned.”

“Good. Can you pack a bag and go out on the 4:10 with us? We’ll send you home in a taxi and send for you.”

She considered a moment.

“All right.”

She rose, explained to the head of the bureau, and later they went out together.

“Wally, when’s lunch?” demanded Isabelle.

“Now. We’ll send Miss Barnes off in our cab, and pick up another. A cab will come for you at three thirty, Miss Barnes, and we’ll meet you at the Information booth.”

“I’ll be there. Good-bye, Isabelle.”

“Good-bye, Ann.”

Wally and Isabelle made their way to his club, where she insisted upon all the verboten things for lunch.

“Are you allowed to eat that?” he demanded.

“Oh, yes, at parties.”

“Don’t it make you sick?”

“Yes. You’re always sick after parties,” she replied.

A man stopped at the table to address a few jocose remarks to Wally, and he turned his glance upon the small girl.

“Who is your beautiful companion, Wally?” he inquired.

“My daughter, Isabelle. This is Duncan, the Club cut-up,” he added to his guest.

She inspected the man closely.

“Who cuts you up?” she inquired.

“The other club members,” he retorted, followed by laughter and applause from the surrounding tables. Isabelle beamed in the spotlight.

“I like this better than Max’s club,” she said, to the amusement of the next table.

“Take us on, Wally, will you?” called one of them, and at his invitation they all moved over.

“She doesn’t look like her pretty mother, Wally,” said one of them after they were presented.

“No, poor kid, she looks like me,” laughed Wally.

“I look like Wally, but I’m smart!” she said, and beamed again at their uproar of mirth.

She left, later, amidst reiterated invitations to come again. One man tried to kiss her, but she promptly blocked that.

“I don’t like kissing,” she said.

Wally inspected her on the way to the station. Her eyes were bright, her colour was high. She certainly had been a success at the club. There was something about the little beggar——

“I liked those men,” she remarked.

“You were too fresh,” he said, anxious to prick the bubble of her egotism. She made no answer, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew he had been proud of her.

“If you like this new girl, and want her to stay, you’ve got to turn over a new leaf,” he warned 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 protÉgÉe.

“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.

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