"How did you know about it?"--suspiciously.
"Oh, I am my father's confidante," boasted Isabelle. "We tell each other everything."
"Oh, yes; he will bear the marks to his grave."
A sigh of sentimental satisfaction went around.
"I wish my father was interesting like that," sighed Peggy.
It was in the spring when romance was in the very air, that a motor honked up the hill, and Wally inquired for Isabelle. Mrs. Benjamin received him.
"I'm anxious about Isabelle," he said, early in their talk.
"Yes. You've never made any complaints about her, or threatened to send her home or anything."
"We have no complaints to make," Mrs. Benjamin smiled. "She is a very clever and delightful child."
"We find her so. Affectionate, easily managed, full of life, and a natural leader."
"How Isabelle must have changed!" said Wally, soulfully.
When at a summons from Mrs. Benjamin the girl came into the room, he saw that she had changed. She electrified the room with her health and vitality.
"Wally!" she exclaimed, and suddenly went white to the lips.
"Hello, Isabelle; thought I'd have a look at you, in passing."
"Don't seem very pleased to see me," he added.
"Oh, but I am, Wally; I am," she said, with an anxious eye on the door.
"Thou may'st have a holiday, Isabelle, to visit with thy father. We'd be glad to have thee spend the night, Mr. Bryce."
"Just here for a few hours, thanks. Thought I'd look in on the kid. Very kind of you, I'm sure."
"Wally, do me a favour," said Isabelle, breathlessly.
"But I want to see the school, and meet your pals, and get acquainted with the Benjamins."
"Oh, Wally, it's just like any school, and I'm shut up here all the time. I'm just dying for a day in the country," she urged. "_P-l-e-a-s-e_ Wally."
"All right, come on. You aren't taking me off for fear they'll give you away, are you?"
"Mrs. Benjamin says you're a prize pupil, but they can't get away with that, Isabelle; I know you."
"No, you don't," she laughed. "I'm all new."
She slipped her arm through his and urged him forth.
So she managed to get him in the car and away from the house before the school trooped in. She had no plan beyond that, but she knew that she must never let Wally go back to that school. She looked at his little wizened face, muffled up in his coat collar, and his little pinched hands on the wheel. No; only over her dead body should the girls see Wally!