the development of the girl was
the dependent devotion of Peggy Starr. Her young room-mate worshipped
Isabelle. She began by following her through fire, and she would not
have stopped at water. What Isabelle did and said and thought was
Peggy's law.

Now Mrs. Benjamin took hold of the situation at once. She disapproved
of the school girl "crush." She had a long talk with Isabelle and
urged her to look after the younger girl, to help her forget her
"claim" to invalidism, to influence her to normal activity. Isabelle
accepted the responsibility and felt it deeply. She restrained herself
from this and that because of Peggy. If she did things, Peggy would do
them. So again, wise Mrs. Benjamin let her teach herself her first
lessons in self-control.

"Isabelle," Mr. Benjamin said to her, when she had been at the school
about two months, "I have a letter from thy father. He says thee does
not write home."

"I've been busy," Isabelle said, frowning.

"But what does thee do on Sunday afternoons, when the other girls write
home?"

"I'd rather not tell."

"But thee writes; I've seen thee."

She nodded.

"I want thee to write thy mother to-day, Isabelle," he said, sternly.

He told his wife of this conversation later.

"She writes volumes on Sunday," he said, "now what does she do with it?"

"She is one of the strangest children we've ever had, Adam," she
answered.

"She is rather exhausting to me," he said.

"She's lived under abnormal conditions of some sort. I cannot seem to
visualize her parents at all. She never speaks of them. She was so
bitter and sullen when she came to us," Mrs. Benjamin mused. "I must try
to get her confidence about her parents, she may be needing help."

"She came to thee just in time, my Phoebe."

"Yes, that's true. A little more and she would have been a bitter
cynic at eighteen. Even now when she just begins to respond, like a
frost-bitten plant, I am not sure of the blossom."

"Hot-house growth, thee must remember."

"She interests me deeply, and I'm growing very fond of her."

"Lucky Isabelle," her husband smiled.

Later in the day when the other girls were out at play Mrs. Benjamin
came upon Isabelle, pen in hand, gazing into the distance.

"What is troubling my child?"

"Mr. Benjamin told me to write to Max."

"Who is Max?"

"My mother."

"Thy mother, and thee calls her Max?"

"I always have."

"But it is not respectful, is it?"

"No, but I don't respect her