ched from her. Always, before, Max had cheated her of things; now it
was God.

She came out of it the Isabelle of her early childhood--_revoltee_,
enemy to authority, defier of God and the universe. Her wit against them
all. She would take what she wanted now, and let them look out for her!

* * * * *

From that time on, she was the acknowledged school "terror." She put her
entire mind upon misbehaving, and she was as ingenious as a monkey.
Never a week passed that she was not shut up for an hour in the library
with Miss Vantine, who always felt, poor lady, that she was dealing with
a manifestation of the devil.

"Did you, or did you not throw an electric lamp on the floor during the
algebra lesson, Isabelle?"

"I _dropped_ one on the floor."

"Don't equivocate! You _threw_ it"--sternly.

"All right; I threw it"--defiantly.

"Why did you do it?"

"To wake up the class. If you knew how dull that hour is you wouldn't
blame me."

"Don't be impertinent!"

"Miss Marshall is a fool. If you ask her a question outside the lesson
she has to look it up in the book."

"You are not here to criticize your teachers, you are here to account
for your misbehaviour."

"I am telling you why I misbehave. I can't listen to her. Nobody does.
She sets us all wild. Everybody was half asleep so I bounced the lamp on
the floor. She ought to have been grateful to me for getting their
attention."

"This is the second time this week that you have been reported for
insubordination. This conduct cannot continue. I am writing your parents
to-day that unless you mend your ways, they must take you away from
here. You are contaminating the entire school."

"They can't take me away too quickly."

Miss Vantine thought best to ignore this impertinence.

"You will take twenty demerits, and miss your walk in the park for a
week. You may go now."

The girl sauntered insolently out of the room, leaving Miss Vantine
white with rage. She wrote a very firm letter to Mrs. Walter Bryce, who
in turn wrote a denunciatory letter to her daughter, and there the
matter rested.

One disgrace followed another, and finally the school year dragged to a
close. Isabelle went to The Beeches for the summer. There were four
months of war to the knife with her mother, the usual number of scrapes,
and a violent love affair with Herbert Hunter, home from St. George's.

"What became of your reformed character?" inqu