mind. She liked being alone, being still. There had been considerable
strain to keeping up a reputation as a school terror. It had meant being
constantly on the alert for an opportunity to misbehave; it meant
thinking up plots, living up to an exacting standard of wickedness. The
reaction had come with these idle days and she enjoyed it.

Then, too, she loved the vastness of the sea and the sky, between which
they made their way. She sat for hours watching white gulls that
followed in their wake. She wondered if they were not the souls of the
departed, and she conceived one friendly one, which flew quite near them
for days, to be the soul of Mrs. Benjamin. Sometimes when she was sure
that no one was near she stood in the stern and called out to it.

"Dear Mrs. Benjamin, I know you're there. Don't leave me, will you? I
love so to watch you circling up there. Is it nice in Heaven?"

She pondered about death a good deal, and about heaven. She had not been
able to bear such thoughts since Mrs. Benjamin died, so bitter had been
her grief. But there was soothing in the silent vastness, and she came
to think of heaven as a sublimated Hill Top with Mrs. Benjamin still
teaching the young.

She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together. She noted the way
she looked at him--the half-playful wholly tender way she appropriated
him. It led the girl to ponder upon love also. Here were two beautiful
people who, according to all the rules of play and story, should be
making love every minute, in this paradise. Why did the beautiful young
man hesitate?

[Illustration: _She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together.
. . . It led the girl to ponder upon love also_]

She decided to interview Althea and see what sort of creature she might
be. It was not so simple, because Althea was barely aware of Isabelle's
existence, also she was never without Jerry at her side, if either she
or Mrs. Brendon could manage it. But there came a chance, when she was
alone on deck, and Isabelle hastily took the vacated seat beside her.
Althea glanced at her, faintly surprised.

"Are you having a good time on this cruise?" Isabelle opened fire.

"Oh, yes--very. Aren't you?"

"Not especially. But then I haven't any handsome young man to play
with."

Althea frowned and made her first mistake.

"You're quite too young for any such ideas," she said.

"I'm out of the cradle, you know!"--hotly. "I'm old enough to know that
I could handle