ed. "Where you
going?" she added.

"I'm going to exercise Nero."

"Take me."

"Can't look after you and that horse, too."

"I'm not a baby," she scorned him. "Tell them to bring the pony round,
Wally."

Later when she threw her breeched leg over her horse, and waited for
Wally to mount, he exclaimed:

"Lord, I wish you'd been a boy!"

"So do I."

They started off. She had discarded the old Shetland pony as too
childish, and demanded a real steed. So Wally had given her a small
Peruvian horse, delicately made and fleet of foot. She rode him like a
leaf on the wind. She jumped hedges and fences and ditches; she did
circus tricks, and finally nagged Wally's Nero into a race.

"You're some rider, Isabelle," he said, on the way home.

"You bet I am!" she replied.

At the door Matthews, the butler, announced that the new governess had
arrived.

"Damn it!" ejaculated Isabelle.

Wally reproved her sharply, but she was inattentive.

"Let's fire her, Wally, and you take care of me."

"Would you like that?" he said, touched by this unusual mark of
affection.

"Yes. You always do what I want you to," replied his tactless child.

"I have other things to do than to look after a fresh little shrimp like
you."

The "new one" was a middle-aged English gentlewoman of the usual
governess type. Isabelle knew the kind thoroughly. She had initiated
whole companies of them into life at The Beeches. Miss Watts, this one
was called. She was putting her things into bureau drawers, when
Isabelle appeared at the door of the bathroom which joined their rooms.

"Is this Isabelle?" inquired the new victim.

The child nodded.

"How do you do? I am Miss Watts."

"I know."

"I hope we are going to be friends----"

"I never like governesses--only one."

"Why did you like this one?" inquired Miss Watts.

She was so used to the lack of manners in the children she taught, that
this one seemed no worse than usual.

"Because she was young and could swim and ride and tell me stories."

"I'm too old to swim and ride, but I can tell stories."

She went on with her unpacking.

"What kinds of stories?"

"All kinds. I know hundreds of stories. Can you read?"

"I know letters, and 'cat' and 'rat,' but I can't read big books. Let's
hear you tell a story."

"I will, with pleasure, when I finish here."

"But I want it now."

"It will take me only a little while."

"But I won't wait."

Miss Watts became aware that thi