n when she finds she has to,
and you'll both be the better for it, I want you to be real
happy, Mary Isabel, but you won't be if you don't assert your
independence. Giving in the way you do is bad for both you and
Louisa. It will make her a tyrant and you a poor-spirited
creature of no account in the world. Just brace up and stand
firm.

When she had read the letter through Mary Isabel took it to her own
room and locked it in her bureau drawer. Then she sat by her window,
looking out into a sea-sunset, and thought it over. Coming in the
strange way it had, the letter seemed a message from the dead, and
Mary Isabel had a superstitious conviction that she must obey it. She
had always had a great respect for Tom's opinion. He was right--oh,
she felt that he was right. What a pity she had not received the
letter long ago, before the shackles of habit had become so firmly
riveted. But it was not too late yet. She would rebel at last
and--how had Tom phrased it--oh, yes, assert her independence. She
owed it to Tom; It had been his wish--and he was dead--and she would
do her best to fulfil it.

"I shan't get a bonnet," thought Mary Isabel determinedly. "Tom
wouldn't have liked me in a bonnet. From this out I'm just going to do
exactly as Tom would have liked me to do, no matter how afraid I am of
Louisa. And, oh, I am horribly afraid of her."

Mary Isabel was every whit as much afraid the next morning after
breakfast but she did not look it, by reason of the flush on her
cheeks and the glint in her brown eyes. She had put Tom's letter in
the bosom of her dress and she pressed her fingertips on it that the
crackle might give her courage.

"Louisa," she said firmly, "I am going to town with you."

"Nonsense," said Louisa shortly.

"You may call it nonsense if you like, but I am going," said Mary
Isabel unquailingly. "I have made up my mind on that point, Louisa,
and nothing you can say will alter it."

Louisa looked amazed. Never before had Mary Isabel set her decrees at
naught.

"Are you crazy, Mary Isabel?" she demanded.

"No, I am not crazy. But I am going to town and I am going to get a
silver-grey silk for myself and a new hat. I will not wear a bonnet
and you need never mention it to me again, Louisa."

"If you are going to town I shall stay home," said Louisa in a cold,
ominous tone that almost made Mary Isabel quake. If it had not been
for that reassuring crackle of Tom's letter I fe