ds to visit them, and no pocket
money."

"Nevertheless," I answered, "when I consider the number of people who
are interested in you, and Lady Delahaye's extraordinary persistence, I
am inclined to stick to my theory. We shall look upon you, Isobel, as an
investment, and some day you shall reward us all."

Her hand slipped into mine. Her eyes were soft enough now.

"Dear friend," she murmured, "I think that it is my heart only which
will reward you--my great, great gratitude. I am afraid of Lady
Delahaye, Arnold. There are things in her eyes when she looks at me
which make me shiver. Do not let us go there again, please!"

Arthur broke in impetuously.

"You shall go nowhere you don't want to, Isobel. Arnold and I will see
to that."

"And--about the other thing--she mentioned," Isobel began.

"She was right and wrong," I answered. "Of course, it would be better
for you if one of us had a sister or a mother living with us, but Mrs.
Burdett has always seemed to us like a mother, and I think--that it will
be all right," I concluded a little lamely. "We need not worry about
that, at present at any rate. Come, we've had a dull afternoon, and I
sold a story yesterday. Let's go to Fasolas, and have a half-crown
dinner."

"I'm on," Arthur declared. "We'll go and fetch Allan."

"You dear!" Isobel exclaimed. "I shall wear my new hat!"

Book II

CHAPTER I

"I have no doubt," Mabane said gloomily, "that Arthur is right. He ought
to know more about it than old fogies like you and me, Arnold. We had
the money, and we ought to have insisted upon it. You gave way far too
easily."

"That's all very well," I protested, "but I don't take in a woman's
fashion paper, and Isobel assured us that the hat was all right. She
looks well enough in it, surely!"

"Isobel looks ripping!" Arthur declared, "but then, she looks ripping in
anything. All the same, the hat's old-fashioned. You look at the hats
those girls are wearing, who've just come in--flat, bunchy things, with
flowers under the brim. That's the style just now."

"Isobel shall have one, then," I declared. "We will take her West
to-morrow. We can afford it very well."

She came up to us beaming. She was a year older, and her skirts were a
foot longer. Her figure was, perhaps, a shade more developed, and her
manner a little more assured. In other respects she was unchanged.

"What are you two old dears worrying about?" she exclaimed lightly. "You
have t