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Show 66 lllitC'(j( from tbc (1:10'9((' l'td~ Glib 1loae anb Stiller nard's lavender satin slipper. The old lady laughed and the soft colour came into her pretty face. "I frankly admit that I 've passed it," she said. '1 Better one pair of shoes than ten skyrockets, if the shoes are the sort I like." "Do they come often?" queried Isabel, reverting to the subject of the twins. "Not as often as I'd like to have them, but it doesn't do to urge them. I can only keep my windows open and let the wind from the clover field blow in as it will." "Do they live near a clover field ? " inquired Isabel, perplexed. "No, but they remind me of it- they're so breezy and wholesome, so free and on trammelled, and, at heart, so sweet." "I hope they 'II come again soon." "So do I, for I don't want you to be lonely, Isabel. It was good of your mother to let you come." "Mamma doesn't care what I do," observed Isabel, placidly. "She's always busy." Madame Bernard checked the sharp retort that rose to her lips. What Isabel had said was quite true. Mrs. Ross was so interested in what she called "The New Thought" and "The Higher World Service" that she had neither time nor inclination for the old thought and simple service that make-and keep-a home. From the time she could dress herself and put :an :afternoon <tall up her own hair, Isabel had been left much to herself. Her mother supplied her liberally with money for clothes and considered that her duty to her daughter ended there. They lived in an apartment hotel and had their coffee served in their rooms in the morning. After that, Isabel was left to her own devices, for committees and directors' meetings without number claimed her mother. More often than not, Isabel dined alone in the big dining-room downstairs, and spent a lonely evening with a novel and a box of chocolates. On pleasant days, she amused herself by going through the shops and to the matinee. She did not make friends easily and the splendid isolation common to hotels and desert islands left her stranded, socially. She had been very glad to accept Aunt Francesca's invitation, and the mother, looking back through her years of "world service" to the quiet old house and dream-haunted garden, had thought it would be a good place for Isabel for a time, and had hoped she might not find it too dull to endure. Madame Bernard had no patience with Mrs. Ross. When she had come for a brief holiday, fifteen years before, bringing her child with her, she had just begun to be influenced by the modem feminine unrest. Later she had definitely allied herself with those whose mission it is to emancipate Woman-with a capital W 1eftto txrOwn IDetolcu |
