"Right-o, Jerry-girl. There's more than one kind of a victory, isn't there? Now run along and make peace with Miss Gypsy and let me get acquainted with my Bonnie—four whole days since I've seen you." There was a suspicious crackling of tissue-paper in his pocket. One hand slowly drew forth a small, blue velvet box which he laid in Isobel's fingers.
"Oh, Uncle Johnny!" For, within, lay a dainty bracelet set with small turquoise. Quite unexpectedly Isobel's eyes filled with tears.
"What is it, kitten?"
"It's lovely only—only—everybody's too good to me for—I guess—I'm—what Gyp said I was!"
There was everything in Isobel's past experience to warrant her expecting that Uncle Johnny would vehemently protest the truth of her outburst and assure her that no one could do enough for her. She wanted him to do so. But, alas, she read in his face that he, too, thought what Gyp had said was very true.
"Isobel, dear—I think I ought to try and make you see something—for your own good. Have you ever pictured the fight that's going on in the human blood all the time—the tiny warriors struggling constantly, one kind to kill and the other to keep alive? The same sort of fight's going on in our natures, too. Every one of us is born with a whole lot of good things; they're our heritage and it's our own fault when we don't keep 'em. I don't mean outward things, dear—like your golden hair and those sky-blue eyes of yours—I mean the inside things, the things that grow and make our lives. But they've got to fight to live. If vanity and selfishness get the upper hand—where do they lead you? Well," he laughed, "I can't make you understand any more clearly what I mean than just to point to poor old Aunt Maria!"
Isobel had turned her face away; he could not see how she was taking his clumsy little lecture.
"She's just a pathetic waste of God's good clay—moulded once as He wants His children, but what has she done? She's lived—no one knows how many years—only to feed her own body and glorify her own nest; she's grown in instead of out; she's never given an honest thought to making this world or anyone in it one bit better for her having lived in it. She's stealing from God. And what's done it—vanity, that years ago mastered all the good things in her. Poor old soul—she was once a young, pretty girl, like you——"
Isobel jerked her head petulantly. The blue velvet box lay neglected on the counterpane.
"I think you're horrid to lecture me, Uncle Johnny. Mother and father——"