“You’re a good old thing, Wally,” she said, hoarsely; and then, silently, she followed Miss Watts into the train.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The little god of Chance must have sat smiling on his throne when Mrs. Wally Bryce decided upon Hill Top School as the spot to which her daughter should be banished. She felt that Christiansen’s recommendation was enough, together with the list of girls who attended it, so she did not trouble to visit the place. The few necessary letters which passed between herself and Adam Benjamin, the head of the school, were formal business communications, in regard to terms, books, equipment, and such details. Mr. Benjamin’s insistence upon the simplest clothes suited her exactly. The girl had to be put somewhere until she could be admitted to a fashionable New York finishing school where she had been entered as a baby. This Hill Top place would do as a stop gap.
As for Isabelle, in the bitterness of her spirit, her only thought was that, whatever the place proved to be, she would hate it.
She and Miss Watts arrived in the afternoon of a perfect autumn day. The train was late, so that Miss Watts was forced to hand over her charge to Mr. Benjamin, who met them at the station, with only a few minutes’ wait for her train back to New York.
“I’m sorry not to have taken you to the school, and seen your room, Isabelle,” she said.