“Didst thou want him to wear a sword and scabbard?” interrupted Mr. Benjamin, who disapproved of these heroics. But Isabelle was warmed to her subject now, and she did not hear him.
“Imagine what it meant to me to want that kind of a father, and to get Wally! You all know how I felt. It was just what you felt last night when you saw him first,” she accused them. “When I was a lonely little girl I used to make up stories about the kind of parent I wanted. The made-up one got all mixed up with the real one. So when Peggy asked me if my father was handsome, I didn’t stop to think which one she meant, I just said yes because the make-believe one was awf’ly good looking.”
“But you only have one father, Isabelle,” Peggy defended herself.
“I know I really have only one, but don’t you see, I didn’t mean to tell a lie, even if it did turn out to be one.”
“What did thee tell, Isabelle?” inquired Mrs. Benjamin.
“I told Peggy that my father was handsome, meaning my make-believe one. The girls asked me about him, and I told them a lot of stories about him. They were always asking me to tell more.”
“They were all about rescuing beautiful girls, and catching burglars, and saving children. You ought to have heard what she told us about him!” exclaimed Agnes Pollock.
“Why, Isabelle!”
“But they were true! They did happen to the other one!”