He threw back his head and laughed so heartily at the memory, that she laughed too.
“I’ve always been rather ridiculous, haven’t I?” she asked him.
“My child, that is an elderly remark,” he said, and he left her—on the whole, cheered.
He promptly made his suggestion to the Bryces. It was discussed pro and con and then finally it was decided to ship the girl off, in Miss Watts’s care, for it was evident that she was making herself ill with the humiliation of her failure.
So, one day in November Wally saw them off.
“You look like a Brownie,” he said, as he kissed Isabelle good-bye. “For goodness’ sake, get some flesh on your bones.”
“Don’t worry, old thing,” she answered. “I’ll come back fat, and chastened in spirit.”
He grinned, and ran for the gangway, and stood waving and smiling as the steamer slipped from the pier.