“Did I? Excuse me. Now go easy this time. We’ve got to get somebody, and we won’t find an archangel, either.”
“I’d like an archangel,” she remarked earnestly, her flagging interest reviving. “But she couldn’t swim with wings, could she?”
Wally groaned, but made no reply. At the college agency, they telephoned for two applicants, and after what seemed to Wally a week of tedium, they arrived. The first one was pretty and she knew it. She talked a great deal, and was saccharine to the little girl. Isabelle shook her head twice, but Wally seemed hypnotized by the woman’s eloquence.
“Don’t let her talk, Wally; I won’t have her,” announced Isabelle.
It took considerable finesse on Wally’s part to get this explained and to get the young woman out of the room.
“One more remark from you, like that last one, and I will engage the next hatchet-face that appears,” he thundered.
“What is a hatchet-face?” she asked, with interest.
The other girl was tall, and undeniably plain. She was deeply tanned by the sun. She looked athletic, boyish in fact. She had a nice voice, and clear grey eyes. She met Isabelle’s inspection with a grin. The child slid off her chair and went over to her.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Ann. Ann Barnes.”