So Ann passed out of Isabelle’s life, mourned and lamented for months by the child. She represented the only tenderness, the only understanding and sympathy that came into Isabelle’s childhood. The little belated tendrils of affection she had put forth toward her world, under Ann’s warm influence, shrivelled and died. Her wits against them all, that was the motto she decided upon, in the bitter wisdom of her four brief years.
CHAPTER SIX
During the years that followed many were the governesses set up by Mrs. Bryce to be promptly knocked down, as it were, by Isabelle. They would either depart of their own accord, or they would be sent flying by the irate Mrs. Bryce after some escapade of her incorrigible offspring.
“She’ll end in a reform school!” she remarked to Wally one day, upon the dismissal of the latest one.
He sought out his daughter and laboured with her.
“Look here, kid, how many governesses have you had lately?”
“Oodles of ’em.”