"I think you're too plain to go on the stage, myself," was the withering reply, but it did not wither Isabelle. "Beauty, my dear, is nothing; Art is everything," was her unassailable reply. So upon the wings of romance Isabelle floated through the spring term. She was to spend the summer at an inn in the mountains, as The Beeches was not to be opened. Her parents and teachers, encouraged by three months of good behaviour, believed that a permanent change of heart had taken place in the girl. On the day of her departure, Miss Vantine congratulated her upon her improvement, and alluded to the coming year as the crown of her achievements. Isabelle smiled politely, for she had thoroughly decided in her own mind that this was her farewell to school. CHAPTER TWENTY If Max and Wally had ever shown one grain of intelligence in regard to Isabelle they never would have taken her to this big, fashionable mountain inn where her field of adventure was so greatly enlarged. But they never had shown any discrimination in regard to her, so nothing could be expected of them at this stage. Isabelle was a marked figure wherever she went now. She had forcibly taken over the matter of her own wardrobe in the spring of this year. Max had never made a success of it because she never gave any study to the girl's points; she dismissed her as plain, and bought her things with indifference. Now Isabelle had a flair for the odd, and she understood her own limitations and her own style. She was small, and slim as a reed, without being bony. She had what she called "hair-coloured" hair, and an odd face--wide between the eyes, but a perfect oval in shape. Her eyes were her only beauty. Fluffy, young-girl clothes merely accentuated her lack of youthful prettiness. With unerring instinct as a child, she had chosen her riding clothes to show off in. Now these same clothes formed the basis of her system. By day she was always in tailored frocks of the strictest simplicity. They were linen, or silk, or wool, made after the same model. Slim, tight skirt; slim, fitted coat; sailor hat, and strange boots, which she had made to order after her own design. They were like short riding boots, pulled on and crumpled over the instep like a glove. She was striking, _chic_, a personality. "By Jove! Isabelle gets herself up smartly, Max," commented Wally, soon after their arrival at the inn. Their daughter walked toward them, with every eye on the long piazza following in her wake. "It is too _outree_, but it is effective. She knows everybody looks at her, she intends they shall, but look how the monkey carries it off," laughed Max, struck into a sort of admiration. "What's doing with you to-day, my noble parents?" "Oh, I don't know. What are _you_ doing?" Wally answered. "I'm going to ride. I can't stand this clack-clatter," she said, indicating the groups on the veranda. "Dull lot, don't you think?"