The summer passed almost without event. The three girls, hard and brown as Indians, were beginning to plan for the fall, when the others would return.
It was in early September that the blow fell upon Isabelle. A telegram from Wally had appraised his daughter of their arrival in New York. They were to spend the fall at the Club house near The Beeches. He hoped she was well. Did she want him to come and see her?
She answered this briefly, also a note from her mother. As Mrs. Bryce rarely troubled to write letters to any one, Isabelle pondered the reason for this amiable epistle. It was soon to be explained. Mrs. Benjamin received a letter from Mrs. Bryce saying that notification had arrived that Isabelle would be admitted this October to Miss Vantine's Finishing School, where her name had been entered for years. She wished the girl sent directly to this address in New York on the last day of September, as she was to board at the school for the present until it was decided whether the Bryces would open their town house.
Mr. Benjamin shook his head sadly over this letter, and carried it to his wife.
"Adam--Adam, we cannot let her go to _that_ school! It will be her ruination," she exclaimed.
"My dear, it is the most fashionable school in New York," he replied, with a sigh.
"It is shoddy, and artificial and false!" she protested in unwonted heat. "My poor, dear Isabelle! Adam, couldn't we make a plea for her?--tell her mother how she improves here, how fast she progresses?"
"Phoebe dear, dost thou think that that would interest this lady?"
"But we can't let her go without one effort to save her. I think it is as serious as that, at this stage of the girl's development."
"Suppose thee writes a letter to Mrs. Bryce."
"I will. Let us not speak of it to Isabelle until I have her mother's answer."
Mrs. Benjamin wrote and re-wrote the letter. Finally one was despatched and she anxiously awaited the reply. It was long in coming, and it fell like a blow on her heart. Mrs. Bryce was glad to have such a good report of Isabelle, but her plan had always been that the girl should spend, at Miss Vantine's school, the two years previous to her début, as she herself had done. All the girls of her daughter's set went there, and she wished Isabelle to be with them. Thanking Mrs. Benjamin for her interest, etc., etc.