horizon for Paula Breckenridge's daughter so effectively? With
what brisk resoluteness the new mother had cut short the aimless
European wanderings, cropped the child's artificially curled hair,
given away the unsuitable silk stockings and the ridiculous frocks
and hats. Billy, shorn and bewildered, had been brought home; had
entered Miss Proctor's select school, entered Miss Roger's select
dancing class, entered Professor Darling's expensive riding
classes. Billy, in dark-blue Peter Thompsons, in black stockings
and laced boots, had been dropped in among other little girls in
Peter Thompsons and laced boots, little girls with the approved
names of Whittaker and Bowditch, Moran and Merridew and Parmalee.

Billy had never doubted her stepmother's judgment; like all of the
new Mrs. Breckenridge's friends, she was deeply, dumbly impressed
with that lady's amazing efficiency. She had been a spoiled and
discontented little rowdy. She became an entirely self-satisfied
little gentlewoman. Clarence, jealously watching her progress,
knew that Rachael was doing for his daughter far more than he
could ever do himself.

But Rachael, if she had expected reward, reaped none. Her husband
was a supremely selfish man, and his daughter inherited his
sublime ability to protect his own pleasure at any cost. Carol
admired her step-mother, but she was an indolent and luxury-loving
little soul, and even as early as her twelfth or fourteenth year
she had been deeply flattered by the evidences of her own power
over her father. Into her youthful training no reverence for
parents--real or adopted--had been infused; she called her father
"Clancy," as some of his intimate friends called him, and he
delighted to take her orders and bow to her pretty tyranny.