Mrs.Bassett being now at a rest cure in Connecticut, and Bassett, much away from home, and seeing nothing to be gained by keeping his daughter at Fraserville, had persuaded Miss Waring to take her as a special student, subject to the discipline of the school, but permitted to elect her own studies.

It was only because Bassett was a man she liked to please that the principal accepted Marian, now eighteen years old, on this anomalous basis.

Marian was relieved to find herself freed of the horror of college, but she wished to be launched at once upon a social career; and the capital and not Fraserville must be the scene of her introduction.

Bassett was merely tiding over the difficult situation until his wife should be able to deal with it.

Marian undoubtedly wheedled her father a good deal in the manner of handsome and willful daughters.