Brenda's Bargain Part 30

When she joined them Lois apologized for having come so early.

"You wrote me that this was to be the most remarkable prize-day you had ever had, and I thought that I might make myself useful by arriving this morning. But if you tell me that I am in the way, I'll bear the reproof for the sake of the pleasure I've had in meeting Clarissa. I had not realized that her visit to you had already begun."

"Oh, we didn't tell you purposely. We wished to surprise you," and then the conversation drifted naturally to their Radcliffe days.

Julia herself brought it to an end by asking her friends to go to the gymnasium, where they could make themselves useful by talking to her while she did several necessary things in connection with the award of the prizes.

"It seems to me that it's always a prize-day here at the Mansion. Didn't you have several last winter?" asked Lois. "I remember the tableaux, and the valentines, and there were some prizes for sc.r.a.p-books, and dolls, and--"

"Well," said Julia, with a smile, "if compet.i.tion is the soul of trade, why shouldn't it be the soul of education? At any rate, we feel that at the Mansion we can accomplish a great deal by stimulating the girls with the hope of a future reward. The prize award to-day, however, is nothing new. Prizes will be awarded on last year's record. You must remember that we promised two--one to the girl who had improved the most, who had succeeded in reaching the highest standard, and one to her who tried the hardest."

"Ah, yes, I remember," responded Lois; "but I thought that they were to be given last year."

"We were too much occupied at the end of the season with thoughts of the war. We decided to postpone the prize-day until autumn."

"It's well that you did," said Clarissa, "otherwise you wouldn't have had the pleasure of hearing me make a speech on the happy occasion," and she drew herself up to her full height, as if about to begin an eloquent oration.

When afternoon came a baker's dozen of girls a.s.sembled in the gymnasium, which was tastefully decorated with flags, branches of autumn foliage, and long-stemmed, tawny chrysanthemums arranged in tall vases.

Besides the pupils there were present all the staff of the Mansion, but no outsiders, since this, after all, was to be a family affair--no outsiders, at least, except Clarissa; for Lois, like Nora and Amy, and one or two other friends of Julia's, were accounted members of the staff, though their help was less definite than that of Julia and Pamela and the other residents of the Mansion.

As the girls took their places in a semicircle in front of the little platform, they talked to one another in an undertone.

"I hear that the prizes are perfectly beautiful. Miss Brenda, I mean Mrs. Weston, sent one of the prizes, but I don't know what it is."

"Whom did you vote for, Concetta?"

"Oh, that's telling; we were not to tell until all the votes were counted; but I think--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Miss Julia's going to speak."

Then as all the eager faces turned toward her, Julia began her informal address.

"I need not remind you that last winter you were told that two prizes would be awarded at the end of the season. The first to the girl who in every way had been the most successful--whose record was really the best. The second to the girl who had succeeded in making the most of herself. Miss South and I have watched you all carefully. Every day we made a record of your improvement--in some cases, I am sorry to say, of your lack of improvement. We have talked the matter over, and have asked Miss Northcote to help us decide; and after we three had made one decision, we referred it to every other person who had lived here the past year, or who had taught you even for a short time."

Julia's natural timidity heightened perhaps the seriousness of her tone, and the faces before her grew sober.

"Now at one time, as I think I told you, we thought of leaving it to you girls to vote on both the first and the second prizes; but on second thought we have seen that the first prize ought to be based on the records that have been kept. Accordingly," and she opened a box that lay on the table before her, "it gives me great pleasure to present this case of scissors to Phoebe, as a prize awarded her for having made the best record in work and in all other things during the past year."

Now Phoebe had been so quiet a girl, so colorless in many ways, that no one had thought of her as a possible prize-winner. She accepted the scissors with a smile and a word of thanks, and pa.s.sed the red morocco case around the circle that all might see its contents--six pairs of scissors, of the finest steel, ranging in size from a very small pair of embroidery scissors to the largest size for cutting cloth.

There were whispered comments in the interval that followed. One girl expressing her astonishment that Phoebe had been the winner, another replying, "Why, she never did wrong, not once; didn't you ever notice?"

Then in a little while Julia spoke again.

"We have decided to let you vote for the girl who deserves the second prize. Remember it is to be given to the girl who has made the most of herself, who has shown the greatest improvement. Each must write her choice independently on one of these slips of paper, and at the end of ten minutes Miss Herter will collect the slips."

As they wrote, the faces of the girls were worth studying. Evidently the matter was one that demanded deep thought. They bit their pencils, and looked at one another, and at last wrote the name in haste and folded the slip with the air of having accomplished a great thing. There were some, of course, who wrote their choice instantly, and with no hesitation, and waited almost impatiently for Clarissa to collect the slips. But at last the votes were in, and as it did not take long to count them, the result was soon known.

"Nine votes--a majority--for Nellie, and it is confirmed by the staff,"

announced Clarissa in her clearest tones. At this there was much clapping of hands, and even a little cheering, for Nellie was a favorite, and no one begrudged her the set of ebony brushes and mirror for her table. Even Concetta and Haleema seemed content with the result, although more than one of the judges surmised that the slips that bore the names of these two girls were written each by the girl whose name it bore.

There was justice in this award to Nellie, who a year before had been the most hoidenish of young Irish girls, in speech more difficult to understand than any of the others, in dress untidy to an extent bordering on uncouthness, and in disposition apparently very slow to learn the ways of an ordinary household. By the end of the season her speech had become clear and distinct, though with a charming brogue; her dress had become neat and tasteful, and she could make most of her own clothes, and Miss Dreen considered her the deftest of her waitresses.

Perhaps, however, the vote would not have been so nearly unanimous had not Nellie also endeared herself to the girls by a certain sunniness of disposition. She had not made a single enemy during the whole year. But in the midst of their congratulations--from which the blus.h.i.+ng Nellie would gladly have escaped--the girls again heard Julia's voice.

"I have here a letter from Mrs. Arthur Weston ["Miss Brenda," two or three explained to their neighbors], who expresses her regret that she cannot be with us to-day."

Julia would have been glad to read her cousin's letter to the girls, had it not been written in so unconventional a style as to make this impossible. There were pa.s.sages, however, that it seemed wise to give at first hand, and with one or two slight changes of wording she was able to read them. But first she had a word or two of explanation.

"You may remember last year, when I told you that you were to have a small allowance of money to spend each month as you pleased, I spoke of this as 'earnings.' Although we of the staff had decided that we should not criticise your way of spending it, we thought that by calling the money 'earnings,' you might take better care of it. Well, I know that two or three of you opened small accounts in a savings bank. I know that others have spent the money in useful things for their relatives at home, and more than one, I am sure, has nothing to show for her money except the memory of chocolates and oranges, and perishable ribbons and other fleeting pleasures; but we have agreed not to criticise this expenditure, and I merely refer to them because _I_ know that one of your number has been called a miser, because she was so intent on h.o.a.rding that she would not spend a cent for things either useful or frivolous."

All eyes were now turned toward Maggie, and for the moment she felt like running from the room.

"But before I continue," added Julia, "I must tell you a story," and then in a few words she related the episode of the broken vase; "and now," she concluded, "I will read directly from Mrs. Weston's letter:

"'You may imagine my surprise,'" she read, "'when a letter came to me a day or two ago from Maggie McSorley containing a post-office order for twenty-two dollars. This was to pay for the broken vase with interest.

It seems she had been saving it all winter from that meagre little allowance you allowed her, and to make up the whole sum she did some work this summer--berry-picking, _I_ believe. Arthur and I were very much touched, and I have put the post-office order away, for I am sure that I should never feel like spending it.'"

"Sensible!" exclaimed Miss South, under her breath.

Then Julia continued to read from Brenda's letter.

"'So of course I want to make it up to Maggie, and I am sending a twenty-dollar gold piece, which you must promise to give her as a prize, on the same day when you give the other prizes, and she's to do exactly what she likes with it. It's a prize for her having learned not to break things. But I'm writing her that I am very glad she broke that vase, for if she had not, I should never have had the chance of having the help she gave me this last, dreadful summer.'"

Perhaps Julia need not have read so much of the letter, though in doing so she attained what she had in mind,--to show the girls that Maggie was not a miser, and to explain why Brenda had of late shown so much more interest in her than in some of the other girls.

So Maggie in her turn was congratulated, the more heartily even, because Miss South had added a word to Julia's speech by saying that, before Brenda's letter had come, she had contemplated a special prize for Maggie, since the latter had certainly succeeded in her efforts to overcome some of her more decided faults,--"'A reward,' rather than 'a prize,' perhaps we should call it, but, by whatever name, equally deserved."

That evening, after Clarissa had accepted Lois' invitation to go with her to her Newton home for a day or two, Julia decided to go to her aunt's to spend the night. The family had not yet returned to town, though the house was now ready for them. A care-taker and another servant were in charge, and, weary from her exertions of the afternoon, Julia was rather glad of the rest and quiet that the lonely house afforded.

But although she enjoyed the quiet, the very freedom from interruption gave her time for disquieting thoughts. She began to reflect upon her own loneliness, upon the fact that she was not really necessary to anybody. Her uncle and aunt were kindness itself, but even they did not depend upon her.

Every one--even little Manuel Rosa--was of special importance to some one else, while among all the people in her circle she alone seemed to stand quite by herself. The thought wore upon her, and deepened when she thought of Brenda's absence. Later, when she went to Brenda's room to put away some things that she had promised to pack for her, the cover slipped from a little pasteboard box that she had lifted from a shelf.

Glancing within she saw some bits of broken, iridescent gla.s.s. The sight made her smile. "Brenda's bargain," she said; "how absurd that whole thing was,--the loss of the vase, the acquisition of Maggie; and yet I am not sure," she continued to herself, "but that Brenda gained by the exchange. I am not sure but that Maggie was a better investment than any of us at first realized. She has been one of the means, certainly, by which Brenda has gained a truer knowledge of herself."

Nor was Julia wrong in this. Maggie unconsciously had helped Brenda to a knowledge of herself; for the Brenda of the past year had been very different from the Brenda of six years before. The earlier Brenda, as Julia had first known her, had been unwilling to admit herself wrong, even when her blunders stared her in the face. But the latter Brenda had profited by her own blunders, in that she had been willing to learn from them; and though Maggie had been only one of the elements working toward Brenda's uplifting, she had had her part in the progress of the past year.

Thinking of Brenda in this light, dwelling on the affection that had so increased as the two cousins had come to understand each other, Julia became more cheerful. She felt that she no longer stood alone, for even setting aside her circle of warm friends (how had she dared to overlook them?), was she not in her aunt's household a fourth daughter, and loved as well--almost as well--as Caroline, or Agnes, or Brenda?

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, _Publishers_

254 WAs.h.i.+NGTON STREET, BOSTON, Ma.s.s.