"Yes," chimed in Brenda, "that's what I say too." But Edith continued in a rather grave voice,

"Of course it's your house, Brenda, and you and Belle started the Club, and no one can compel you to invite any one you don't want. But I'm sure if I had my way Julia should be here this minute, and I'm not sure that I'll stay in the Club if she isn't asked."

"Do you mean you won't work for the Bazaar?" exclaimed Nora in surprise, thinking of Manuel, and of the dainty needlework at which Edith was so skilful.

"I haven't said exactly what I'll do," replied the quiet Edith, with more spirit than she generally displayed. "Only I can tell you that I'm not going to see Julia left out of things the way she has been."

"Oh, Julia's all right," said Brenda scornfully. "She doesn't know how to do fancy-work, and she'd just feel bored if she came to the Club. If you want a 'cause' Edith, you'd better adopt a smaller orphan than Julia."

"Like Manuel," said Edith, with a bright smile, for, determined though she was when she had made up her mind about a thing, she was also a peacemaker. Even when Brenda and Belle most annoyed her, she hesitated to say sharp things to them, remembering that "A soft answer turneth away wrath."

"Yes, like Manuel," said Nora, taking up Edith's words. "I won't give Manuel up to you, for you know that I mean to adopt him myself, but he has a sister, or two of them for that matter, and I shouldn't wonder if either of them would give you enough to do."

"Oh, yes," said Brenda, "they both looked as if they needed lots of clothes. But they have the _sweetest_ black eyes."

"Well, then, why shouldn't we make dresses or ap.r.o.ns or something like that, before we get started on our work for the Bazaar?" asked Edith.

"Oh, how can you?" cried Belle. "Horrid calico dresses and things like that--I should just hate them."

"There, don't get excited," said Nora. "I've thought of that myself. But my mother says there are plenty of Societies and Sewing Circles we can get clothes from, if the Rosas really need clothes. She says it would be bad to begin giving them things."

"Well, then, what are we going to have a Bazaar for?" asked Brenda.

"For fun," responded Belle, so promptly that Nora looked at her a little suspiciously.

"No," replied Nora, "not for fun, but we've got to have an object in a Club of this kind, and besides there'll probably be other things we can do for the Rosas."

"Send them to the country in the summer, perhaps," said Edith.

"There are the Country Week people," cried Belle. "They always do things like that."

"Let's wait until we get the money," said Brenda, grandly. "Perhaps we'll have enough to buy them a house--or----"

"Or a horse and carriage," laughed Edith. "Oh, Brenda, you _are_ so unpractical."

"There, there," said Nora, who saw another cloud rising over the horizon of the Four Club. "Let's talk of something sensible."

"What are you working at, Belle?"

Belle held up a pretty piece of blue denim on which she had begun to outline a pattern in white silk. "This is to be a sofa cushion," she said in answer to Nora's question. "People always like to buy them, and this shade of blue goes with almost anything."

"Oh, it's too sweet for anything," said Nora, enthusiastically.

"Yes, indeed," added Edith, with perfect sincerity. "You do such perfect needlework that I really envy you."

Both Nora and Edith were glad to praise Belle's skill, for although they knew that they themselves had been in the right, they realized that Belle would not feel very kindly toward them for not siding with her in the matter of Julia. Nora, like Edith, was a peacemaker, and both wished the afternoon to end as pleasantly as possible.

Belle was by no means indifferent to the praise of her friends. She really could do very fine embroidery and she took considerable pride in her work.

"I never _could_ have patience to do anything like that," said Nora, whose specialty was crocheting. "I like to do something that I needn't look at all the time. I could crochet an afghan almost in the dark."

"Yes, but an afghan is such an endless piece of work."

"Well, I don't suppose I'll make _many_ of them for the Bazaar."

"I should say not," said Edith. "What are you going to do first, Brenda?

You haven't had a needle in your hand this afternoon."

"I know it, I know it," cried Brenda, the heedless. "But I can't think what to begin first," and she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau, where were displayed a tangled heap of linen and floss and gold thread and silk plush and other materials for fancy work which she had bought at different times. There were cushion covers and doilies in which a few st.i.tches had been taken, only to be thrown aside for something else, and some of them were in so soiled a condition that they were not likely to be good for anything.

"Oh, what a wicked waste of money, Brenda Barlow," exclaimed Nora, as she looked at the contents of the drawer.

"Well, at any rate it shows that I have had good intentions," said Brenda.

IX

A MYSTERIOUS MANSION

At the corner nearly opposite Miss Crawdon's school stood a large, old-fashioned mansion of brick painted light brown. It was a detached house almost surrounded by a high wall. In the wall was a pillared gateway, and each pillar was surmounted by two large b.a.l.l.s that looked as if they had dropped from the mouth of a great cannon. Behind the fence and close to the house were two little garden beds, and there were three or four trees in the yard back of the house. It was said that the mansion had once been surrounded with extensive grounds that sloped down hill almost to the river. But new streets and houses had gradually encroached on these grounds until hardly a trace of them remained. There was never a sign of life seen about the old house. Windows and doors were always closed. Even the blinds were seldom drawn up, though once in a while at an upper window, some of the schoolgirls said that they had seen a woman's figure seated behind the lace curtains. Occasionally, too, on sunny days they had noticed a large, old-fashioned carriage drive up under the porte-cochere, while an old lady very much wrapped up, and attended evidently by a maid, entered it. In taking their walks at recess the girls always pa.s.sed this house, and, as schoolgirls, they naturally felt much curiosity about the lady who occupied it, since she seemed to be surrounded by an air of mystery.

They knew, of course, her name--Madame du Launy--and some of the girls had heard more about her from their parents.

"My mother," said Frances Pounder, "says that my grandmother told her that Mme. du Launy was a very beautiful girl. She married a Frenchman whom her family despised, and she stayed in Europe until after her father's death."

"Was the Frenchman rich?" asked Edith, in rather an awe-stricken voice, for the story sounded very romantic. The girls at this moment happened to be seated on the steps leading to the school, and Frances was in her element when she had an interested group hanging on her words.

"Oh, dear, no, he wasn't rich at all. He was a cook, or a hair-dresser, or something like that, only very good looking. But when Mme. du Launy's father died, she had three little children, and her father was so proud--he was a Holtom--he couldn't bear to think of her coming to want, so he left her all his fortune just the same as if she hadn't married beneath her."

"That was right," said Nora approvingly. "I think it's ridiculous for fathers to cut their children off with a penny, the way they used to."

"Well," responded Frances, "I think it's a great deal more ridiculous for people to marry beneath them."

"Of course you'd think that, Frances," interposed Belle.

"There, there, don't begin to quarrel, children," said Nora. "Go on with the story, Frances. What did Mme. du Launy do when she got her money?"

"Oh, she brought her Frenchman and her children to Boston, and she lived at a hotel while she began to build this house. Some people went to see her, but the Frenchman was a terribly ill-mannered little thing, and n.o.body liked him because he was so familiar. Mme. du Launy and he were hardly ever invited anywhere, and they spent most of their time driving about in a great carriage which held the whole family, and a maid and governess."

"I should think they would have stopped building the house."

"Oh, no," said Edith, "they kept on, and after a while they went to Europe to buy things for it. They had more than a ship-load, and they say that everything was perfectly beautiful,--foreign rugs, and tapestry, and gla.s.s, and gilt furniture."

"Dear me, I should love to have seen it."

"Well, it's all there in the house now, but you'd have to be a good deal smarter than any one I know to see it."