"Why, how pretty your room looks," exclaimed Mrs. Barlow; "I had almost forgotten that it could be so pleasant."

"That sounds as if you had not been up here for some time, and indeed I was thinking myself only this morning that you had rather neglected me lately--at least in the matter of visiting me."

"I know it, dear child, but you know that I have been very busy this winter. There are many things to occupy me, and the Boston season is so short. We haven't had one of our pleasant chats here for several weeks.

But I hope that you are perfectly comfortable. I am sure that you would tell me if you should need anything that I had overlooked."

"Nothing has ever been overlooked, Aunt Anna, that could add in any way to my comfort."

"Then you are perfectly contented. Sometimes I fancy that I see an expression on your face that seems to indicate--well, not discontent, but something of the kind, as if you were a little unhappy."

"Oh, no indeed, Aunt Anna. You are all too kind, and I enjoy every moment in Boston. Of course I miss poor papa, but he had expected to leave me for so long a time, that I was prepared, and he himself always said that he wished me to think of him as only gone away for a time, yet of course I miss him. But then you and Uncle Thomas have been everything to me, and so thoughtful. I can't imagine a more delightful room than this with the view of the river, and these dainty, artistic things about me, and my own piano and books. You have no idea how I have enjoyed it."

"Well, I am glad that it all pleases you, for perhaps we could not have done as well for you if Agnes had been at home. You know that this was her studio, and no other room in the house is so large and cheerful. Now it has always seemed hard that you could not have kept Eliza with you this winter; she had been a part of your old life, and you would have been much happier with some one to talk with about it."

"Of course I should have been glad to have had her with me, but I couldn't insist on her staying when her brother needed her so much after the death of his wife. I had such an amusing letter from one of her little nieces the other day, thanking me for lending them their Aunt Eliza, and saying that they did not know when they could return her."

"Then she can't come to spend the summer at Stormbridge?"

"I do not exactly know, for Eliza has not written to me herself; but I half believe that it is better for me to do without a maid; I feel ever so much more independent, although naturally I _do_ miss Eliza."

Mrs. Barlow smiled at the philosophic tone which

Julia had a.s.sumed, for she had quietly made her own observations on the state of Julia's mind when at the very beginning of her stay in Boston Eliza had been called away.

"Another year you may need somebody, even if you cannot have Eliza. The older a girl grows the more st.i.tches there are to be taken for her, and next season you will have less time than at present to do things for yourself."

"But I like this feeling of independence, or rather I like to feel that I have to depend almost entirely on myself; I am just so much more of a person than I should be if I had Eliza to wait on me constantly, as I used to."

"A certain amount of independence in a young girl is a good thing,"

replied Mrs. Barlow, "and I am glad that yours takes a somewhat different form from Brenda's. I wonder, for example, where she is this afternoon. She had an appointment at her dressmaker's, but when I went there to make a suggestion or two about her new coat, they told me that she had not been there, and here it is near dinner-time with no sign of Brenda. Probably she is with Belle or some of the girls, but still I do not like her going off in this way."

While Mrs. Barlow was speaking Julia hoped that she would not ask her if she had seen Brenda, and fortunately she did not do so. To be sure, Julia had nothing special to tell, and indeed had not her aunt spoken of the broken appointment at the dressmaker's, she might have mentioned the glimpse of Brenda that she had had down town, but now she began to suspect that something was wrong, at least it was strange that Brenda should have deceived her mother about the dressmaking appointment. The dressmaker's rooms were not down town, so that it was not this appointment that had taken her to the neighborhood of Winter street.

"But where have you been, yourself, this afternoon, Julia?" asked Mrs.

Barlow; and Julia told her of her visit to the Rosas, and of the plans that Miss South had suggested for raising them out of their present trouble. "I am afraid that Brenda won't agree with her," she said, "for she has the idea that the one thing needful is to give Mrs. Rosa a large sum of money to spend just as she likes."

"Brenda isn't very practical," replied Mrs. Barlow. "I only wish that she had your common sense; or if she were more like Agnes, it would be better, for although Agnes is an artist, she is decidedly practical."

"Oh, Brenda is so much younger," said Julia apologetically.

"Yes, I know it, that is undoubtedly one reason for her heedlessness, but it sometimes seems as if her wilfulness increases every day. I am afraid, too, that she has not always been considerate of you; I have been wishing to speak of this for a long time, though it is not an easy thing to do. It would pain me very much to have you feel that any of us--even Brenda had been inhospitable."

"Oh, no indeed, Aunt Anna, I am not likely to think anything of that kind. I make allowances for Brenda, and I honestly think that she is getting to like me better."

"There ought not to be any question of that kind. If it were not for Belle, Brenda would be inclined to throw herself more upon you, but I am sure that Belle keeps her stirred up all the time. But there--I ought not to talk so much about this, at least to you, only I have thought that I ought to tell you that your uncle and I have feared that you have had several experiences this winter that were not altogether pleasant, and I should fail in my duty if I did not express our appreciation of your patience."

Then rising from her chair, Mrs. Barlow leaned over Julia, and kissed her on the forehead, saying as she turned to leave the room, "We have barely time now to get ready for dinner."

Just as Julia opened her door to go down to the library where she usually talked with her uncle for a few minutes before dinner, she saw Brenda rushing upstairs to the floor above.

"Where's Brenda?" asked Mr. Barlow, as they took their places at the table. There was a note of severity in his voice, that Mrs. Barlow and Julia detected at once.

"Why, she has been out all the afternoon," replied the former; "but I have sent word for her to hasten downstairs."

At this moment the delinquent entered the dining-room, and took her place at the table. Although she had changed her street dress, she had apparently dressed in a great hurry, and her hair looked almost disheveled, as she had evidently not had time to rearrange it.

Hardly responding to the greetings of her parents and cousin, Brenda began to talk very rapidly about--well about the subject to which many of us turn when we are embarra.s.sed,--the weather.

"Yes," said her father, in a kind of general response to her very vague remarks. "Yes, I will admit that it has been a fine day, almost the first really springlike day that we have had, that it is a delightful day to have been out in the open air, but all this does not prevent my asking you why you should be so late to dinner; you know my rule, and that I shall have to punish you in some very decided way if this happens again."

"For once Brenda has no excuse ready," added Mrs. Barlow; "now _I_ am anxious to know where you have been this afternoon?"

Brenda turned very red before replying, "Oh, Belle and I have been together."

"I dare say," said Mr. Barlow, "but that does not tell us where you have been?"

"Any one would think," cried Brenda, almost in tears, "that I was a girl of ten years of age. I do not know any one who has to account for everything she does; there is not a girl at school who is watched in this way."

"Sometimes I think that it would be better if you were under closer guardianship. Some one has been telling me that you need it."

Brenda flashed a glance at Julia as if she might be the informant, and Julia rejoiced that she had not even mentioned having seen Brenda down town.

"You were not at the dressmaker's this afternoon," said Mrs. Barlow reproachfully.

"I hope that you were not on the bridge, looking at the crews," said Mr.

Barlow.

"No," said Brenda quickly, "I was not. Why did you think of that?"

"Because some one has been telling me that a number of foolish girls are in the habit of going where the Harvard Bridge is building on fine afternoons, just as the cla.s.s crews are out exercising, and that some of these girls always wave their handkerchiefs, and even cheer, as their favorites come near--and more than this some one has told me that you are often to be seen among these girls; now, Brenda, I tell you frankly that this won't do."

"Oh, papa, you are so particular; a great many girls think that it is perfectly proper to go there, and no one ever says a word about it. I wonder who told you; some old maid, I am certain of that."

"No, indeed, no old maid, but a young man, and a student, too. He felt very sorry that you should be seen there; he says that there is always a great mixture of people in the crowds on the bridge, and that it must be far from an agreeable place for a young lady, besides not being a proper one."

"Well I only wish that I could tell who that young man is," cried Brenda. "I should call him a perfect goose."

"He is far from that," responded Mr. Barlow; "and I ought to say that I agree with him thoroughly. I only wish that I had heard about this before, and now I hope that you will understand, Brenda, that you are forbidden to go near the Harvard Bridge in the afternoon."

"Not to the bridge at all!" cried Brenda, in a most doleful voice. "Why, I can't see the harm."

"Well, I can, and that is enough."

"You can go to the races themselves, Brenda, when they actually come off," interposed Mrs. Barlow, "but if you think it over, you will see good reasons for not hanging about the bridge, as a boy might, merely to see the crews pa.s.s."

Brenda made no attempt at further argument, and one result of the little discussion that there had been about the bridge and the crews was to divert her father and mother from asking further questions about the way in which she had spent this particular afternoon. She was rather relieved when the evening pa.s.sed without Julia's referring to having seen her down town. She was almost sure that Julia and Miss South had recognized her, and Belle and she were in dread lest in this way her father and mother should learn that she and her rather mischievous friend had gone alone to a matinee.

For this was now Brenda's secret,--she had not only gone down town alone, but she had gone to the Music Hall without an older person accompanying her. With parents as indulgent as hers there seemed no need for her to try to secure forbidden pleasures. Nor would she probably have done this but for Belle. It had been the study of Belle's life to get what she wished in a clandestine way. Her stern old grandmother was constantly forbidding her to do this thing or that, and her commands were often really unreasonable. No one was quicker to detect this than Belle herself, and it was on this ground that she often excused her own disobedience. "Why even mamma does not expect me to mind everything that grandmamma says," and as her mother was rather timid, as well as half-ill all the time, she gave her self-possessed daughter very few commands of her own.