Sophia Jane took up her grammar again and bent her eyes doggedly upon it.
“I’m not going to buy a head,” she answered.
This decided reply was so unexpected that for the moment Susan was speechless; for on the whole Sophia Jane had seemed to look forward to the purchase, and they had made many plans together about it, so that she had come to think of it as a settled thing. It made her feel injured and disappointed to be thrust out of the matter in this sudden way, for if the head was not to be bought how would Sophia Jane spend the money? She evidently had some secret plan of her own in which Susan was not to share. With a rising colour in her face she said at last:
“I don’t think that’s fair.”
“It’s my money, and I shall do as I like with it,” was Sophia Jane’s only reply.
“But I shouldn’t have given it you,” said Susan hotly, “unless you were going to buy a head.”
Sophia Jane chuckled. “Well, I’ve got it now,” she said, “and I shall keep it.”
“What a naughty, selfish, disagreeable little girl she was!” thought Susan as she stood looking angrily at her.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“That’s a secret,” said Sophia Jane, chinking the money gently in her pocket.