Brenda, Her School and Her Club

by Helen Leah Reed

"No," said Julia, laughing at his earnestness, "nor any sisters either."

"Oh, well, you know lots of girls, and you must have heard them talk. I can tell you after I have heard my sisters and their friends talking people over, I think that I will never go to a party again."

"Then why do you?"

"Oh, you have to; some way, the other fellows all kind of make fun of you if you don't, and then your family all get at you, and it's all an awful bore. But when I find a girl like you who don't mind sitting still and talking, I don't have quite so bad a time." Then remembering that a little more politeness was due even to a girl who didn't pretend to be fond of dancing, he added, "Wouldn't you like to try this Portland Fancy? I can generally get through that all right, and I don't mind dancing with you," and though the compliment in the last part of his speech was a little dubious, Julia accepted, to the amazement of some of the other girls, who would have felt themselves very much lowered if obliged to dance with a schoolboy.

After all the gaiety of Christmas week it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for the girls to settle down to work at school. There were so many things to talk over, there was so much to think about. Christmas day itself had been very pleasant for Julia, though it had been kept by her uncle and aunt strictly as a family festival. She and Brenda were the youngest of the group gathered at the table, for Brenda's elder sister was still in Europe, and the other cousins invited to the dinner were all older than Julia and Brenda. The presents were given unostentatiously at breakfast before the arrival of any outside of the household, and Julia was touched to find that she had been remembered not only by the relatives whom she had seen, but by the absent cousins in Europe who had known her only when she was a very little girl. Brenda in her turn was extremely surprised by the handsome gifts which Julia gave to her and to her father and mother. There was the beautiful bracelet which she had been longing for as she had seen it in a Winter street window, with the tiny watch set near the clasp, while for her father and mother was a large paper edition of Thackeray, finely illustrated and elegantly bound. Brenda was too heedless of money herself to stop to count the cost of these gifts, and yet she realized that they must be expensive, and while thanking Julia with the greatest warmth, she wondered how in the world she had been able to afford them.

Her father had laughed as usual at what he called her "silverware," and had asked her again as he had always asked her since she had acquired the habit of present exchanging, as he called it.

"Now, wouldn't it really be more fun to have all your own money again, Brenda, so that you could start out, and buy for yourself the things that you like the most instead of all these odds and ends."

"Oh, papa," Brenda had replied, as she always did, "I just love these things, and I have more presents than almost any girl I know; they say that I really am the most popular."

"Yes," he rejoined, "because you make the most presents. However," as he saw a cloud settling on her face, "I will not say anything if you are happy. Only remember that you won't have any allowance again until the first of March."

But an empty pocketbook did not seem the worst thing in the world to Brenda with her happy-go-lucky disposition, and on the Monday after New Year's, when they were all back in school she was the merriest of the crowd.