"Oh, if you want to seem really grown-up you'll have to eat oysters off the shell," said Mrs. Barlow. "I believe Brenda has practised so that she can eat them without wincing."
Then Belle, who prided herself on her tact, hastened to change what she knew might become a sore subject with Brenda.
"Were there many people you knew on the train, Miss——"
"Oh, please say Julia," broke in the young girl. "Every one always does. No, there wasn't any one I knew in the cars between here and Chicago. If I had not had Eliza I should have been very lonely."
Brenda had subsided into an unwonted silence. She was wondering how she could excuse herself to her cousin—whether her mother would really make her give up the tableaux for that evening. She heard, without really listening, an animated conversation between her father and Belle on the best way of learning history. Belle believed that more could be learned by general reading than by studying a text-book. "Belle always has so many theories," Brenda was in the habit of saying.
"I wish Jane would hurry with the coffee," she cried.
"Why, Brenda," and her mother looked surprised. "You are not going to have coffee."
"Of course, you know you always let me have a little cup when I'm going out."
"But you are not going anywhere to-night. Didn't you get my message?"
Brenda understood well enough that her mother did not wish to discuss the question of her leaving her cousin when Julia herself was present, yet she persisted.