"There, Brenda, that is just what I have been wishing to speak about to you. I have been afraid that you have been worrying over this. For Uncle Thomas has told me that he has decided not to help you to pay it."
Again the girl to whom she was speaking seemed unlike the old Brenda, for she did not resent the fact that Julia had apparently been taken into Mr. Barlow's confidence to so great an extent.
"Now, Brenda," continued Julia, "as I have said before, I always prefer to come straight to the point, and so I must tell you that the two hundred dollars has been paid to Miss South—the other girls have voted to make her the treasurer—for Mrs. Rosa's benefit."
"Where in the world,—" began Brenda, in a most astonished tone. Then with a glance at Julia's face, over which an expression of self-consciousness was spreading, "Why, Julia Bourne, had you anything, did you, why I really believe that you had something to do with it. Did you get some one to give you the money?"
"No," replied Julia, with a look of relief, "oh, no, no, I made no effort to collect money."
Brenda's wits were now well at work.
"There, Julia, I begin to see; it seemed funny when you paid one hundred dollars for that picture, at least I thought very little about it then, but to-day when I was going over everything connected with the Rosas in my mind, it occurred to me that one hundred dollars was a rather large amount for you to pay, and I meant to ask you how it happened—" then stammering a little, as she realized that this was not a very polite way of putting things, "at least, I know that I should never have so much money saved up from my allowance for any one thing. But you are more sensible than I, and of course you can make money go a great deal farther."
Julia smiled pleasantly, for she understood in spite of a certain confusion of statement, pretty well what her cousin meant.
But still she did not answer immediately, and Brenda, who was now thoroughly herself, exclaimed,
"Do tell me, Julia, did you give that two hundred dollars to Mrs. Rosa, that is, was it a present from you?"