“Y-yes, I do now.”
Notwithstanding her weakness, Nina laughed.
“Well, then—I don’t—do you, Joey?”
“I?” said Josephine. “I believe her less than ever. She is found out, and she means to save herself by spending the money on us. She’s a worse old cat than ever—that’s what I call her.”
“Well—of course,” said Fanchon, “you can tell papa—she told me last night that I could.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” said Nina.
“Well, I don’t think so. I believe her—I really and truly do. She confesses she told that lie about not having money, for she wished to have the thing a secret until we got to the seaside; but that is the whole of her offending. Of course you, girls, can tell papa, but it’ll be very serious, particularly as that awful Miss Juggins has come home to live with her mother.”
“What in the wide world has Miss Juggins to do with it?” exclaimed both sisters.
“Well—she’s out of a situation, and papa is safe and certain to get her to come to us. It was Brenda herself who spoke of her last night. She did not mention her name, but she must have had her in her mind. She is between forty and fifty if she’s a day, and she wears spectacles and has a cast in her eye and she’s a perfect terror. If we get poor Brenda away, we don’t go to the sea, and Juggins comes. It’s because of Juggins that I believe in Brenda—it is really.”
This frank avowal of the cause of her belief had a great influence on the other girls. Josephine sat quite still, evidently in deep thought. Nina lay back against her pillows.