“All right,” said Nina, “I’d like that best, for I could kick you both if you were troublesome.”
“I certainly can’t stay,” remarked Penelope. “I promised to come to you for part of a day, Brenda, and surely we can say all we want to say between now and nightfall.”
“You are horribly disobliging,” said Brenda.
“The carriage is coming for me too,” exclaimed Penelope; “I really must go back.”
“You could send a note quite well, that is, if you were really nice.”
The five girls had now gone upstairs, Mademoiselle had retired to her stifling attic. Mademoiselle was hiding her time. After a little further conversation Brenda perceived that it was quite useless to expect Penelope to remain for the night in the boarding-house, and accordingly, with extreme sulkiness, gave up her plan of impressing Harry with the elegant demeanour of her own sister that night. The next best thing, however, was to take Penelope for a walk. This she proceeded to do. The girls were told they might amuse themselves, which they did by locking themselves into their bedroom and examining the two brooches and the false bangle until they were fairly weary of the subject. Each girl in turn tried on the brooches, and each girl slipped the bangle on her wrist to shoot it off the next moment in horror and let it lie on the floor.
“Ugly, coarse, common thing!” said Fanchon. “Oh! when I remember my beauty, you can’t even imagine, girls, what it was like.”
“But it seems so ridiculous that Brenda could have given it to you,” said Nina. “Brenda might rise to a shilling thing, but as to the bangle you describe—”
“Well, well—I know nothing about it,” exclaimed Fanchon. “I only know that she did give it to me. Perhaps she inherited it from a relation. She wanted me to be friends with her, anyhow, and so she gave it to me, although I was not to have it for my absolute very, very own until we return to Harroway.”
“Well—I shouldn’t think you would much value that thing!” exclaimed Nina, kicking the false bangle across the room with her foot.