“I’ve lost it,” she said.
“Lost it—what do you mean?”
“Well, not that exactly. I—I’ve torn it up.”
“You wicked little girl!”
Brenda advanced towards poor Nina; but what might have happened was never known, for just at that moment there came a tap at the door, and in walked Penelope. There was a look on her face which the three little Amberleys had never seen there before; but Brenda had on one occasion, that great and auspicious occasion when her younger sister had stood spellbound under the full rays of the electric light, acting the part of Helen of Troy. There was the same rapt gaze, the same expression in her eyes, which seemed to say: “Where’er I came I brought calamity.” Brenda did not know why her heart sank so low in her breast, why the petty, trivial things which had been annoying her a moment before sank utterly out of sight. Penelope looked round at the three girls.
“I want to speak to Brenda,” she said. “Brenda, can I see you alone.”
“You had better go out, girls, as Penelope chooses to be so mysterious,” said Brenda, recovering herself, and speaking in a sulky tone.
It did not take the girls long to put on their sailor hats, and a moment later they had left the room. Then Penelope turned the key in the lock.
“It has come, Brenda,” she said. “I don’t want to reproach you or to say a cross word; but there’s only one thing to be done.”
“What in the wide world do you mean?” said Brenda. “What reason have you for all these heroics?”