“I’d much rather have flounces,” said Nina, who was nearly in tears. “I like little tiny frills, they are so pretty, and you have given them to Fanchon and to Josephine.”
“That is the very reason, chérie, why you must not have them,” was Brenda’s remark. “The washing will be altogether too expensive. Your poor, dear papa, who is taking no holiday himself, cannot possibly afford the laundry bills which I shall have to send him if all your dresses are flounced.”
This argument seemed conclusive, and Nina had to be satisfied—that is, she pretended to be, but there was her little scheme of vengeance working up in her small brain, and she intended to talk it over with her sisters on the eighth of July, that long, long, wonderful day when beautiful Brenda would not be with them, and when they could do exactly as they liked.
Clever as she was, Brenda could not guess the thoughts which filled her little pupil’s brain, and she was too much interested in her own affairs just then to trouble herself much about so insignificant a young person.
Meanwhile, time flew as it always does when one is busy, and Brenda’s own delicate and beautiful dress arrived at the rectory two days before she was to wear it. Now, Brenda did not want any of her pupils to see her in this dress, and above all things, she did not wish the Reverend Josiah to perceive that she—that absolutely dependent orphan—could leave his establishment attired in pale blue silk. She trusted much to the white serge coat, which she had ordered, to cover the silk. Nevertheless, she knew she must run some dangers. As a matter of fact, she had only spent about thirty shillings on each of her pupils, and had, therefore, purloined from the sum which had been given her for their clothes four pounds ten wherewith to line her own pockets. This she hoped would never be discovered, nor would it have been, had Nina not been quite so sharp, and Fanchon so really discontented with the quality of the muslin dress she was to wear at Marshlands-on-the-Sea.
“Please, please, Brenda,” said Fanchon, on the day before the great fête, “won’t you put on your pale blue silk, and let us see you in it? It has come, I know, for I was in the garden when the carrier arrived with that great box from Madame Declassé’s. Father was with us, and he asked what could be in the box.”
“And what did you say, dear?”
“I said it was a box full of pots for making jam—that you had bought the pots the day we were at Rocheford, as you thought it would be such a good thing for cook to turn all the gooseberries into jam while we were at the seaside.”
“What a very clever little Fanchon you are!” said Brenda, looking very attentively at her pupil. “And what did papa say—dear innocent papa?”
“Oh, he was ever so pleased—he loves gooseberry jam, and said that we must on no account strip the trees beforehand, so as to leave plenty for cook to boil down to put into the pots.”