“Oh—but I should love it!” said the young lady, looking at her sunburnt and badly formed wrist.
“The bangle would give you good style,” said Brenda. “Well, we’ll say nothing about it now—but—well, as I have given you my confidence, you won’t repeat it.”
“I suppose not, but I do want to see your blue silk.”
“All right, you shall, but not the others—I draw the line at the others. You can slip out of bed to-night and come to me, and I will put it on and show myself. I am going away early in the morning before any of you are up.”
“But I am certain father will be up, for he said so, and he’s going to let you in afterwards.”
Brenda considered for a moment—
“I can’t help his letting me in, but he shan’t see me off,” she said—“no one need do that. Well, now—go and join your sisters. Go to bed at the usual hour, and come to me at ten o’clock; then I will put on the dress and you shall judge of the effect.”
The thought of seeing the wonderful dress and of possessing a real gold bangle were two circumstances enough to turn the slight brain of Fanchon Amberley. She did not confide to her sisters what her conversation had been, and managed that evening to elude them and to present herself at Brenda’s door as the clock struck ten. The other two were sound asleep, so she had little difficulty in getting away from them, and, as Brenda was on the watch, she let her pupil in at once, immediately locking the door as soon as Fanchon got inside.
“Now then,” she said, “you just hop on to my bed, for I don’t want you to catch cold. See—here’s the dress.”
Madame Declassé was really an excellent dressmaker, and the pale blue silk would have looked lovely to any eyes, but the unaccustomed ones of Fanchon Amberley fairly blinked as they gazed at it.