Rosie broke off and Janet, understanding her thought, murmured hastily: "No, no, Rosie! Of course you can't take any of that!"
Janet was right. Rosie could not possibly raid her own bank. Too many eyes were upon her. Yet all she needed was a quarter: ten cents for herself, ten for Janet, and five for her small brother. She couldn't go without Janet and Jack and, as she hadn't a cent anyhow, it was just as easy to plan the expenditure of a quarter as of a dime.
She wondered idly if there could by some happy chance be more in her bank than she supposed. She hadn't counted her savings for nearly a week. There wasn't much likelihood that a dime or a quarter or a nickel had escaped her count, but perhaps now—... There was one chance in a thousand, for Rosie was not very strong in addition. At any rate, after supper she would slip up to the wardrobe and, with a bent hairpin, make investigations. A dollar ninety-five was all she was responsible for to the world at large. If her bank contained more, she could appropriate the surplus and no one be the wiser.
Supper afforded one excitement.
"Oh, lookee!" Jack suddenly cried, pointing an excited finger at Ellen. It was the period of pompadour and false hair and Rosie and Terence, following Jack's finger, saw a new cluster of shiny black curls in Ellen's already elaborate coiffure.
"Get on to the curls, Rosie," Terence remarked facetiously. "Lord, ain't we stylish!"
Ellen made no remark but seemed a little flurried.
"Shame on you, Terry!" Mrs. O'Brien expostulated. "Talkin' so of your own sister! Don't you know if Ellen's to be a stenog, she's got to be careful of her appearance? All the young ladies at the college are wearing curls."
Terence answered shortly: "She can wear all the curls she wants as soon as she's able to pay for them. But I tell you one thing, Ma: you needn't think you're going to get me to pay for them, because I won't. She tried to work me for them last week and I told her I wouldn't."
Ellen regarded her brother distantly. "You make me tired, Terence O'Brien. When you're asked to pay for these curls it'll be time for you to squeal."