"You may remember last year, when I told you that you were to have a small allowance of money to spend each month as you pleased, I spoke of this as 'earnings.' Although we of the staff had decided that we should not criticise your way of spending it, we thought that by calling the money 'earnings,' you might take better care of it. Well, I know that two or three of you opened small accounts in a savings bank. I know that others have spent the money in useful things for their relatives at home, and more than one, I am sure, has nothing to show for her money except the memory of chocolates and oranges, and perishable ribbons and other fleeting pleasures; but we have agreed not to criticise this expenditure, and I merely refer to them because _I_ know that one of your number has been called a miser, because she was so intent on hoarding that she would not spend a cent for things either useful or frivolous." All eyes were now turned toward Maggie, and for the moment she felt like running from the room. "But before I continue," added Julia, "I must tell you a story," and then in a few words she related the episode of the broken vase; "and now," she concluded, "I will read directly from Mrs. Weston's letter: "'You may imagine my surprise,'" she read, "'when a letter came to me a day or two ago from Maggie McSorley containing a post-office order for twenty-two dollars. This was to pay for the broken vase with interest. It seems she had been saving it all winter from that meagre little allowance you allowed her, and to make up the whole sum she did some work this summer--berry-picking, _I_ believe. Arthur and I were very much touched, and I have put the post-office order away, for I am sure that I should never feel like spending it.'" "Sensible!" exclaimed Miss South, under her breath. Then Julia continued to read from Brenda's letter. "'So of course I want to make it up to Maggie, and I am sending a twenty-dollar gold piece, which you must promise to give her as a prize, on the same day when you give the other prizes, and she's to do exactly what she likes with it. It's a prize for her having learned not to break things. But I'm writing her that I am very glad she broke that vase, for if she had not, I should never have had the chance of having the help she gave me this last, dreadful summer.'" Perhaps Julia need not have read so much of the letter, though in doing so she attained what she had in mind,--to show the girls that Maggie was not a miser, and to explain why Brenda had of late shown so much more interest in her than in some of the other girls.