Brenda's Bargain: A Story for GirlsReed, Helen Leah
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Brenda's Bargain: A Story for Girls
Reed, Helen Leah
Boston (Mass.) -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"But how much of your pocket-money goes in fines or in cab-hire when you
are called out in sudden emergencies?" whereat Nora blushed to a degree
sufficient to show that Toby had hit somewhere near the truth; for
Nora's Sunday-school class, though not in a mission, was yet made up of
boys who were remarkably free from a sense of responsibility, and it was
this sense of responsibility that Nora tried to impress upon them; and
to assure them of her interest, she did all that she could for them in
their every-day life, and not infrequently was to be met with some of
them escorting her even on one of the fashionable thoroughfares. Nora
did not flinch at the smiles that some of her friends bestowed on her
when they met her with her cavaliers.
Yet her interest in these boys did not prevent her having as great an
interest in the girls at the Mansion, and in many a little emergency she
was the right-hand helper of Julia and Miss South. It was Nora, too, who
kept up the most active communication with Mrs. Rosa and the Rosa
children at Shiloh. Manuel, indeed, was her especial pride, although she
persisted that she was not entitled to all the praise that the family
lavished on her for having rescued him years before from being run over.
Angelina's sister was not as self-sufficient as she, and was only too
glad to look up to Miss Gostar for advice and praise. Moreover, Nora
gave perhaps a little less time than the others to the work at the
Mansion, because she was especially interested in a Boys' Club. Some of
her Sunday-school boys were in it, though a few of the club thought
themselves too old for Sunday school. What Nora managed to accomplish in
the course of a week was always a wonder to her friends, who with fewer
home duties still seldom had time for outside work. Though her two elder
brothers had gone from home, one to the West and one to New York, Toby
and Stanley made constant demands upon her. "They not only expect me,"
she said, laughing, "to see that their buttons and gloves are in order,
but wish me to be at home whenever they have invited any special friends
to the house, and at pretty frequent intervals they expect me to ask
some girl or another in whom they have a special interest. But they are
very good to me, too," she would conclude, "and without one or the other
of them to escort me where I wish to go, I do not see what I should do.
I'd even have to stay away from the Mansion sometimes."
The class in invalid cookery proved a great success, and Miss South, as
she tasted one after another of the savory little dishes offered her by
the proud cooks, said that she almost wished that she might be ill
enough to have these jellies and broths recommended to her for a steady
diet.
Gretchen, to whom she said this, seemed greatly amused by the idea, and
smiled and smiled, and finally broke into a loud laugh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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