"Why, don't you know? At the end of the year the very best girl at the Mansion is to have a prize. I shouldn't wonder if it would be a gold watch." "Oh, I don't believe it." "Then you can ask Miss Bourne." A few days later Concetta had a chance to put the question to Julia. "Yes, indeed, there are to be two prizes: one for the girl who has tried the hardest, and the other for the one who has succeeded the best." "Which will get them, Miss Bourne?" "Ah, how can I tell?" "I don't see how any one can tell; no one is watching us all the time." "Some one does take account, Inez, of almost everything that you say and do." "Oh, dear, I hate to be spied on," grumbled Concetta. "No one is spying, I can assure you; but there are certain things that we notice carefully, and you have all been here so long that we know pretty well just what you are likely to do." "I expect some one marks everything down in a book, like they used to at school?" Maggie put this as a question, but Julia did not reply directly. "All the advice I can give you is to do as well as you can, and whether things are written in a book or not you will fare very well--at least, you will all fare alike." "What will the prizes be, Miss Bourne?" "Ah, I cannot tell exactly." Thereupon the girls all fell to speculating not only about the prizes, but about the kind of conduct that would win one. While they were discussing this, Julia called to them from the floor above, "Have you forgotten that this is your shopping day?" Then there was a scampering, and the girls who were to go with her began to get ready. Each girl went shopping with one of the staff every three months, and to-day the group was to consist of Concetta, Inez, Maggie, and Nellie. It was Julia's turn to take them, and this was not wholly to the satisfaction of Concetta. "I thought Miss Barlow said that she would go with us this time," she murmured, as they left the house. She knew very well that if Brenda were their shopping guide they would be able to purchase according to their own sweet wills. She would be likely to approve everything that they bought, provided that they had money to pay for it, and it was even possible that she might supplement their allowance from her ever generous purse. Thus, indeed, had she done on the one occasion when she had taken them out, and her liberality had been even magnified by the lively tongues of those who had described it.