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
Concetta had hoped that Miss Dreen, who was a little absent-minded,
would fail to notice her absence. Another grievance was added to the
long list that she cherished against Angelina.
But after all they were not kept so very long in suspense, for on the
Saturday after this little episode the doors were thrown open, and all
the girls marched in to see what really had been going on behind the
closed doors. Those in the secret were proud enough, and Maggie in
particular displayed an unexpected talkativeness. At least she was able
to explain the why and wherefore of the exhibit quite to the
satisfaction of all who heard her.
The first exclamations of pleasure were called out by the sight that met
their eyes. One side of the room had been divided by partitions to make
two rooms. Each was furnished completely, and even those girls who were
too old to play with dolls were fascinated by the house; for each of the
two rooms was fitted up with absolute perfectness, from the wall-paper
to the tiny cushions on the sofa. They were on a scale large enough for
everything to be seen in detail, but a degree or two smaller than life
size. Pamela justly prided herself on the completeness of it all, and
this completeness had been made possible only by the kindness of Julia,
who had told her to spare no expense in having the house furnished
exactly as she wished it to be. She was safe in giving this wide
permission, since Pamela's friends all knew that extravagance was
absolutely impossible with her, and that she would use another's money
more carefully even than her own.
Both rooms were furnished like sitting-rooms, but they differed utterly
in style. Maggie put it correctly by saying that one was "warm and
fussy-looking," while the other was "cool and restful."
The floor-covering on the former, painted to imitate a real carpet, was
of bright colors and florid design. The reds and greens of which it was
composed were just a little off the tone of the flowered wall-paper,--a
greenish background with stiff bunches of red flowers, "that look as if
they were ready to jump out at you," as one of the girls put it.
The little chairs and couch were upholstered in bright brocade velvet,
each one different from the others, and none in harmony with the paper
or with each other. On the tiny centre-table were one or two clumsy
pieces of bric-à-brac, and the pictures on the walls were small chromos
in ugly gilt frames. There were bright cushions on the divan, and
crocheted tidies on every chair.
Nellie thought this room "perfectly beautiful." Her cousin's wife, whose
husband was a prosperous teamster, had one almost like it, she said. "Oh
what lovely easy-chairs! I hope I'll have a parlor as elegant as this
some day."
The other room did not please her, it was too plain; whereas Concetta,
within whose breast there must have lingered some remnant of Italian
artistic instinct, thought it altogether beautiful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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