Chapter 29: After Vacation

On Monday morning as might have been expected, Brenda did not awake very early, and though she had a few uneasy minutes as she thought of Mrs. Rosa, on the whole she was too much absorbed by her preparations for school to worry over what had now become a very unpleasant subject to her.

At school all was bustle and excitement for the quarter hour preceding the opening. Some of the girls had been in New York, or even as far as Washington during the vacation, and they had much to tell of their doings. Even those girls who had remained in Boston had had very exciting experiences, or at least this seemed to have been the case judging by the eager tones in which they talked, and the effort of each girl to make herself heard above all the others. If there had been nothing else eventful among the girls of the set to which The Four belonged, the Bazaar would have afforded abundant food for discussion. Even the older girls were interested in this affair, and felt proud of the success of their schoolmates. This morning, too, was an exciting one at the school, because it marked the beginning of the spring term—the last term of regular school for several of Miss Crawdon’s pupils, who next year were to take their place in society. Already in their spring gowns, modeled after the styles of their elders, they looked like young women, and their sweeping skirts and elaborate hats seemed to put a gulf between them and their younger companions. Among the girls of intermediate age there was also a special reason for dreading the spring term, for during the few remaining weeks, two or three of them besides Ruth and Julia were to concentrate all their energy on preparation for the preliminary college examinations. Not all of these girls were likely to go to college, but Miss Crawdon had encouraged them to prepare for the examinations, hoping that their success in passing them might lead them eventually to take the college course.

Even these girls, the less frivolous in the school, were chattering, —or perhaps I should say talking—as eagerly as the others. They had many little points to talk over regarding the requirements for college, the special tutoring they might need, and similar things. Julia, although she had been conscientious in her work during the winter, really did dread the coming ordeal. Examinations of any kind were new to her, for until the past winter her studies had always been carried on in an individual way. It was still a sore point with Brenda that Julia should think of going to college. She felt certain that teaching was her cousin’s ultimate aim, and she did not like the idea at all. A few years before this Brenda had been remarkably free from anything resembling snobbishness. This may have been partly on account of her youth, although a more probable reason was that she had not in her earliest days so many snobbish friends to influence her. For in spite of her intimacy with Nora and Edith, Brenda permitted herself to be too greatly influenced by Belle. Frances Pounder, too, was only one of a group of girls much less simple-minded than Brenda, whom the latter had come to associate with rather closely. Any one of them would have indignantly denied a special regard for money. They would have been pained had you said that they made wealth a consideration in choosing their friends. Yet this was what it amounted to, —their way of cavilling at those who did not belong to their set. They said that family was the only consideration with them. But I doubt that a very poor girl, however good her family, would have been considered by them as welcome as a richer girl of poorer family. There was Julia, for example, who had in every way as strong a claim to consideration as Brenda—for were not the two cousins? Yet Frances invariably had some little supercilious thing to say about Julia—except in the presence of Nora and Edith—and the superciliousness came largely from the fact that she regarded Julia as a poor relation of the Barlows. “She can never be of any great use,” Frances had reasoned, “to us;” including in the latter term all the girls with whom she was intimate, “and therefore what is the good in pretending to be fond of a strong-minded girl who may in a few years be a teacher in a public school? I honestly think that she would just as soon as not teach in a public school, Brenda, for I heard her praising public schools to the sky the other day. I’m sure I wonder that she does not go to a public school instead of to Miss Crawdon’s. It would save your father and mother a lot of money,” concluded Frances, forgetting that how Mr. and Mrs. Barlow spent their money was really no concern of hers. At times Frances laid aside her good manners. Brenda never knew just how to respond to speeches of this kind, and their chief effect was a little feeling of irritation that a cousin of hers should have put herself in this position of being classed with mere wage-earners. Brenda was no longer jealous of Julia in the ordinary sense. She had begun to lose the childish pettishness of her earlier years. Observation was teaching her that even in the one household there could be room for two girls near the same age, and that any privileges or affection accorded Julia did not interfere with her own rights. Indeed had she been perfectly honest with herself she would have admitted that Julia’s companionship during the past winter had really been of great value to her. If any one were to tell her that Julia was not to be in the house with her another year, she would have admitted that she would be lonely. In spite of the childishness which Brenda sometimes showed towards her cousin, the two girls saw a great deal of each other, and Brenda had lately acquired the habit of slipping into her cousin’s room on her way up and downstairs to talk over little happenings of one kind or another.