not read the last two chapters, when I tried to yesterday. I found that I did n’t care whether they died or got married, or, indeed, what happened to them.”
“If we don’t take care,” said Brenda, “we ’ll be models, like Julia and Amy, in our reading. I don’t suppose that either one of them has ever read a book that she ought n’t to in her life.”
“We ’re not exactly in the same class with them now,” responded Nora; “but we might try to do all we can now, to make up for ‘wasted opportunities,’ as they say in sermons.”
Although the girls might jest a little about their taste in reading, it was certainly true that the row of paper novels disappeared from the shelves in Brenda’s room. They were sent upstairs to a large unused room where the magazines and other summer literature found a resting place, until Mrs. Barlow had time to sort it all over to send to various institutions where reading-matter was desired. She smiled when she found the half-dozen “Countess” books there, and she put them in the pile that was intended for kindling.
“I do not really suppose,” she said to herself, “that they would do great harm to any one, if packed in one of my hospital boxes, and yet, on the whole, they would do so little good, that I shall be glad to tell Brenda that when I saw them, I availed myself of the opportunity to burn them. She ought never to have owned them; but when I found that she had read them, I was perfectly willing to wait a little until she herself gave them up.
