as not surprised, and only repeated
a little louder:

"Here's your money!"

Sophia Jane looked up from her book, which Susan now saw to be a French
grammar, and said, holding out her hand:

"Give it to me."

"You ought to say `Thank you,'" remarked Susan in the reproving voice
she often used to her companion.

Sophia Jane counted the coins carefully, going twice through the pennies
to be sure there were the right number. Then she said shortly:

"It's all right."

"Of course it's right!" cried Susan indignantly. But it was not of the
least use to be angry with Sophia Jane; she was now dropping the pieces
of money one by one into her pocket with a thoughtful air, and seemed
hardly to know that Susan was there. The latter waited a moment and
then said:

"Shall I ask Aunt Hannah if we may go to Miss Powter's this afternoon?"

"What for?" asked Sophia Jane.

"What for!" repeated Jane in extreme astonishment. "Why, of course, now
you've got the money, you'll go and buy the head."

Sophia Jane took up her grammar again and bent her eyes doggedly upon
it.

"I'm not going to buy a head," she answered.

This decided reply was so unexpected that for the moment Susan was
speechless; for on the whole Sophia Jane had seemed to look forward to
the purchase, and they had made many plans together about it, so that
she had come to think of it as a settled thing. It made her feel
injured and disappointed to be thrust out of the matter in this sudden
way, for if the head was not to be bought how would Sophia Jane spend
the money? She evidently had some secret plan of her own in which Susan
was not to share. With a rising colour in her face she said at last:

"I don't think that's fair."

"It's my money, and I shall do as I like with it," was Sophia Jane's
only reply.

"But I shouldn't have given it you," said Susan hotly, "unless you were
going to buy a head."

Sophia Jane chuckled. "Well, I've got it now," she said, "and I shall
keep it."

"What a naughty, selfish, disagreeable little girl she was!" thought
Susan as she stood looking angrily at her.

"What are you going to do with it?" she asked.

"That's a secret," said Sophia Jane, chinking the money gently in her
pocket.

"I believe," said Susan, now irritated beyond endurance, "that you mean
to spend it all on Billy Stokes' day."

Billy Stokes was a man who came round once a week selling sweetmeats,
and it was Sophia Jane's custom to spend her pe