"There, there," cried Edith who saw that neither Brenda nor Nora was in an amiable frame of mind. "Don't let us bicker. Any one would think that we were all enemies instead of the inseparable four."
"Oh, Edith, we can't all be as amiable as you," responded Nora. "But really I am a little sorry that I offended Belle, for I know that she has a rather hard time at home, but I do wish that she would not put on such superior airs, and I do wish that she would not wear her hats hind side before. Sometimes I almost hate to go out with her."
"Why, Nora, I never heard of such a thing. I did not know that you attached the least importance to appearances. Besides I thought that you always wanted to make every one comfortable in her feelings. It seems strange that you should have been so awfully thoughtless towards Belle."
"I dare say that you are perfectly correct," responded Nora; "you usually are, Edith Blair. And I haven't a doubt that I shall go down on my knees to-morrow at recess, and apologize to Belle and to every one else whom I have ever offended. But I say that we have had enough of this exchange of compliments for to-day. Let us put up our work, and talk about something else. Why, see here, Belle has left her centrepiece behind her."
"Oh, give it to me," cried Brenda; "I will put it away," and she took it from Nora's hands.
"We shouldn't have had this fuss, should we," said Edith, "if Julia had been working with us?"
"You don't call this a fuss," rejoined Nora, "only a slight misunderstanding."
Now in spite of her outspokenness Nora was really a very fair minded young person, or perhaps I ought to say because of it. Those who express themselves very plainly often hurt the feelings of their friends, and not all of them have the courage to admit that they have been wrong. It does require some courage to go to a girl who is in the habit of justifying all her own words and deeds to tell her that you yourself have been wrong. Yet this was just what Nora did a day or two later when she began to reflect on the criticisms she had made in the matter of Belle's clothes. She was surprised herself at the graciousness with which Belle received her apology. But this was one of the cases—rather exceptional to be sure,—in which Nora was decidedly in the wrong. Belle, therefore, could afford to be magnanimous. After this Nora was much more careful about criticising any one, for it was her general aim in life to follow as closely as she could the Golden Rule.