Nevertheless when Brenda and Belle sat in the front row in the large Music Hall—for Brenda had bought expensive seats—both girls felt that old Mrs. Gregg was pretty nearly right in saying that places of amusement were not proper for a young girl. They had both been at similar performances before, but always some older person had selected the entertainment. This one, which they themselves had chosen from the glaring posters decorating the bill-boards of the city, and from the conversation of the Harvard freshman of their acquaintance was altogether different from anything that they had seen. It was advertised as an exhibition of ventriloquists, but it had a general air of vulgarity that was extremely displeasing to them. Brenda wished more than once that she had not joined Belle in this adventure. She did not like the loud jokes, and the scant costumes of the performers, and she hoped that there was no one in the audience who would recognize her. Of course there were times when she laughed at the funny things on the stage—for who could help it—but many of the jokes and the incidents at which the rest of the audience laughed the loudest fell rather flat on the ears of the two young girls. This was as it should be, for neither of the two was anything worse than heedless and a little too fond of having her own way. In Belle this wilfulness took the form of a willingness to use subterfuge, both in word or deed to gain her own way. Brenda did not follow her very closely in this direction, although there was danger that her conscience would be dulled, before she realized it, under Belle's influence. Brenda indeed felt so uncomfortable during the performance, that if she could have done so without observation, she would have left the hall. But she did not quite dare to go out in the face of the great audience, and besides when she made the suggestion to Belle, the latter would not hear of her going. "No, indeed," she had said, "why should we go. You are a regular baby, Brenda; it isn't so very bad, only a little vulgar, and just see what crowds of people there are here, and some of them seem just as good as we are, and you know I read you that newspaper clipping that said that this was one of the successes of the year. You and I are not used to this kind of thing, but dear me! we can't expect to stay children all our lives." So Brenda sat there with an uneasy conscience, wondering what her mother would say, or her father—or Julia who never by any chance did anything that she ought not to do.
Stolen sweets are apt to taste a little bitter, and when the performance was over, Brenda and Belle went out with the crowd. On the way out rough people, or people whom Belle called "rough," pushed against them, while one or two rude boys made saucy remarks to the young girls who seemed conscious of being in the wrong place. It wasn't at all an agreeable experience, especially as they were both wondering if any of their friends were likely to see them.
Then there was that chance glimpse of Julia and Miss South, and the rather silly action on the part of Brenda and Belle of hiding in the doorway. Really they needed all the consolation they could get from their visit to the confectioner's around the corner. There they drank great glasses of chocolate, sipping the whipped cream at the top, as if they were young ladies of twenty loitering in the shops after the symphony. As they stirred the chocolate with their long spoons, and lingered on the settee at the end of the shop to watch the lively young men and women who were constantly coming in and out to buy bonbons, or to get refreshment, they forgot all that had been disagreeable at the music hall, and for the time being imagined that they were young ladies themselves. Yet when Brenda reached home with hardly time to dress for dinner, conscience began to prick again.
XXIII
ALMOST READY
Now however slowly time appears to pass, the end of any period of waiting is sure to come, and its last days or hours generally seem to melt away. Thus, when The Four realized that less than two weeks lay between a certain April afternoon when they met to sew, and the day appointed for the opening of the Bazaar, they began to feel a little nervous. "I wish that we hadn't set any particular day," exclaimed Brenda, "we might just have waited until we were all ready, and then we——"
"Oh, Brenda, how unpractical you are," cried Edith, "that would have been perfectly ridiculous. You know that we have to advertise a little, and engage music and people to help us, and make all kinds of arrangements."
"Oh, I dare say," responded the unpractical Brenda, "but still it takes all the fun out of it to think that we must be ready by a particular day; I feel exactly as if some one were driving me on, and you know that is not pleasant."
"Oh, nonsense," interposed Nora, with a smile. "Just think how long we were working without any special object. I am sure that we had all the time we wished, and we had hardly a thing to show for it. For my own part I shall be awfully glad to have the Bazaar over with. The weather is altogether too fine to waste indoors on fancy work, but until we have that money for Manuel I suppose that none of us will feel free to do as she likes in the afternoons. There are so many things to attend to that I don't see how we are ever to get ready even in two weeks."