"That shows," said Miss South, who had come up behind Brenda while she was talking, "that it is never worth while to borrow trouble about anything."
"That is true," interposed the placid Edith, to whom Brenda had been talking. "For my own part, I am never surprised or disappointed about anything, for I never expect too much beforehand. I find that I can always put up with things when they come."
"Then you are really a philosopher, Edith," said Miss South, "some persons take almost a lifetime to learn this simple lesson, and indeed some persons never learn it at all."
As the preparations for the Bazaar advanced it was very pleasant for Julia to find herself counted in among the band of workers.
It is true that she often had to take a sharp word from Brenda, or a cold glance from Belle, but these things did not disturb her.
She had become accustomed to her cousin's little ways, and she realized that her "bark was worse than her bite," as Nora was in the habit of saying.
There was one thing about which Brenda was very decided, and that was that no older person, that is no parent or teacher, was to have any part in managing the Bazaar.
"We want all the credit ourselves, and I think it will be a fine thing to show how much we can do all by ourselves." If she could have had her own way, I believe that she would have refused the offer of Edith's mother to provide a room for the Bazaar, and she would have been quite willing to pay for a hotel drawing-room from her own allowance—although to do so would have run her several months in debt. But this was evidently so unwise a plan, that she contented herself with simply broaching it to her friends. "The idea!" had been their criticism, "of throwing money away like that when we can have such a beautiful room for nothing."
"It certainly would be foolish," said Belle, "and besides my mother would not think a hotel a proper place for girls like us to hold a bazaar; it would be different if we were in society, or if some older women were managing it."
"Oh, I suppose you are right," Brenda acknowledged with a sigh, "but I should be ever so much better pleased with a hotel. It would seem so much more as if we were grown up. I hope that this won't seem like a children's party. You know that Edith always had her birthday parties in that room."