Brenda, Her School and Her Club

by Helen Leah Reed

"Oh, every one understands about lottery tickets."

"Well, that may be true, lotteries are against the law in this part of the country, and yet a raffle at a bazaar or other charitable affair is to my mind always objectionable. Some persons take their disappointment very much to heart, and——"

"But, mamma, do you not call people very silly who take a little thing like that to heart?"

"I may call them silly and yet I cannot justify myself in causing them this discomfort, if a raffle should be held in my house. Without going into all the principles involved, Edith, I am sure that you can see that I have good reasons for feeling unwilling to have any raffles at the Bazaar."

So Edith and the others had acquiesced, with only a slight feeling of rebellion when one or two particularly handsome things were contributed to the Bazaar, which seemed almost too expensive to sell to a single purchaser.

A strong reason given by Mrs. Blair against raffles had been her objection to having people urged to buy shares, and she had cautioned the girls to be careful not to try to influence their friends when looking at things on the tables to buy against their will. On the whole did any action of this kind seem necessary, since almost every one who attended the Bazaar came as a purchaser, and as there was only one fancy-goods table, there was no rivalry among the sellers. Some of the larger and more expensive things did not sell very readily, and Brenda was in a twitter—at least that was what Nora called it—about the fate of these things. There was one especially valuable thing, or valuable from the point of view of The Four, a water color contributed by an artist friend of Mrs. Barlow's. He was a well-known artist, and his work was in demand, and down town the picture would have brought a large price. The girls in making the price of articles for the sale, had been uncertain what to do about this, and after long consultation with the older persons interested, had decided on one hundred dollars.

The artist himself had acquiesced in this, for they had thought it polite to refer the matter finally to him. Every one had prophesied that the picture would sell at once, yet for some reason or other, by the middle of the afternoon it was still unsold. By four o'clock it seemed as if all Miss Crawdon's school had emptied itself into the pretty hall, and about this time Brenda began to yield to a little temptation.

"What are you and Belle so mysterious about?" asked Nora, as she saw the two busily talking in a corner, and evidently rather afraid of being interrupted.

"Oh, nothing, only a little business," Brenda had replied, and then she and Belle had resumed their conversation which seemed to partake of the nature of calculation, with frequent references to a little notebook. After this Nora could not help noticing that Brenda devoted her attention to the older schoolgirls, and the college boys who in the latter part of the afternoon had begun to arrive in considerable numbers.

"What in the world are you doing?" she asked again and again, as Belle darted by as if searching for some special person, or Brenda stalked up and down studying her notebook.