"Well, then I think we much better set to work to think up something," observed Clem wisely, "if we are going to do anything."
"We can't think of a single thing—not one," bemoaned Alexia; "it will be a perfectly horrid fright, whatever we get up. Oh, dear! what shall we do, girls?"
"Alexia, you are enough to drive anybody wild," cried Sally Moore; "it's bad enough to know there isn't an idea in all our heads put together, without having you tell us of it every minute. Cathie Harrison, why don't you say something, instead of staring that wall out of countenance?"
"Because I haven't anything to say," replied Cathie, laughing grimly and leaning back in her chair resignedly. "Oh, dear! I think just as Alexia does, it will be utterly horrid whatever we do."
"Don't you be a wet blanket," cried two or three of the girls, "if Alexia is. Oh, dear! Miss Chatterton, you are the only one of sense in this company. Now do give us an idea," added one.
"I don't know in the least how to help," said Charlotte Chatterton slowly, and leaning her elbows on her knees she rested her head in her hands. "I never got up a play or tableau, nor anything of the kind in my life; and we never celebrated anything either; there was never anything to celebrate—but I should think perhaps it would be better not to try to do great things."
"Why, Miss Chatterton," exclaimed Alexia Rhys, in great disapproval, and starting forward in the pretty pink-trimmed basket chair. "I'm perfectly surprised at you—nothing can be too good for Polly Pepper. We must get up something perfectly magnificent, or else I shall die!" she cried tragically.
"Nothing can be too good for Polly," repeated Charlotte, taking her head out of her hands and looking at Alexia, "but isn't it better not to try to be too grand, and have something simple, because, whatever we do, Polly must always have had things so much nicer."
"In other words, it's better to hit what you aim at, than to shoot at the clouds and bring down nothing," said Clem sententiously.
"Yes—yes, I think so," cried Cathie, clapping her hands; "it's awfully vulgar to try to cut a dash—that is, if you can't do it," she added quickly.