Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/143



after The Fourth came one of those scorching weeks when even at the seashore people had all they  could do to keep cool. Until late in the afternoon the girls stayed in the darkened house, with the windows  well shaded by blinds and awnings. Only toward evening would they go down to the sea, and then how delicious the plunge in the cool water, the rapid race along the  sands when they came out, and the ten or fifteen minutes  while they sat on the beach!

“When are we going to call on Amy?” asked Julia one day, as the three sat there resting for a few minutes before  proceeding to the bath-house.

“As soon as the weather is cooler. I don’t see anyway why she should n’t call on us sometime on her way to the  beach. She comes over nearly every day. I don’t think that girls of our age ought to be too ceremonious.”

Julia and Nora laughed at Brenda’s rather plaintive tone.

“The warm weather seems to have got into your voice. But I thought that you were rather a believer in ceremony, Brenda. I ’ve often heard you scold about girls who did not return calls properly.”