Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/144

128 “Oh, in summer it’s different! We can’t be expected to be polite when the thermometer keeps in the neighborhood of a hundred or two all the time.”

“Yes, but still you could drive toward the end of any afternoon, and Amy struck me as the kind of a girl one  would n’t wish to offend.”

“The idea! a girl who lives in a little bit of a house like the one she lives in. Oh, no, she won’t be so easily offended!”

This seemed to be the old Brenda of the preceding winter, and Julia looked at her cousin in some surprise.

Presently, when no reply had been made to her last speech, Brenda continued, “But I’m perfectly ready to  go to-morrow, for you see I ought to take back that  ‘Faery Queen.’ I caught you looking at it this morning,  and the next thing you ’ll be wanting to read it aloud to  me. I could n’t stand that, and so the best way to prevent it will be to take the book back.”

“Very well,” said Julia, “to return the book will be a very good excuse for calling.”

“Why do we need an excuse?”

“Well, Amy has n’t actually invited us, only it certainly would be the proper thing to do.”

“But would n’t it be just as proper for her to call after having been out on the yacht?” asked Nora.

“Yes, but I have an idea that she is timid about coming. You see we are summer people, and she—”

“She just lives up on that back road all the year. Just fancy! It must be terribly dreary.”