Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/146

130 “If I were you, I would n’t read them either. They ’re so silly, so untrue to life.”

“How do you know, Nora? You ’ve never been in England, or Ireland either. The scene of some of them is in Ireland. That’s what I like about them. There’s nothing common or ordinary about them. Almost everyone lives in a castle, or ought to, because some of them are people who have been kept out of their own. But the stories always end well,—that is, almost always,—and  when they happen to be sad, really they would make you  cry. I ’ve cried and cried over some of them.”

“Really, Brenda, I’d try to find something better worth crying over,” said Nora, “something better than a mere  trashy novel.”

“Oh, but the people in these books of ‘The Countess’ seem just like real people, and the girls are always such  perfect beauties that when things go wrong, you feel  terribly for them. But generally they get their fortune back again, or they marry a rich man; I hate sad endings.”

“Give me the ‘Faery Queen’ every time,” cried Nora, “though I ’ve never read it. I must talk to your friend Amy about it.”

The result of the conversation was that a day or two later the three girls set off to make the call on Amy. Brenda was inclined to go—as Nora expressed it—“in style,” that is, wearing her best India silk gown, and her  most elaborate hat. But Julia and Nora finally persuaded her that it would be much better to go in simpler array, so  that the call might not seem too formal. The day which