Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/150

134 But in thinking about her acquaintance with these girls, she had decided that frankness was much the best thing.

“They must know that I am poor, or I would n’t be living in this little house, and they might as well know  that I am not in the least ashamed of it.” Now all this was  in the line of the training that Amy had received from her  mother. Yet I am not sure but that Mrs. Redmond might have thought that she was going a little farther than was  absolutely necessary.

“There,” said Brenda, when Amy had finished speaking, “there is one thing that I’m almost sure that you will have to come to our house for, that is, if you ever  wish to see it again,—your ‘Faery Queen.’”

“Why, yes,” said Amy, “I had almost forgotten it.”

“Well, I meant to bring it to-day. Why I started out to call on you almost expressly to bring it! How in the world did I forget it, Julia?”

“It does seem rather strange for you to forget anything, Brenda.”

“Oh, but it does n’t matter,” interposed Amy.

“On the whole, I’m not sorry, because you ’ll be sure now to come for it.”

“I’d be sure to accept your invitation. But now I want you to come into the house for a while; these chairs must  be very uncomfortable.”

Showing the three callers into the pleasant sitting-room, Amy excused herself to take the tray with the bowl of  berries and the saucer of hulls out to the kitchen. She returned, plaintively holding up her hands.