Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/156

140 the name of the young girl you had with you on the Fourth?”

“Yes, is n’t it a pretty name.”

For a moment Mr. Elston’s mind seemed to be wandering. Then he replied, half absent-mindedly, “It’s an odd combination.”

Now, if time permitted, it would be pleasant to give you a full account of the day that Amy spent at Brenda’s  house. To Amy, it was like a glimpse of Fairy Land, first, to be relieved for a whole day of all domestic care, and  second, to have a glimpse of a household living as luxuriously as that of Mr. and Mrs. Barlow. To Amy at least the large house with its furnishings and decorations so  suited to summer comfort, the three or four domestics who  kept things in running order, the well-shorn lawn and the  garden beds full of flowers, made a whole that seemed  almost too delightful to be real. She noted the many simple, though well-chosen pictures on the wall, the low  book-shelves filled with books, and when she sat on  Brenda’s little balcony looking seaward, she said in her  rather serious tone, “I wonder if you know how fortunate  you are to have a home so beautiful as this! I have never seen anything like it. The hedge in front always hid it from view, and I did not dream that there was  such a fairy palace behind it.”

Brenda laughed in her lightest-hearted way.

“Oh, you ought to see some of the houses farther down the Shore, at Beverly, or Pride’s! Our grounds are insignificant compared with Edith’s, and our house