Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/208

192 to think that he had ever broken his promise, and many a pleasant afternoon had they spent together, Amy busy  with her pencil and writing pad, and Fritz ready to drop  his book at a suggestion from Amy, to listen to her latest  effort. It might be hard to say just how valuable these criticisms were, and just as hard, perhaps, to say whether  the verses were worth the time that Amy put on them. Yet in certain ways this was her chief recreation, and it was undoubtedly a better way of spending the time than in  mere idle reading, or in games.

It is only fair to say, too, that as time went on the poems written by Amy improved decidedly. Instead of sentimental subjects drawn from her own imagination,  she now looked for subjects in history, or in tradition,  such as “The Shrieking Woman of Marblehead.” As  this was one of the most recent, as well as the most  carefully written of her poems, she need not have been so  angry with Fritz for reading it. Her mother had approved of it, as well as of the other poem which he had read. There was this to be thankful for, and Amy appreciated it, as she thought of the events of that day at Marblehead.

“But it was very mean of Fritz, all the same,” thought Amy, “he broke his promise. That is to say, he broke the spirit, if not the letter of it, for he knew perfectly well  that I don’t want any one else to know that I try to write  poetry. The one thing in the world that I hate is to be laughed at, and they always laugh at girls who write  poetry.”