Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/254

236 “I hope that the other children are more contented than Angelina. They ought to be, after we took so much trouble.”

“Oh, yes, I really think that they are. John is devoting himself to some tomato vines, and he is picking up a good many odd dimes and quarters running errands,  and helping the farmers in the neighborhood. Even the little boys work in the garden; only I am afraid that  Manuel is in the habit of digging up his crops, to see  whether his things are growing well at the roots. Nobody knows just what he expects to find; but his experiments  are rather disastrous to his garden.”

“How Nora would laugh to hear that! She considers Manuel her own especial property,” and Brenda waved her handkerchief at Fidessa, who had risen from her  cushion in a playful mood.

“The Rosas have made a good beginning,” said Miss South, “and I think that in time Mrs. Rosa will be perfectly  contented in Shiloh, even though she has n’t neighbors to  run in and gossip with her as at the North End.”

“But Angelina?”

“Oh, well, even Angelina will be less discontented in the autumn, when school re-opens. She has a rather active mind, and with her school-mates to talk to, she will contrive probably to make herself a centre of interest. That is really what she wants,—to be of more consequence  in the eyes of her neighbors than she has been. The trip to Lynn will furnish her with subjects of conversation  for the rest of the summer.”