Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/259



a day or two after her sister’s arrival Brenda went about as if half in a dream. It was quite upsetting to have a romance going on right under her eyes. For this was the view that she took of the engagement. Although an artist, Agnes had always been called the practical one  of the family, and the year before her departure for Europe  she had been so busy, so absorbed in her art, that her  mother had with difficulty persuaded her to keep up her  interest in society. Brenda remembered so well the family discussions of that year, in which Agnes tried to beg off  from this party, or that reception, on the plea that she  needed all her waking hours for her painting, and that her  evenings ought to be given to rest.

“But you know, Agnes, the condition on which your father and I gave our permission for you to study regularly at the Art School.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“It was that you were not to cut yourself off from your friends,—from our friends.”

“But I don’t mean to do that.”

“Well, that is what it will amount to, if you continue to decline all the invitations sent you. You are too young a girl for that.”