Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/270

252 however, had been the best in the world, for since their reconciliation over the stranded boat he had never once  teased Amy. Such goodness could not last indefinitely, but for the present Amy appreciated it.

With cousin Joan, however, it was different.

“It is just as I told you,” she said,—“just as I told you. I hear that there are to be great goings-on at Rockley,—a wedding and other things. Minnie Murphy’s aunt is going over there to accommodate, as a cook. Of course at such a time they won’t think of you. I told you that it would n’t do to set too much by those city people. They ’re always taken up with their own affairs. Well, ‘put not your trust in princes,’—that reminds me, Amy that I wish you’d ask your mother not to have  the custard quite so sweet. So much sugar don’t agree with me.”

“I should say not,” said poor Amy to herself, as she walked downstairs to attend to little things in the kitchen. The little Murphy girl worked for Mrs. Redmond only in the morning, and the rest of the work of the house  after the noon meal was shared by mother and daughter. It did not greatly soothe poor Amy’s ruffled feelings to see from her window, when she looked out, the Barlow beach-wagon passing, loaded with young people in the greatest  spirits. To be sure, all told, there were only half a dozen,—Julia and Brenda, Tom Hearst and Philip, who had come over for the day, and Mr. Weston and Agnes. But Amy, as she heard their laughter as they passed by, felt  sadly neglected, and her expression was so sombre that