Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/284



their travelling suits, with only their hand-bags, the two cousins journeyed from Manchester to Boston. Their trunks had gone on to Rockley; but, to save time, they had  decided to travel directly to the city.

How strangely still and deserted seemed the streets of the Back Bay! As the cab drove toward Mr. Barlow’s house, hardly a person was to be seen, except the policeman on his beat, and here and there a stray individual of  the tourist type.

The sun poured down on the hot asphalt of Beacon Street, and the air was oppressive.

“How awful the city is in the summer!” said Brenda. “I don’t wonder that no one stays here.”

“I fancy that there are a few hundred people in town in spite of the heat.”

“Oh, Julia, you are so practical! Certainly nobody one knows stays here.”

“There’s Agnes at the window,” cried Julia, without heeding the implied reproach in the tone, and in a second  later Agnes had opened the front door for them.

“I’m to go with you to the dressmaker’s,” she said, “and there may be a few errands for us to do in the  shops. You must make out a list, Brenda, so that you