Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/300

282 “Oh, Fritz, how absurd! What do you mean?” In her heart Amy had a fair idea of Fritz’s meaning.

“Come, now, Amy, I know that I have teased you, and I dare say that you think that I am glad that those girls  have acted like that; they have certainly been kind of  mean. But really I do feel sorry, and I just hope that you ’ll have a chance to pay them back.”

“No,” she said, without any bitterness, “I don’t really feel that way; but of course it’s disappointing. That’s why I never wished to know those city people before. I always felt that they could not be entirely depended on. Their way of living is very different from mine. They have so many friends, and they can travel and do anything almost whenever they want to. But then, Brenda seemed more anxious for my acquaintance than I for hers,  and she is so bright and amusing that I grew very fond of  her.” Amy spoke in the past tense, as if her acquaintance with Brenda was entirely a thing of the past, and as  if she had little hope of resuming it. Yet it was hardly three weeks since they had all been together,—Amy,  Nora and Brenda and Julia,—and in view of the various  exciting events of the interval, it was perhaps not strange  that Brenda had not written to her. Now it happened that the afternoon of this conversation of Fritz and Amy,  happened to be the very day on which Julia and Brenda  were to go to the city, and it happened that that evening,  as Julia sat with her aunt, talking of various things connected with the wedding, she asked her if she as yet had  thought of inviting Amy to the festivities.