Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/318

300 “If you hear any one express such a doubt,” said her father, “you might explain,” and he pinched her ear  playfully. “Just tell any doubters that there has n’t been such a display at the Shore within the memory of the  oldest inhabitant.”

“Oh, papa, but I do think that any one who really asks to see the presents, might be allowed to.”

“Well, I’m not really a cruel-hearted tyrant,” said her father, laughing, “and if any one of our guests really  considers herself ill-treated because she (it is sure to be  a girl) has not had a glimpse of the wedding-gifts, why  invite her in. You know how to open the door.”

“Oh, well, of course,” said Brenda, “you understand what I mean. It would seem rather funny to have to refuse any one who had given a present. She might think that we had exchanged it, or something.”

Long before half-past eleven, the hour at which they were to start for the church, Julia and Brenda’s two young  cousins from Albany, and their mother, Mrs. Tolbaird,  and two or three other relatives who were staying at Mrs. Barlow’s, were seated on the front piazza. Mr. Barlow was walking around in the garden, rather uneasily,—for  a wedding in the family is not as great a pleasure to the  men-relatives of the bride, as to the women of the household,—when suddenly there came a loud shriek from the  back of the house.

“Dear me, what can that be?” cried Mrs. Tolbaird, sinking back in her chair. Mrs. Tolbaird was very nervous, and on occasion had been known to have hysterics.