Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/328

308 “Well, you see, I ’ve been kept on short allowance this summer, for fear I’d kill myself, or something. So I ’ve just persuaded uncle to pony up, as they say in Greek;  and he’s so pleased that I have n’t killed myself or got  into bad habits this summer that he came down very  handsome indeed,—just like a father, in fact, which is  saying a great deal.”

So Amy and Fritz and Ben Creighton sat together in the church. She had already overcome her jealousy of this new friend of Fritz; for although she certainly had  not seen as much of Fritz since his arrival as before, still  she realized that it was only natural that the boys should  sometimes plan excursions in which she could not very  well take part.

When the wedding party had left the church, all the other guests gathered in little groups, and admired the skill  with which the church had been trimmed,—the masses of  white and green against a background of palm in the chancel, the festoons of green, and great bows of white ribbon  between the pews. Nora quickly joined Amy, and introduced Edith, and the five young people went back in the same carriage to the house.

“How young Agnes looked!” said Edith; “hardly more than seventeen, with all those little ringlets curling around  her forehead.”

“And she’s really twenty-three,” said Nora.

“Is it possible?” exclaimed Edith, and both girls sighed, as young girls will sigh, to whom “twenty years  of age” seems to mark the boundary of youth and