Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/35

Rh “Well, I’m very much obliged to you for helping me out of my trouble,” she added. “It ’s really pleasanter to ride home than to walk.”

“I am sure you were very welcome,” said the other girl, then, as Brenda started off, waving her hand in  good-bye.

“I’m very sorry,” she cried, “that I could n’t help you about a laundress.”

Was there a shade of mischief in this speech, or did Brenda only imagine it?

At dinner that evening Brenda had a long account to give of her adventure.

“Really,” said Mrs. Barlow, “from what you say of this girl, I should think that you could have told at once that  she was not the daughter of a laundress. You are altogether too heedless.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Barlow, “you should look before you leap.”

“But I did n’t leap, papa, I just slid off my wheel when I found that that old tire had given out.”

“It was rather a leap in the dark, I think, when you asked a strange girl of whom you knew nothing if her  mother would take in washing.”

“Yes, that is so, papa, for if I had looked first at the house, I should have known that the people who lived there were not exactly ordinary people. Really, it was so neat that it looked like—well, no, not like a city house. But it certainly was much better looking than the other houses along the road.”