Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/368



spite of the fine opportunity afforded her at Rockley, Julia, by September, had learned to swim only a few  yards at a time. Brenda and Amy always laughed at her timidity, and they had also helped and encouraged  her. But neither laughter nor encouragement had given her a sense of ease in the water. She was happy only when she could bathe in the surf, or splash about in fairly  shallow water with a motion that was something between  floating and swimming.

Brenda and Amy, on the contrary, were expert swimmers, at least for their age, and they found it very hard to  understand Julia’s timidity. In July and August at the bathing hour, which varied each day according to the  tide, the pretty little semicircle of beach was crowded  with bathers, or with those who watched them. Old and young went in at the same time, and the scene on the  sands was always a merry one. In September the bathers were fewer, and there were not many lookers-on. But Brenda continued to bathe, even on days when the temperature of the water made it rather unsafe to do so. Just before the middle of the month, however, there came a warm wave, and for three or four days the ocean seemed  more tempting than it had been even in midsummer.