Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/369

Rh “Come, Julia,” called Brenda, “you must come down with me. I am to meet Amy and Fritz at the rocks, and at three o’clock the tide will be exactly right. I declare, I shall feel like staying in for an hour, it has been such  a hot and tiresome day.”

“Oh, Brenda, I would really rather stay here; the breeze is coming round towards this side of the house,  and this room is shaded. A book and an easy-chair are much more comfortable than a bath.”

“There, Julia Bourne, you can never say that you are not lazy. This is the one thing about which you are absolutely lazy. I believe that you dread the trouble of the bath!”

Brenda’s tone was one of mock severity; but a pleasant smile belied the gravity of her words.

Julia closed her book slowly.

“Well, perhaps I am lazy; for I am willing to admit that I would rather not exert myself. But perhaps I need the exercise, and bathing is almost the only exercise  one can take on a hot day like this.”

“Oh, yes, come on! You know that you always enjoy yourself when you are once in the water,” and Brenda  pirouetted out of the room so energetically that Julia  smiled, calling after her,—

“Don’t forget that it is a hot day!” A half-hour later the two cousins stood on the beach in their bathing-suits,  and looked around for Amy and Fritz.

“We might as well go in without them,” Brenda at length exclaimed a little impatiently. “But I don’t see