Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/387

Rh She has never had a wheel, and although I hope that she will have one next year, it has not been expedient to get  one this season.”

“That reminds me,” said Mrs. Barlow. But of what she was reminded, perhaps a word or two from Amy will  give a clearer idea.

“,” she wrote to Nora, who was now in the mountains.

,—I have had such a delightful surprise. This morning I went downstairs feeling rather forlorn. You see, Brenda and the others—even Fritz and Ben—are going  over to the Essex County Fair to-morrow on their wheels. It seemed rather hard that I could not go, too. It was extravagant even to think of hiring a wheel, and, besides,  mamma has always been timid about letting me hire a wheel. She thinks that they are not safe. I really did feel rather downcast. For it was going to be about the last excursion of the season. I am pretty busy at school now, but as this was to be on Saturday, why, of course, I could go. But how lucky it is that I have learned to ride a wheel. For when I came down to breakfast this morning (by the way, I’m quite a  lady of leisure now, for Maggie Murphy is regular “help” for us now instead of just “assisting”)—

Well, when I came downstairs, mamma asked me to go around to the side of the house, and there was a bicycle—a  girl’s bicycle—and mamma said that Mr. and Mrs. Barlow  had sent it to me. They think that my acquaintance has been a good thing for Brenda. I don’t see how they persuaded mamma to let me have it. But as long as I have the wheel, I need n’t ask any questions. Was n’t it lovely of them? I fancy that Brenda had a hand in it too. Yet I certainly wonder that they should all be so kind to me.