Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/391

Rh “Why, cousin Edward!” Brenda looked at Mr. Elston in surprise. Once before in her life she had been at a County Fair, and she did n’t remember anything like this. Ben and Fritz laughed loudly at the look of surprise on Amy’s face, as the three girls dismounted.

“We ’ll stay and watch the wheels; we ’re not fond of pumpkins and patchwork,” they cried, as the others went  inside.

“I ’ll go with you,” whispered Arthur Weston to Brenda. He had been very attentive to Brenda on the way over, and had ridden by her side, while the other boys  had indulged in trials of speed, and had amused themselves in an independent fashion—just as if there were  no girls in the party. Brenda felt rather flattered by his attention; and when he told her how he regretted going  back to college, she began to be sorry too, and she almost  wavered in her allegiance to Harvard in her interest in  this Yale undergraduate.

“There’s one thing you could do, if you were really in earnest,” and her eyes beamed with fun,—“you might  change your college. You’d be nearer to me,—that is, to us, if you would come to Harvard. You probably would n’t have to drop more than a class.”

“If I could make the exchange, I almost would; I would make almost any sacrifice to be near—Boston. But still it is a great deal for you to ask, sister-in-law,” Arthur  Weston looked at Brenda reproachfully.

“Your saying ‘sister-in-law’ reminds me,” said Brenda, “that Agnes and Ralph wrote that they can be in Boston