Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/44

30 others, and it in some way had not the power to hold her attention. At last she flung it from her with a sigh. “I did not know that ‘The Countess’ could be so uninteresting. This book is really dull.” As she sat there gazing out at sea, she heard the murmur of voices. She realized at once that some one else had come to the rocks to escape  the heat. Then as she began to listen more intently she knew that the speakers were not far away. “Why, they must be in the hollow just on the other side of this rock. I wish I had thought of going there myself—but then they must have been there before me. Somebody seems to be reciting something. I wonder who it is; it’s a girl, I’m almost sure.”

There was something unaccountably familiar in the voice, yet try as she would, Brenda could not decide to  whom it belonged. She listened to the words. They were evidently verse. Now Brenda, unfortunately, was not one of those who care for poetry. But in spite of herself she listened. The words were quaint, and hard to understand, but in a minute or two she became interested in the story, which was about a lovely lady who seemed to  be wandering in a forest in search of somebody. At length she met a lion, that, “With gaping mouth at her  ran greedily.” Brenda was now sufficiently interested to  wonder if he would kill her. But she had not long to wait, when she heard

and she was relieved at last to hear that