Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/46

32 some of them, they are so bloody. If you like, I ’ll read you some of those cantos.”

“Well, I don’t know that I care about it to-day,” replied the boy. “You see it’s pretty hot; not but that I’m very much obliged to you for what you ’ve read;  it’s so tiresome that I can’t use my own eyes. Gracious, what’s that?” he asked, as a paper-covered book fell at his feet. Now Brenda—who had been listening with interest to the conversation, because she had recognized in  the girl her new acquaintance Amy—Brenda had incautiously held her book over the edge of the rock where  she sat, and by a careless movement she had pushed it  over the edge.

“Dear me!” she heard Amy say, “a book does n’t fall unless it belongs to some one near by. I’d rather not stay here, Fritz, if we are to be interrupted.”

“Oh, it’s some one up above there,” cried Fritz, then, with a boy’s impetuosity,—

“Say, you, whoever you are, you’d better come down; we don’t like eavesdroppers.”

“Hush, Fritz,” said Amy; “others have as good a right as we to be here.”

Brenda, greatly annoyed at herself for dropping the book, began to descend the rocks to pick it up. She had to go by the path by which she had reached the top, and then  by walking around at the base she reached the other side.

Just as she expected, she found the girl who had been reading to be Amy. Her companion was a little taller, and apparently about a year older. He wore a bandage