Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/66

52 The two friends took their seat in the omnibus opposite a fat old lady with a large basket, and a thin man with  glasses, who looked rather nervous. Before they turned toward the beach a mother with two little children got  in. The children were inclined to be fretful, and they climbed about from one seat to another, sometimes resting  their muddy feet against the fresh, crisp skirts of the  young girls, sometimes sitting so close to the nervous man  as to interfere with his newspaper reading. Once they stepped on his toes, and drew from him a sharp cry of  annoyance.

Their mother paid little attention to them; evidently they were accustomed to having their own way.

“Ah, it’s something ye want to interest ye,” said the stout woman.

“I’m sure that she’s somebody’s cook,” whispered Nora to Brenda; and their suspicion—in their own minds—was confirmed, when out of her basket she drew a  bunch of grapes, which she divided between the two restless little creatures. The children, without deigning to thank the giver for the grapes, began to eat them in a  very haphazard fashion.

“Be careful,” said Brenda; for the children had begun to snap the grapes at one another. “Don’t let them come too near.” But even as she spoke a well-directed shot  landed a grape—and it was a grape without its skin—full in the middle of Nora’s skirt. As she tried to brush it off she only made matters worse. For the soft pulp left a decidedly ugly mark on her dark blue foulard.