Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/67

Rh “There, you naughty children, see what you ’ve done to the lady’s dress,” cried the mother. She gave each of the children a cuff on the ear, which, however, neither drew a cry nor stopped their activity.

Nora tried to make light of the injury to her foulard, although such an accident was of more consequence to her  than it would have been to Brenda. But she was n’t sorry when about half way across the narrow strip of land connecting Nahant with the mainland the active mother and  the children signalled the driver to let them off.

As the children lurched about in their efforts to move as fast as their mother, they clutched first at one thing,  then at another, on their way to the door. The fat old lady did not escape them, and suddenly there was the  clicking sound of coin, as, one after another, a stream of  pennies and nickels rolled to the floor of the omnibus. The children had only time to gape at the mischief they had done, but Nora and Brenda bent down to help the old  woman collect her scattered wealth. For a minute the stream seemed unending. The two girls, indeed, had to do all the picking up of the coin, for the old woman was altogether too stout to stoop. As Nora and Brenda laid one coin after another in her lap; she took each one  up deliberately, and proceeded with a sum in addition  after this fashion: “A nickel—thank you. Miss; five and seventeen is twenty-two, and this penny,—I’m very  much obliged; that’s twenty-three, and two pennies,—thank ye most kindly; that’s a quarter.” Thus she proceeded until the whole amount was gathered up to her