Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/78

64 “And you were just scolding about laziness a little while ago.”

“Oh, well, there are different kinds of laziness. Reading is one kind, that nobody scolds about very much in the summer. What have you been reading?”

“Oh, novels and such things. That’s all that I ever do read.”

“Why, Brenda Barlow, a novel by ‘The Countess!’” cried Nora, taking up some of the books from the little  bookcase in the corner; “and here’s another, and another,  and—why, there are six of them, as true as I live! My mother does n’t let me read ‘The Countess;’” and Nora  held up the paper-covered book, on the outside of which  was the picture of a very pretty woman in a low-necked  gown, supposed to be the author.

Brenda blushed a little guiltily. She had never been forbidden to read this fascinating author (at least she considered her “fascinating”) because her mother was unacquainted with her fondness for this particular species of  literature. Brenda had happened to buy a “Countess” novel at a news-stand, while waiting for a train, another  had been sent her by Belle, who had already read it and  pronounced it “perfectly fine,” and then Brenda, as she  had the opportunity, had bought the others. There was no great harm in the books,—or what there was was beyond Brenda’s comprehension,—but they were foolishly  sentimental, and she had had a distinct consciousness more  than once that if her father and mother should discover her reading them they would be far from pleased. At