Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/96

82 tone of the old lady’s voice, I think that Amy will be kept there some time. I heard her say that for some time she had been waiting and waiting for some one to do things  for her. She seemed kind of mad.”

“Oh, well, Amy will find out what the trouble is; she can smooth out cousin Joan’s wrinkles better than I  can.”

Amy soon came back to the dining-room, and her face had a deeper flush than that which had been caused by  her cooking operations on the little stove, and it was a  different color from that which a hot day produces. Her mother saw that she had had some little encounter with  cousin Joan, but wisely she refrained from questioning  her about it.

Fritz, who now sat at Mrs. Redmond’s table, was much stronger looking than the boy whom Brenda had met on  the rocks a week or ten days before. He no longer had his eye bandaged, and his cheek was not so pale. He was a mischievous, merry-looking boy, a little younger, apparently, than Amy, yet bright and quick enough to be a  congenial companion for the thoughtful girl.

“I tell you what!” he exclaimed; “this is a heap better than sitting down with my uncle in that old dreary dining-room, or ten to one I should be sitting there alone, for  you know he never comes to the table unless he happens  to feel exactly in the humor. Why, you know that I get more than half my meals alone!”

“Poor boy!” said Mrs. Redmond, sympathetically. “Do you eat more or less than you ought, then?”