Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/248

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BRENDA’S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY

“and I’m curious to see Madame Du Launay. I ’ve never really seen her close to, except, of course, that day at the Bazaar, and I’d like to meet her face to face.”

“We can’t be sure of seeing her, even if we go to call on Miss South; so you must n’t be disappointed.”

“Oh, no, I shall be glad to see Miss South herself. I really do like her, Julia, even though I may not have seemed to appreciate her last winter. She was a perfect brick in the way she helped us with the Rosas, and I suppose that she ’ll have more or less to tell us about them now.”

So the next day, Julia and Brenda went by train to Marblehead Neck; that is, they changed cars for Devereux, and then went out in the barge to the Neck, over the causeway and up the hill, a pleasant drive with fine views of the ocean.

Madame Du Launay had expressed a strong desire to spend August near the sea, and Miss South had been able to find a house out near the light-house on the Point where she and her grandmother were to be the only boarders. Or, perhaps, I ought to have said, her grandmother, herself, Fidessa, the Italian greyhound, and Jane, the maid. In the order of importance, I am not certain but that Fidessa should stand next to Madame Du Launay herself. Miss South, whom Julia had learned to value so highly, had been the centre of a certain amount of romance the preceding spring. At the time when Julia and Brenda and their friends had carried out their plan for a bazaar at Edith’s, the proceeds of which were to benefit the Rosas, a dramatic