Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/277

For it ’s very hard for old people to feel that they ’re a burden on the people they’re living with.”

In other ways Julia found opportunities for making herself helpful to some of the less fortunate with whom she came in contact.

She had just returned from a tea-party at the house of one of the neighbors, when Brenda’s letter from Manchester was put into her hand. Eliza’s brother had gone to the village during their absence, and had brought back the evening mail.

As she read the three or four sheets, written on the oblong violet paper which happened then to be the fashion, Julia smiled at the contrast between the kind of thing in which Brenda was then participating, and that of which she herself had formed part during the last week or two.

My dear Julia,—I really think that you made a mistake in not coming to Manchester with me. You could have gone up to the country just as well some other time, and really it’s just the height of the season here, so you ’ve missed a lot by staying away. Philip says that you are awfully foolish. He’s been asking about you very particularly, and you know he does n’t often trouble himself about Edith’s friends. I think myself that he was much nicer a few years ago. He seems so kind of conceited now. But then most of the Harvard boys are.

Well, we ’ve been over to the Club—the Essex County—several times. The Blairs have a new pair of black horses that just spin over the ground, so that we are there in no time. To tell the truth, I’d just as soon go on my wheel, but Mrs. Blair won’t let Edith ride in August; she thinks