Barbara in Brittany | Page 8

pictures which she had heard
most about; but the guide had a particular way of his own of taking
people round, and did not like any interference.
Indeed, he did not even like to let them stay longer than a few seconds
at each picture, and kept chattering the whole time, till at last they grew
annoyed, and Aunt Anne told him they would do the rest by themselves.
But it took some time to get rid of him, and then he went sulkily,
complaining that they had not given him enough, though Barbara felt
sure he had really got twice as much as was his due.
They enjoyed themselves very much without him, and saw a great deal
before lunch-time.
At the end of the meal, when Aunt Anne was going to take out her
purse to use the centimes in it for a tip for the waiter, she discovered
her preparations had not been in vain, and that the purse really had been
stolen. Perhaps, on the whole, she was rather glad, for she turned to
Barbara in triumph.
"There now, Barbara," she said, "if I had had my other purse in my
pocket, it would have been just the same, and now whoever has it will
be properly disappointed!"

They did not return to Neuilly until the evening, where they met the
rest of the pension at dinner. Besides two brothers of the Belvoir family,
there were a number of French visitors and one English family, to
whom Miss Britton and her niece took an immediate dislike. The father,
who, they were told, was a solicitor whose health had broken down,
was greedy and vulgar, and his son and daughter were pale,
frightened-looking creatures, who took no part in the gay conversation
which the French kept up.
After dinner, when every one else went into the salon for music, the
solicitor and his children retired to their rooms, which Mademoiselle
Belvoir and her brothers seemed to resent. The former confided to
Barbara, in very quaint English, that they had never had such people in
their house before, and Aunt Anne, who overheard the remark, shook
her head sagely.
"I would not trust them, Mademoiselle" (Miss Britton was English from
the sole of her foot to the tip of her tongue). "They seem unpleasant,
and I have a great power for reading faces." At which Mademoiselle
Belvoir murmured something about wishing her mother were back.
However, the evening was a pleasant one, though Barbara was so tired
that she was hardly an intelligent listener to the music provided, and
fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
She was, therefore, a little surprised when she awoke suddenly two
hours later for apparently no reason at all. She had been dreaming about
something exciting, and lay trying to remember what it was, when an
eerie feeling stole over her, and it seemed as if she heard
breathing--which was not her aunt's--close beside her. She did not dare
to move for a moment. Then she turned her head very gently, and
between the two windows near the recess she was sure she saw a dark
figure. The longer she watched the surer she became, and she knew it
could not be her aunt, whom she heard breathing quietly in the other
bed.
It was certainly a horrible sensation, and all the unpleasant stories she
had ever read crowded into her mind. At first she could not think what

to do, but at last made up her mind to go across the room to Miss
Britton's bed and tell her.
Yawning, and pretending to wake up gradually, though all the time she
felt as if she had been lying there for hours, she called out, "Aunt Anne,
I can't sleep, so I'm coming into your bed."
Miss Britton awoke at once--she was a light sleeper--and at first I think
she imagined her niece was mad.
"If you can't sleep in your own bed," she said, "I'm quite sure you won't
sleep in mine, for it's not big enough for two."
But Barbara persisted, and at last her aunt gave way. "Well," she said at
last, rather crossly, "be quick if you are coming. I don't want to be kept
awake all night."
The truth was, it seemed so horrible to cross the room close to that
black figure--as she would have to do--that Barbara lingered a moment,
screwing up her courage. It was hard, certainly, to walk slowly across,
for she thought she should not run, feeling all the time as if two hands
would catch hold of her in the darkness. She was very glad to creep in
beside her aunt, and at first could not do anything but lie and listen to
that lady's grumblings. Then warning her not