Susan | Page 3

one thing if I were you," he said; "and that is, not to say her name wrong."
"Why?" asked Susan.
"Because nothing makes old ladies so angry as that. Why, if you were to walk in and say, `How do you do, Aunt Emptycap?' it might make her cross all the time you stay."
"Might it really?" said Susan. She felt a little doubtful whether Freddie was to be trusted, and yet he spoke as if he knew. It was something, however, to have made him talk about it at all.
"She's got another name, I suppose," she continued; "something easier to say. I shall call her that, and then she couldn't be angry."
"Oh, yes, she could," said Freddie quickly; "she would think that rude, because she's Mother's aunt, you know, our great aunt."
"Do you suppose she's very old?" asked Susan, putting the next question that had filled her mind.
"Very," said Freddie; "and as for crossness!" He lifted up his eyes and hands without finishing the sentence.
Susan felt discouraged, though she had a feeling that Freddie was "making up." Still, what he said was so like what she thought of the matter herself that it had a great effect upon her.
"If you like," continued Freddie graciously, "I'll tell you just what I think she'll be like."
Susan nodded, though she inwardly dreaded the description.
"You know," began Freddie, opening his large eyes very wide, "that picture of old Mother Holle in Grimm?"
Susan knew it very well, for it always made her uncomfortable to look at it, and she thought of it sometimes at night.
"Aunt Enticknapp is something like that," he went on, speaking with relish in a low tone, "only uglier. With a hookier nose, and bigger eyebrows, and a hump on her back. She talks in a croaky sort of voice like a frog, and she takes snuff, and carries a black stick with a silver top."
Susan stared at her brother without speaking, and clutched her doll more tightly to her chest; but though this terrible picture really alarmed her, she had a proud spirit, and was not going to let him know it.
"You don't suppose I believe that," she said scornfully; "that's only like a fairy old woman."
"You just wait," said Freddie solemnly, "till you get down there and see her."
Just then Maria came into the room with her bonnet on. Miss Susan was to go out with her, she said, and do some shopping for Nurse, and she must come and be dressed at once. Susan collected her property and marched out of the room, holding her head very high to show Freddie that she did not care for what he had said; but, as soon as she was alone with Maria, she thought of it with a very heavy mind.
Late in the afternoon of that same day she was sitting in the drawing-room window seat threading beads, when Mother's great friend came to pay a visit. Susan knew her very well. She was a lady who lived near, and often went out with Mother when she had to choose a new bonnet or do shopping. Her name was Mrs Millet; but Mother always called her "dear" or "Emily." Susan did not like her much; so she remained quietly in her corner, and hoped she would not be called out to say "How do you do?" It was a snug corner almost hidden by the window curtain, and Mother had perhaps forgotten she was in the room at all. At any rate no notice was taken of her, and she went on happily with her work, but presently something in the conversation caught her attention.
"So you really go on Tuesday, dear?" said Mrs Millet with a sigh.
"Yes," said Mrs Ingram; "it's a great undertaking."
"It is, indeed," agreed Mrs Millet in a deeply sympathetic tone. Then, catching a glimpse of herself in a glass opposite, she patted her bonnet-strings, looked more cheerful, and added, "And how about Susan?"
"She goes to Ramsgate on Monday to my Aunt Enticknapp."
"Ah," said Mrs Millet. "Quite satisfactory, I suppose?"
"Perfectly. I heard this morning. I feared she might not have room because of those Bahia girls, you know."
"Exactly," replied Mrs Millet. "Quite desirable, I suppose?"
"Quite. Susan, you can go upstairs now. It's nearly tea-time. Clear those things away, and shut the door softly."
Deeply disappointed, for she felt she had been on the very edge of hearing something about Aunt Enticknapp, Susan slowly put her beads into the box, and advanced to say good-bye to the visitor.
"Good-bye, darling," said Mrs Millet, kissing her caressingly. "Why, you are a lucky little girl to be going to the sea-side."
Her manner was always affectionate, but her voice never sounded kind to Susan, and these words did not make half the impression of Maria's "Por little thing."
That remark still lingered in Susan's mind, and as