Susan | Page 8

you will eat with me I shall have better appetite," he said. "It is perhaps a little dry--but after all, if one is hungry!--"
He shrugged his shoulders without finishing the sentence, and Susan took the half-biscuit, finding when she began it that she was even hungrier than she thought. She was still hungry when it was all gone, and she felt sure the French gentleman could easily have eaten more. She would have liked to offer him some of her sandwiches or a bun, but there was still no sign of Maria.
So hour after hour went by, until, late in the afternoon, her companion told her they were getting near Ramsgate.
"In one quarter of an hour we shall be at the pier. The journey will then be over. The passage has been fine and tranquil."
But poor Maria had not found it so, for it was not until the steamer was stopping that she appeared on deck looking very white, and staggering about helplessly. It was fortunate, therefore, that Susan's new friend was there, and that she herself could point out the luggage, for Maria had now quite lost her head, and was of no use at all.
The French gentleman, however, was most active and kind in their service, and did not leave them till they were safely in a cab with their property. Even then Maria had forgotten the address, and it was Susan who said:
"It is Belmont Cottage, Chatham Road."
"Ah!" exclaimed Susan's friend; "it is the house of Madame Enticknapp! We shall then perhaps meet again, ma petite amie."
He put his feet quite close together and executed a graceful bow as the cab drove away, with his hat pressed against his chest.
"What an old figure of fun!" was Maria's remark.
"I like him," said Susan. "He was very kind, and gave me half his dinner."
Maria said no more, for she was still in a very depressed state from the effects of the journey, and her head was "all of a swim," as she expressed it. So Susan was left to her own thoughts; and as the cab rattled along the road in front of the sea, she wondered anxiously which of those tall houses with balconies was Mrs Enticknapp's. But presently they turned up a side street, lost sight of the sea altogether, and drove through a town, where the shops were being lighted up, and came at last to a quiet road. The houses were not tall here like those facing the sea, and were not built in terraces, but stood each alone with its own name on its gate, and its own little garden in front, bordered with tamarisk bushes. Susan felt sure that one of those would be called Belmont Cottage, and she was right, for the cab stopped at last, and she really had arrived at Aunt Enticknapp's house! It was just like the others, except that it had an extra room built on at the side; the roof was low, and the windows had small diamond-shaped panes in them. Susan noticed, as they walked up the strip of garden to the door, that the borders were edged with cockle shells and whelk shells, which she thought very pretty but rather wasteful. She was, however, now beginning to feel extremely tired, and hungry with the sea-air, and the two together produced a dizziness which made it difficult to think of anything else. She could not even feel frightened at the idea of seeing Mrs Enticknapp and the Bahia girls, and they hardly seemed like real people when she was actually in the room with them. She knew that there was a tall old lady with black curls and a cap, who spoke to her and kissed her, and two "grown-up" girls who came and knelt down in front of her and unpinned her shawl, chattering all the time. She also heard one of them say to the other: "Pretty?" and the answer, "No. She only looks so after Sophia Jane."
Later on, after some supper, she became sleepier still and more giddy and confused, so that she hardly knew that Maria was undressing her and putting her to bed. When there, however, she roused herself sufficiently to say:
"Maria, I can hear noises in the street here just like there are at home."
Maria's answer was the last sound she heard that night: "Bless yer 'art, Miss Susan, that ain't noises in the street. That's that botherin' sea goin' on like that. Worse luck!"
CHAPTER TWO.
"SOPHIA JANE."
Poor Maria was to go back to London the next morning, and she came into Susan's room early to say good-bye, prepared for her journey in a very tearful state. It was not merely that she looked forward with anything but pleasure to another sea-voyage, but she had an affectionate nature, and, was fond