a Jane," continued Aunt Hannah, "she will be completely
lost without her companion."

Susan looked entreatingly at her friend, longing for a word or look of
affection, but not a muscle of the small face moved; it might have been
made of stone.

"Won't you be sorry to lose Susan, my dear?" asked Aunt Hannah.

"I suppose so," was all the answer, with an impatient jerk of the
shoulders.

Susan was so hurt at this coldness that she went to bed in low spirits,
and thought of it sorrowfully for a long while before she slept. It
cast a gloom over the prospect even of going home to think that Sophia
Jane did not love her.

She had evidently not forgotten Susan's behaviour in the past, and did
not wish to have her for a friend. It was the more distressing because
Susan had made a plan which she thought a very pleasant one, and was
anxious to carry out. It was to ask her mother to allow her to have
Sophia Jane on a visit in London. She would then be able to show her
many things and places she had never seen, and enjoy her enjoyment and
surprise. The Tower, the Zoological Gardens, Astley's, Westminster
Abbey, Saint Paul's, and all the wonders and delights of town. It was a
beautiful idea, but if Sophia Jane held aloof in this way it must be
given up. And yet it was a most puzzling thing to account for this
chilling behaviour, because lately she had been more kind and pleasant
than usual, and sometimes almost affectionate. It was useless, however,
as Susan now knew, to wonder about Sophia Jane's moods. They came and
they went, and it was, after all, just possible that she would be quite
different in the morning.

When the next day came she got up with a feeling that she had a great
deal on her hands, for it was her last day at Ramsgate, and she must say
good-bye to everyone and let them know she was going away. At
breakfast-time something was said about going to make a farewell visit
to the Winslows, but Susan thought there were more important matters to
be done first.

"I'll go if I've time," she said seriously; "but you see I have a great
deal to do, because this is my last day."

Her round of acquaintances was not large, but the people who formed it
lived at long distances from each other, so that it took up a good deal
of time to see them all. There was the periwinkle woman, who sat at the
corner of Aunt Hannah's road; there was the donkey and bath-chair man,
and a favourite white donkey; there was Billy St