is' at Ramsgate. An old lady by what I hear."

"Por little thing!"

Susan heard all this; for, though she was snugly curled up in her little
bed at the other end of the room, she was not asleep. Now and then she
opened her eyes drowsily and peeped from the bed-clothes, which nearly
covered her round face, at Nurse and Maria bending over their work by
the fire. There was only one candle on the table, and they poked their
heads so near the flame as they talked that she wondered the caps did
not catch light, particularly Maria's, which was very high and fussy in
front. Susan began to count the narrow escapes she had, but before she
had got far she became so interested in the conversation that she gave
it up.

Not that they said anything at all new to her, for it had been settled
long ago, and her mother often talked about it. Susan knew it all as
well as possible. How the doctor had said that Freddie, her elder
brother, who was always ill and weakly, must now be taken out of England
to a warm climate for the winter months. She had heard her mother say
what a long journey it would be, how much it would cost, how difficult
it was to leave London; and yet it was the only chance for Freddie, and
so it must be done. She knew that very soon they were to start, and
Nurse was to go too; but she herself was to be left behind, with an old
lady she had never seen, all the time they were gone.

But, although she knew all this she had not felt that it was a thing to
dread, or that she was much to be pitied; she had even looked forward to
it with a sort of pleased wonder about all the new things she should see
and do, for this old lady lived by the sea-side, and Susan had never
been there. She had seen it in pictures and read of it in story-books,
and her mother had told her of many pleasures she would find which were
not to be had anywhere else. When she thought of it, therefore, it was
of some unknown but very agreeable place where she would dig in the sand
and perhaps bathe in the sea, and pick up beautiful shells for Freddie
and herself.

To-night, however, for the first time, as she listened to Nurse and
Maria mumbling over their work in the half-light, she began to think of
it differently, and even to be a little alarmed; so that when Maria
said, "Por little thing!" with such a broad accent of pity, Susan felt
sorry too. She _was_ a poor little thing, no doubt, to be left behind;
and then there was another matter s