e 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
su