“Well, they haven’t starved her at this convent,” the old landlady declared after she had embraced Letizia and presented her cousin, Mrs. Williams, the pleasant and hospitable woman in whose house they were to stay. “I was very doubtful about the idea when you settled to put her in this convent, because I’ve always had a horror of nuns, and which is why I’ve never been to see her. I know I read a story once about a pore girl they bricked up, and it gave me the horrors to that extent it was weeks before I could go down into the cellar and fetch up a scuttle of coal. But the child’s looking a regular nosegay. What do they give you to eat, duckie?” “Oh, we have breakfast and dinner and tea and supper, and a glass of milk at eleven,” Letizia said. “You do?” Mrs. Pottage exclaimed. “Oh, dear, oh, dear, they regular gormingdise you! I’ve got it all wrong about nuns. I suppose it’s the name that sounds so empty. But certainly I fancied if you had two slices of dry bread and a glass of water you thought you’d done well for one day.” “Mrs. Pottage, when shall we go paddling?” Letizia asked persuasively. “Paddling?” said Mrs. Pottage. “You surely don’t expect me to go paddling?” “Well, of course you must paddle,” Letizia exclaimed. “Don’t you know we’re at the seaside?” “But if I take off my shoes and stockings and pull up my skirts they’ll think the British Museum’s broken loose,” said Mrs. Pottage. “You haven’t seen my legs, duckie. Talk about marble columns. Well, my legs would make a marble column look like a knitting-needle. Besides, supposing I got my toe bit off by a kipper?” The next morning, armed with several baskets of strawberries and a large green-lined gingham umbrella, Mrs. Pottage set out with Nancy and Letizia to savour the delights of Margate beach. “Fine weather for a sail, mum,” said one of the longshoremen. “Yes, but you’d be the one that was sold,” Mrs. Pottage retorted. “Nice day for a row, mum,” suggested another longshoreman. “A shilling the first hour, and sixpence every hour afterwards.” “Who do you think I am?” Mrs. Pottage demanded. “Grace Darling? No, thanks, young man, I’d sooner spend the money on winkles.”