Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Susan, by Amy Walton _______________________________________________________________________ This charming little book was expressly written for younger children, aged about 11 or 12. There's plenty in the book for children of that age to enjoy, but older children might be a bit impatient. Susan and her family live in London, but she has a brother of ten years old who has a nasty chronic illness, and is bed-ridden. His family are advised to take him for the rest of the winter to a warmer climate, so his mother takes him to Algiers. During this interlude Susan is to go to stay with a great-aunt who lives at Ramsgate, a small town by the sea in the eastern part of Kent, the county of England to the south-east of London. There are several other girls staying with the aunt, two of them a bit older than Susan, grown-up, almost, while Sophia Jane is Susan's age. Sophia Jane appears to have what we would now call behavioural problems, but during the course of the book we learn to see her in a better light, and it is Susan who can be not altogether excellent. Both little girls learn a lot about life from each other. Intertwined with the story are the affairs of a charming French brother and sister. We won't give away more of the story than that. Enjoy the book. NH _______________________________________________________________________ SUSAN BY AMY WALTON CHAPTER ONE. "MY AUNT ENTICKNAPP." "So there ain't no idea, then, of takin' Miss Susan?" "No, indeed! My mistress will have enough on her hands as it is, what with the journey, and poor Master Freddie such a care an' all, an' so helpless. I don't deny I've a sinkin' myself when I think of it; but if it's to do the poor child good, I'm not the one to stand in his way." "Where's she to stay, then, while you're all away?" "With an aunt of Missis' 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.