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 she had not thought of much--the old lady. "My Aunt Enticknapp," her mother always called her; a difficult and ugly name to begin with, and very hard to pronounce. Would she be pleasant? or would she be cross and full of corners like her name? Whatever she was, she was a perfect stranger, and Susan felt sure she should not want to stay with her all the winter. It was certainly a hard case, and the more she considered it the less she liked it. She wondered if Nurse and Maria would say anything more, but soon the little clock on the mantelpiece struck ten, they put away their work and went down to supper. Then Susan fixed her round brown eyes on the glowing fire. "Por little thing!" someone seemed to go on saying over and over again, each time more slowly. At last it got very slow indeed: "Por-- little--" and while she waited for it to say "thing," she fell asleep.