“Oh, we can’t help it. He makes such funny bows and he smiles so, and says his words wrong. You’ll laugh at him too.”
Susan was silent. Somehow after this description she did not feel inclined to tell Sophia Jane of her meeting with Monsieur La Roche on the steamboat, and his kindness to her.
“I should think he did not like to be laughed at,” she said at last.
“Oh, what does it matter,” said Sophia Jane with much contempt, “he’s only a poor eggsile.”
“What does ‘eggsile’ mean?” asked Susan.
Sophia Jane hesitated; she did not know, but she would not confess ignorance.
“It means any person who isn’t English,” she said.
For the rest of the walk Susan thought a good deal about the French master. He had been kind to her when she needed a friend, and she had felt grateful to him, and hoped she should see him again; she had considered him a very pleasant gentleman. But now that Sophia Jane had spoken so slightingly of him, and called him a “silly old thing,” and turned him into a sort of joke, she began to feel differently. She was now rather sorry that she knew him, for she was afraid Sophia Jane would laugh at her too, and she disliked that more than anything in the world. It seemed easier now to join her in finding something ridiculous in the “eggsile” as she called him, than to remember his kindness and good-nature to herself and Maria. She hoped, therefore, that when he came to Belmont Cottage to give his lesson that he would have forgotten her, and would say nothing of the meeting on the steamboat. This first day at Ramsgate had been full of so many strange sights and new people that Susan had had no time to be home-sick, but when evening came she suddenly felt a great longing to see some one she knew—Mother or Nurse or Freddie, or even Maria. It seemed an immense while since she had parted from them all; and when she remembered that it was really only one day and one night, and how many days and nights must pass before she saw them again, she could hardly bear it without crying. They were all very kind to her here, but they were all strange. She did not care for Nanna’s and Margaretta’s frequent kisses and endearing names, it was impossible to be fond of them in a minute; as for Sophia Jane, though she was amusing to play with, there was no comfort at all in her. It was Aunt Hannah at length who saw her sitting dolefully in a corner, and tried to give her consolation She called her to come and sit near her, and talked so kindly that Susan forgot her troubles and became interested. Aunt Hannah told her shout Algiers, the place where Freddie was going, and how he would get there in a ship, and what he would see and do; and then, pointing to the funny little figures and china things, she said that they had been brought over the sea from countries a long way off.
When Susan ventured to ask who brought them, her aunt showed her the portrait of the gentleman with the pig-tail hanging over the mantle-piece.
“It was your great-grandfather who brought them,” she said, “Captain John Enticknapp. He made many long voyages to China and Japan, and the West Indies. Once he found out some islands where no one had ever been before, and they are called after his name.”