There was a short, sharp struggle with the porter, a flustered passage along the platform and the children were safe in the carriage marked “Reserved”—thrown into it, as it were, with all that small fry of luggage which I have just described. Then Aunt Enid fussed off again to exchange a few last home truths with the porter, and the children were left.
“We breathe again,” said Mavis.
“Not yet we don’t,” said Francis, “there’ll be some more fuss as soon as she comes back. I’d almost as soon not go to the sea as go with her.”
“But you’ve never seen the sea,” Mavis reminded him.
“I know,” said Francis, morosely, “but look at all this—” he indicated the tangle of their possessions which littered seats and rack—“I do wish—”
He stopped, for a head appeared in the open doorway—in a round hat very like Aunt Enid’s—but it was not Aunt Enid’s. The face under the hat was a much younger, kinder one.
“I’m afraid this carriage is reserved,” said the voice that belonged to the face.
“Yes,” said Kathleen, “but there’s lots of room if you like to come too.”
“I don’t know if the aunt we’re with would like it,” said the more cautious Mavis. “We should, of course,” she added to meet the kind smiling eyes that looked from under the hat that was like Aunt Enid’s.
The lady said: “I’m an aunt too—I’m going to meet my nephew at the junction. The train’s frightfully crowded.... If I were to talk to your aunt ... perhaps on the strength of our common aunthood. The train will start in a minute. I haven’t any luggage to be a bother—nothing but one paper.”—she had indeed a folded newspaper in her hands.