Wet Magic
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.
"Oh, do get in," said Kathleen, dancing with anxiety, "I'm sure Aunt Enid won't mind,"—Kathleen was always hopeful—"suppose the train were to start or anything!"
"Well, if you think I may," said the lady, and tossed her paper into the corner in a lighthearted way which the children found charming. Her pleasant face was rising in the oblong of the carriage doorway, her foot was on the carriage step, when suddenly she retreated back and down. It was almost as though someone pulled her off the carriage step.
"Excuse me," said a voice, "this carriage is reserved." The pleasant face of the lady disappeared and the—well, the face of Aunt Enid took its place. The lady vanished. Aunt Enid trod on Kathleen's foot, pushed against Bernard's waistcoat, sat down, partly on Mavis and partly on Francis and said—"Of all the impertinence!" Then someone banged the door—the train shivered and trembled and pulled itself together in the way we all know so well—grunted, snorted, screamed, and was off. Aunt Enid stood up arranging things on the rack, so that the children could not even see if the nice lady had found a seat in the train.
"Well—I do think—" Francis could not help saying.
"Oh—do you?" said Aunt Enid, "I should never have thought it of you."
16
