Do you manage to amuse yourself pretty well here?" she asked presently.

We said, "Yes, thank you," in hushed tones.

"What do you do?" she asked.

We did not wish to excite her by telling her what we did, so Dicky
murmured--

"Nothing in particular," at the same moment that Alice said--

"All sorts of things."

"Tell me about them," said Mrs. Bax invitingly.

We replied by a deep silence. She sighed, and passed her cup for more
tea.

"Do you ever feel shy," she asked suddenly. "I do, dreadfully, with new
people."

We liked her for saying that, and Alice replied that she hoped she would
not feel shy with us.

"I hope not," she said. "Do you know, there was such a funny woman in
the train? She had seventeen different parcels, and she kept counting
them, and one of them was a kitten, and it was always under the seat
when she began to count, so she always got the number wrong."

We should have liked to hear about that kitten--especially what colour
it was and how old--but Oswald felt that Mrs. Bax was only trying to
talk for our sakes, so that we shouldn't feel shy, so he simply said,
"Will you have some more cake?" and nothing more was said about the
kitten.

Mrs. Bax seemed very noble. She kept trying to talk to us about Pincher,
and trains and Australia, but we were determined she should be quiet, as
she wished it so much, and we restrained our brimming curiosity about
opossums up gum-trees, and about emus and kangaroos and wattles, and
only said "Yes" or "No," or, more often, nothing at all.

When tea was over we melted away, "like snow-wreaths in Thawjean," and
went out on the beach and had a yelling match. Our throats felt as
though they were full of wool, from the hushed tones we had used in
talking to Mrs. Bax. Oswald won the match. Next day we kept carefully
out of the way, except for meals. Mrs. Bax tried talking again at
breakfast-time, but we checked our wish to listen, and passed the
pepper, salt, mustard, bread, toast, butter, marmalade, and even the
cayenne, vinegar, and oil, with such politeness that she gave up.

We took it in turns to watch the house and drive away organ-grinders. We
told them they must not play in front of that house, because there was
an Australian lady who had to be kept quiet. And they went at once. This
cost us expense, because an organ-grinder will never consent to fly the
spot under twopence a flight.

We went to bed early. We were quite weary with being so calm