Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/247

Rh She had somehow imagined Waterloo to be quite a little place, where by diligent enquiry it would be fairly easy to trace such an important person as a sea captain who had been wrecked in the Bay of Biscay; greatly to her dismay, however, she found herself in the midst of what seemed a large city in itself—a veritable maze of long streets and small houses, stretching away into the distance with an endless vista of chimneypots. In a distinctly sober frame of mind she entered the post office and proffered her question.

"Smith? I couldn't tell you, I'm sure; there are so many Smiths," said the girl at the counter, with a superior smile. "One of them may be a sea captain, for anything I know. You'd better look in the Directory."

Gipsy seized upon the book with a sense of relief, and carried it off to a less busy part of the office. She turned up Waterloo, found the list of residents, and went through them in alphabetical order till she reached the letter S. She was appalled to see the number of Smiths who resided at Waterloo. To some of the names the Directory had appended an occupation, but with many it gave no details. Taking one of the telegraph forms she wrote down the addresses of about a dozen Smiths who, she considered, might be likely; then, returning the Directory to the girl at the counter, she started off on her arduous quest.

"I shall go to 'Ocean Villa' first," she thought. "It has a particularly nautical sound. I shouldn't think anybody but a sea captain could possibly live there. 'The Anchorage' sounds hopeful too, though it ought