Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/229

 that hers was a nature that could not live upon memories. She was trying to enjoy herself but she couldn't do it, not alone. You had to have somebody to enjoy things with you.

In the end she began again to hate Brighton as she had hated it the first time she saw it. Only this time it was worse because she didn't even have the gloomy Mr. Blundon to sit with her in the evenings.

But Brighton appeared to occupy a prominent place in the horoscope of Bessie, and two days before she planned to end her visit as a failure she made by accident the acquaintance of a lady and gentleman sitting at the next table to her in the pavilion.

Bessie wouldn't have noticed them, for they were quiet and drab and she had no taste for drab people, but the lady took a fancy to Esther, the poodle which she had in her lap. The lady asked Esther's name and so opened the conversation. One thing led to another. The lady and gentleman were Mr. and Mrs. John Willis and their speech had that faint cockney echo which always warmed Bessie's heart. They were from London, they said, and didn't care much for Brighton. It seemed a poor place and much overrated. Bessie said she thought so too. She was from London. Yes, she lived in Bloomsbury.

Mrs. Willis, who was a dark, nervous little woman of middle age, said, "Bloomsbury—well, I never. That's where Mr. Willis and I live." 