e did better than answer him in words: she
nestled to his shoulder, rubbing her cheek softly against the
threadbare gown.

"When is your birthday, little one?"

"I don't know," Corona confessed. "Mother never would tell me.
She would get angry about birthdays, and say she never took any truck
with them. . . . But, of course, everyone ought to have a birthday,
of sorts, and so I call this my real one. But I never told you
that--did I?"

"I heard you say once that you left a little girl behind you
somewhere in the States, but that you only came to yourself the day
you reached England."

"Yes; and I _do_ feel sorry for that other little girl sometimes!"

"You need not. She'll grow up to be an American woman: and the
American woman, as everybody knows, has all the fun of the fair.
. . . To-day is your birthday, then; and see! I have brought along a
bottle of claret, to drink your health. It isn't--as the Irish
butler said--the best claret, but it's the best we've got. Your good
health, Miss Corona, and many happy returns!"

"Which," responded Corona, lifting her cupful of milk, "I looks
towards you and I likewise bows. . . . _Would_ you, by the way,
_very_ much object if I fetched Timothy out of the basket?
He gets so few pleasures."

For the rest of the meal, by the clear-running river, they talked
sheer delightful nonsense. . . . When (as Brother Copas expressed it)
they had "put from themselves the desire of meat and drink," he lit a
pipe and smoked tranquilly, still now and again, however, sipping
absent-mindedly at his thin claret.

"But you are not to drink more than half a bottle," Corona commanded.
"The rest we must carry home for supper."

"So poor a vintage as this, once opened, will hardly bear the
journey," he protested. "But what are you saying about supper?"

"Why, you wouldn't leave poor old Daddy quite out of the birthday, I
hope! . . . There's to be a supper to-night. Branny's coming."

"Am I to take this for an invitation?"

"Of course you are. . . . There will be speeches."

"The dickens is, there won't be any trout at this rate!"

"They'll be rising before evening," said Corona confidently.
"And, anyway, we can't hurry them."

From far up stream, where the grey mass of the Cathedral blocked the
vale, a faint tapping sound reached them, borne on 'the cessile air.'
It came from the Pageant Ground, where workmen were hammering busily
at the Grand Stand. It set them talking of th