was a splash--a soft gurgling sound dear to the angler's
heart. Brother Copas's rod bent and relaxed to the brisk whirr of
its reel as a trout took fly and hook and sucked them under.

Then followed fifteen minutes of glorious life. Even Brother
Bonaday's slow blood caught the pulse of it. He watched, not daring
to utter a sound, his limbs twitching nervously.

But when the fish--in weight well over a pound--had been landed and
lay, twitching too, in the grasses by the Mere bank, Brother Copas,
after eyeing it a moment with legitimate pride, slowly wound up his
reel.

"And I am to be a Protestant! . . . Saint Peter--King Fisherman--
forgive me!"

CHAPTER IV.

CORONA COMES.

When Nurse Branscome reached the docks and inquired at what hour the
_Carnatic_ might be expected, the gatekeeper pointed across a maze of
dock-basins, wharves, tramway-lines, to a far quay where the great
steamship lay already berthed.

"She've broken her record by five hours and some minutes," he
explained. "See that train just pulling out of the station?
That carries her mails."

Nurse Branscome--a practical little woman with shrewd grey eyes--
neither fussed over the news nor showed any sign of that haste which
is ill speed. Scanning the distant vessel, she begged to be told the
shortest way alongside, and noted the gatekeeper's instructions very
deliberately, nodding her head. They were intricate. At the close
she thanked him and started, still without appearance of hurry, and
reached the _Carnatic_ without a mistake. She arrived, too, a
picture of coolness, though the docks lay shadeless to the afternoon
sun, and the many tramway-lines radiated a heat almost insufferable.

The same quiet air of composure carried her unchallenged up a gangway
and into the great ship. A gold-braided junior officer, on duty at
the gangway-head, asked politely if he could be of service to her.
She answered that she had come to seek a steerage passenger--a little
girl named Bonaday.

"Ach!" said a voice close at her elbow, "that will be our liddle
Korona!"

Nurse Branscome turned. The voice belonged to a blond, middle-aged
German, whose gaze behind his immense spectacles was of the
friendliest.

"Yes--Corona: that is her name."

"So!" said the middle-aged German. "She is with my wive at this
moment. If I may ascort you? . . . We will not then drouble Mister
Smid' who is so busy."

He led the way forward. Once he turned, and i