"I think I shall like you," she said composedly and with the clearest
English accent. "But I do not quite know who you are. Are you
fetching me to Daddy?"

"Yes," said Nurse Branscome, and nodded.

She seldom or never wasted words. Nods made up a good part of her
conversation always.

Corona stood up, by this action conveying to the grown-ups--for she,
too, economised speech--that she was ready to go, and at once.
Youth is selfish, even in the sweetest-born of natures.
Baker Muller and his good wife looked at her wistfully. She had come
into their childless life, and had taken unconscious hold on it,
scarce six days ago--the inside of a week. They looked at her
wistfully. Her eyes were on Nurse Branscome, who stood for the
future. Yet she remembered that they had been kind. Herr Muller,
kind to the last, ran off and routed up a seaman to carry her box to
the gangway. There, while bargaining with a porter, Nurse Branscome
had time to observe with what natural good manners the child suffered
herself to be folded in Frau Muller's ample embrace, and how prettily
she shook hands with the good baker. She turned about, even once or
twice, to wave her farewells.

"But she is naturally reserved," Nurse Branscome decided.
"Well, she'll be none the worse for that."

She had hardly formed this judgment when Corona went a straight way
to upset it. A tuft of groundsel had rooted itself close beside the
traction rails a few paces from the waterside. With a little cry--
almost a sob--the child swooped upon the weed, and plucking it,
pressed it to her lips.

"I promised to kiss the first living thing I met in England," she
explained.

"Then you might have begun with me," said Nurse Branscome, laughing.

"Oh, that's good--I like you to laugh! This is real England, merry
England, and I used to 'spect it was so good that folks went about
laughing all the time, just because they lived in it."

"Look here, my dear, you mustn't build your expectations too high.
If you do, we shall all disappoint you; which means that you will
suffer."

"But that was a long time ago. I've grown since. . . . And I didn't
kiss you at first because it makes me feel uncomfortable kissing
folks out loud. But I'll kiss you in the cars when we get to them."

But by and by, when they found themselves seated alone in a
third-class compartment, she forgot her promise, being lost in wonder
at this funny mode of travelling. She examined the