the extension foot of her mother’s chair, “why didn’t you and Mr. DeWitt stay longer? And how did it happen that nobody else got wind of it? I don’t believe a single person knows what we’ve been about! And oh! we have had such a glorious time! It was like being a bird! Only that little girl in the steerage oughtn’t to be there, and Mr. Grey and I are 21 going to see what can be done about it, and––”

21

The wadded hood had fallen silent, and now its wearer rose, with an air of resignation, and carried her tale to another listener, while Mr. Grey also moved away, leaving Blythe to tell her own story.

They were great friends, Mrs. Halliday and this only child of hers, and well they might be; for, as Blythe had informed Mr. Grey early in their acquaintance; “Mamma and I are all there are of us.”

As she sat beside this best of friends,—having dropped into the chair left vacant by the wadded hood,—Blythe lived over again every experience and sensation of that eventful afternoon, and with the delightful sense of sharing it with somebody who understood. And, since the most abiding impression of all had been her solicitude for the little steerage passenger, she found no difficulty in arousing her mother to an almost equal interest in the child’s fate.

And presently, when the cornet player passed them, with the air of short-lived 22 importance which comes to a ship’s cornet three times a day, and, stationing himself well aft, played the cheerful little tune which heralds the approaching dinner-hour, Blythe slipped her hand into her mother’s and said:

22

“We’ll do something about that little girl; won’t us, Mumsey?”

Upon which Mrs. Halliday, rising, and patting the rosy cheek which she used to call the “apple of her eye,” said:

“I shouldn’t wonder if us did, Blythe.”

23

CHAPTER II

THE LITTLE SIGNORINA

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