inquired. Upon which the little girl, finding herself unexpectedly on a level with Blythe’s face, put up her tiny hand and stroked her cheek. “Like-a Signorina,” she remarked with apparent irrelevance. “Oh! You do, do you? Well, she’s a nice girl.” “Nice-a girl-a,” the child repeated, adding a vowel, Italian fashion, to each word. Then, with an appreciative look into the pleasant, whiskered countenance, 44 whose owner was holding her so securely on her precarious perch, she pressed her little hand gently against his waistcoat, and gravely remarked, “Nice-a girl-a, anche il Signore!” 44 “So! I’m a nice girl too, am I?” the old gentleman replied, much elated with the compliment. And Giuditta, down below, perceiving that her Signorina was making new conquests, snatched her bright handkerchief from her head, and waved it gaily; whereupon a score of the steerage passengers, seized with her enthusiasm, waved their hats and handkerchiefs and shouted; “Buon’ viaggio, Signorina! Buon’ viaggio!” And the little recipient of this ovation became so excited that she almost jumped out of the detaining arms of Mr. DeWitt, who, being of a cautious disposition, made haste to set her down again; upon which they all walked aft, under the big awning. “She makes friends easily,” Mr. Grey remarked, later in the morning, as he and 45 Blythe paused a moment in their game of ring-toss. The child was standing, clinging to the hand of a tall woman in black, a grave, silent Southerner who had hitherto kept quite to herself. 45 “Yes,” Blythe rejoined, “but she is fastidious. She will listen to no blandishments from any one whom she doesn’t take a fancy to. That good-natured, talkative Mr. Distel has been trying all day to get her to come to him, but she always gives him the slip.” And Blythe, in her preoccupation, proceeded to throw two rings out of three wide of the mark. “Has the Count taken any more notice of her?” Mr. Grey inquired, deftly tossing the smallest of all the rings over the top of the post.
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