"I think you're very kind to take the
slightest interest. But really there _is_ nothing to tell. Just the
usual sort of thing."
"It doesn't seem exactly usual to me for a girl about nineteen years
old--"
"Twenty!"
"--to be leaving home alone and starting for a new country."
"Not alone. Mme. Nadine might be furious if she were spoken of as my
chaperon; but she is, all the same. Not that an emigrant needs a
chaperon."
"You an emigrant!"
"Well, what else am I?"
"I've been thinking of you as a dryad."
"A poor, drenched dryad, thousands of miles from her native woods. Do
you know, my veil is _soaked_?"
"I'll get you a sou'wester hat to-morrow."
"Does the barber keep them as well as Balm of Gilead?"
"No, but my sister does. She keeps one. And she doesn't want it. I
shall annex it."
"Oh! I couldn't take it!"
"If you don't, I'll throw it overboard."
"Were the chocolates hers?"
"Yes."
"And the books?"
"Some were mine. But not the ones Miss Devereux says are pretty. Look
here, Miss Child, another thing she says is that you are not with
Nadine as a permanence. What does that mean, if you don't much mind my
asking?"
"Not what you think.
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