“Well, Mrs. Nettlepoint’s going in that ship,” Mrs. Allen had said; and she had represented that nothing was simpler than to give her the girl in charge.  When Mrs. Mavis had replied that this was all very well but that she didn’t know the lady, Mrs. Allen had declared that that didn’t make a speck of difference, for Mrs. Nettlepoint was kind enough for anything.  It was easy enough to know her, if that was all the trouble!  All Mrs. Mavis would have to do would be to go right up to her next morning, when she took her daughter to the ship (she would see her there on the deck with her party) and tell her fair and square what she wanted.  Mrs. Nettlepoint had daughters herself and would easily understand.  Very likely she’d even look after Grace a little on the other side, in such a queer situation, going out alone to the gentleman she was engaged to:  she’d just help her, like a good Samaritan, to turn round before she was married.  Mr. Porterfield seemed to think they wouldn’t wait long, once she was there:  they would have it right over at the American consul’s.  Mrs. Allen had said it would perhaps be better still to go and see Mrs. Nettlepoint beforehand, that day, to tell her what they wanted:  then they wouldn’t seem to spring it on her just as she was leaving.  She herself (Mrs. Allen) would call and say a word for them if she could save ten minutes before catching her train.  If she hadn’t come it was because she hadn’t saved her ten minutes but she had made them feel that they must come all the same.  Mrs. Mavis liked that better, because on the ship in the morning there would be such a confusion.  She didn’t think her daughter would be any trouble—­conscientiously she didn’t.  It was just to have some one to speak to her and not sally forth like a servant-girl going to a situation.

“I see, I’m to act as a sort of bridesmaid and to give her away,” Mrs. Nettlepoint obligingly said.  Kind enough in fact for anything, she showed on this occasion that it was easy enough to know her.  There is notoriously nothing less desirable than an imposed aggravation of effort at sea, but she accepted without betrayed dismay the burden of the young lady’s dependence and allowed her, as Mrs. Mavis said, to hook herself on.  She evidently had the habit of patience, and her reception of her visitors’ story reminded me afresh—­I was reminded of it whenever I returned to my native land—­that my dear compatriots are the people in the world who most freely take mutual accommodation for granted.  They have always had to help themselves, and have rather magnanimously failed to learn just where helping others is distinguishable from that.  In no country are there fewer forms and more reciprocities.