Gertie did not object.  Probably, being only six, she imagined that this was the ordinary and natural method of salutation.  Yet it was observable that the child did not reciprocate kisses except in one or two special cases.  She had evidently a mind of her own, a fact which was displayed most strikingly, in the passionate manner in which she reciprocated the embraces of John Marrot, her father, when that large hairy individual came in of an evening, and, catching her in his long arms, pressed her little body to his damp pilot-cloth-coated breast and her chubby face to his oily, smoke-and-soot begrimed countenance, forgetful for the moment of the remonstrance from his wife that was sure to follow:--