THINGS DIFFERENT.
THE conservatory door was flung open, and a child came flying along the terrace, her lissom figure bending forward, her flaxen hair streaming, cloud-like, behind.
"Mittie, Mittie! Come back, you naughty child!" sounded from within doors, in faint shrill tones.
Mittie paid no regard to the sound. She rushed on, till within three yards of Hermione and Marjory. There she stopped abruptly.
"Are you the pretty cousin?" she demanded, fixing her black eyes fearlessly on Hermione, whom she seemed to select at a glance with a precocious child's penetration. "Uncle Harvey says I have got to adopt you, because you're not my cousin really, you know. But I think—" and the black eyes roved to and fro between the two faces— "I think I'd rather adopt the other!"
The words sounded comical from those rosy lips. Hermione was gravely silent, wearing a checked, even a displeased look, as if the infantine frankness were annoying. Marjory's heart went out towards the small engaging creature, so daintily delicate in figure and dress.
"Don't you think you might adopt both of us?" she asked adroitly. "We are very much like sisters. No, I am not Hermione—this is Hermione—I am only Marjory Fitzalan. And you are Mrs. Trevor's little girl?"
"I'm Mittie Trevor, of course." That seemed a self-evident fact to the eight-years-old maiden. "And Mrs. Trevor is my mother, and we've come to live here—but I wish it was you that had got to be my cousin. What makes you call yourself 'only' Marjory? I like Marjory for a name, and you are not a poor person."
Marjory could not resist stooping to give the kiss which Hermione ought to have given.
"Not a rich one, at all events," she said.