"I cannot tell."
"You cannot tell whether or no he has asked you to be his wife?"
"No; I cannot tell. Do not look at me like that, Daniel. He came here, and mamma left us together, and he was kind to me. Oh! so kind. He said that he would be a cousin to me, and a brother."
"A brother!"
"That was what he said."
"And he meant nothing more than that,—simply to be your brother?"
"I think he did mean more. I think he meant that he would try to love me so that he might be my husband."
"And what said you to that?"
"I told him that it could not be so."
"And then?"