She was very nervous as she stood upon the platform waiting for the new comer to show herself. She knew that Mary was a cripple, but did not know how far her cousin was disfigured by her infirmity; and when she saw a pale-faced little woman, somewhat melancholy, but yet pretty withal, with soft, clear eyes, and only so much appearance of a stoop as to soften the hearts of those who saw her, Clara was agreeably surprised, and felt herself to be suddenly relieved of an unpleasant weight. She could talk to the woman she saw there, as to any other woman, without the painful necessity of treating her always as an invalid. "I think you are Miss Belton?" she said, holding out her hand. The likeness between Mary and her brother was too great to allow of Clara being mistaken.
"And you are Clara Amedroz? It is so good of you to come to meet me!"
"I thought you would be dull in a strange town by yourself."
"It will be much nicer to have you with me."
Then they went together up to the inn; and when they had taken their bonnets off, Mary Belton kissed her cousin. "You are very nearly what I fancied you," said Mary.
"Am I? I hope you fancied me to be something that you could like."
"Something that I could love very dearly. You are a little taller than what Will said; but then a gentleman is never a judge of a lady's height. And he said you were thin."
"I am not very fat."
"No; not very fat; but neither are you thin. Of course, you know, I have thought a great deal about you. It seems as though you had come to be so very near to us; and blood is thicker than water, is it not? If cousins are not friends, who can be?"
In the course of that evening they became very confidential together, and Clara thought that she could love Mary Belton better than any woman that she had ever known. Of course they were talking about William, and Clara was at first in constant fear lest some word should be said on her lover's behalf,—some word which would drive her to declare that she would not admit him as a lover; but Mary abstained from the subject with marvellous care and tact. Though she was talking through the whole evening of her brother, she so spoke of him as almost to make Clara believe that she could not have heard of that episode in his life. Mrs. Askerton would have dashed at the subject at once; but then, as Clara told herself, Mary Belton was better than Mrs. Askerton.