“Why should you have hoped it, cousin?” she said. “Why should you show pleasure now that it is so?”
“Why, are we not near and dear kinsfolk?” said he.
“Not near enough for the forbidden degrees,” she answered, “and therefore not near enough to be alone together.”
His brows went up.
“You were not wont to speak to me like this. What have I done to change you?”
“O! nothing.”
“That is quite true. Well, my feelings have not changed.”
“I was sure they had not.”
“Were you?” He looked at her curiously, but her impassive face gave him no clue to her thoughts.
“Did you expect to find my lord?” she said, again quietly busy at her work. “Or was it, perhaps, Mrs. Davis you sought?”