It was the face she had seen in the miniature, changed from childhood to youth. The same blue eyes, frank, confiding, and womanish—the same golden hair clustering in short curls, instead of falling on the shoulders as in the picture—the same smiling mouth, with its little touch of weakness about the under lip. A taking, a pretty rather than a handsome face; it ought to have belonged rather to a girl than a boy.
Stella stared, and doubted the evidence of her senses. Her dream flashed across her mind and made her heart beat with a sudden emotion, whether of fear or pleasure she could not tell.
Who was this boy, and what was he doing there leaning on the gate as if the place belonged to him, and he had a right to be there?
She took a step nearer, and he opened the gate for her. Stella entered, and he raised his hat, allowing the moonbeams to fall on his yellow hair, and smiled at her, very much as a child might smile, with grave, open-eyed admiration and greeting.
"Are you—you are Stella!" he said, in a voice that made her start,—it was so like her uncle's, but softer and brighter.
"My name is Stella!" she said, filled with wonder.
He held out his hand frankly, but with a little timid shyness.
"Then we are cousins," he said.
"Cousins?" exclaimed Stella, but she gave him her hand.
"Yes, cousins," he said. "You are Stella, Uncle Harold's daughter, are you not? Well, I am Frank."