“And was it right, Cousin Harry, for you to come here in disguise and visit the Abbey like a stranger? Was that an evidence of the affection you speak of?”
“You forget, Kate, I didn’t know whom I was to meet. If I had known that you were the girl whom I carried down the ladder to the boat, I’d have gone to the world’s end to see you again. How came you to be there?”
“You shall hear it all when you have time and patience. We each have much to tell, and you shall begin, but not to-night, Harry; let us be satisfied to make acquaintance now. Why do you stare at me?”
“Because you are so beautiful—because I never saw any one so beautiful before.”
“A very frank compliment, and I suppose too frank to be construed into what is called flattery.”
“To think of you living here!—you, in such a place as this! Why, it is downright monstrous.”
“Cousin Harry,” said she, gravely, “if you are to-do nothing but make me compliments, our intimacy will have but a sorry chance to make any progress. I have no doubt I’m pretty, but remember, that in this place here there are scores of things you’ll be struck by, simply because they come upon you unexpectedly. Look at my little tea equipage, for instance; could you have dreamed of anything so tasteful on the Island of Arran?”
The playful raillery of this speech could not turn his thoughts from herself. Nor was it alone her beauty that amazed him, but her exquisite grace of manner, the sweet-toned voice, low and gentle, her every movement and gesture, and then her bearing towards himself, so nicely balanced between the reserve of a maidenly bashfulness and the freedom of a near relative.
“We will have our tea together, Harry,” said she, “and you shall tell me all your adventures. You could not readily find a listener more eager for all that is strange, or wild, or exciting. Let me hear of the scenes you have gone through, and I’ll be able to make some guess of what manner of man my cousin is.”
“My rough life is little more than a long catalogue of common-place hardships—hardships that sailors come at last to look at as the ordinary events of existence, but which certainly tend to make us somewhat careless about life, but very ready to enjoy it. Where am I to begin?”