“You will patronize his moustache?”
“If he will my snuff-box,” said Kate, laughing. “Heigho—I feel just like a cat in want of a mouse to torment. I wish I knew a victim worthy to exercise my talents upon.”
“Talons, you mean,” retorted Fanny—“I pity him.”
“He would get used to it,” said Kate; “the mouse—the husband, you know—I should let him run a little way, and then clap my claws on him. I’ve seen it tried; it works like a charm.”
“Kate, why do you always choose to wear a mask?” asked Fanny; “why do you take so much pains to make a censorious world believe you the very opposite of what you are?”
“Because paste passes as current as diamond; because I value the world’s opinion not one straw; because if you own a heart, it is best to hide it, unless you want it trampled on. But I don’t ask you to subscribe to all this, Fanny, with that incomparable Cousin John in your thoughts; there he is—there’s the door-bell—Venus! how you blush! but ‘a stoop in the shoulders.’ How can you, Fanny? Thirty-six years old, too—Lord bless us!”
CHAPTER XX.
Was this “little Fanny?” this tall, graceful creature of seventeen, the little thing who bade him good-by at Mrs. Chubb’s door, ten years since, with her pinafore stuffed in the corner of her eye? “Little Fanny,” with that queenly presence? Cousin John almost felt as if he ought to ask leave to touch her hand; ah—she is the same little Fanny after all—frank, guileless, and free-hearted. She flies into his arms, puts up her rosy lips for a kiss, and says “Dear Cousin John.”
“God bless you,” was all he could find voice to say, for in truth, she was Mary’s own self.