"No, dear. I am just as dissatisfied with the relationship you propose as I was three years ago, and it must be either cousin or--" and she stopped.
She was standing up beside him, now.
"Or wife," he said, taking up her hand. "Is it possible you mean wife?"
Her face was a sufficient answer, and he drew her down to him.
"You silly boy!" she said, five minutes afterwards. "Of course, I thought of it all along. I never made any secret of it to your father. I told him that our escape was like a fairy tale, and that it must have the same ending: 'and they married, and lived happy ever after.' He would never have let me have my way with the house, had I not confided in him. He said that I could spend my money as I pleased, on myself, but that not one penny should be laid out on his house; and I was obliged to tell him.
"I am afraid I blushed furiously, as I did so, but I had to say:
"'Don't you see, Uncle?'--of course, I always called him uncle, from the first, though he is only a cousin--'I have quite made up my mind that it will be my house, some day; and the money may just as well be laid out on it now, to make it comfortable; instead of waiting till that time comes.'"
"What did my father say?"
"Oh, he said all sorts of nonsense, just the sort of thing that you Irishmen always do say! That he had hoped, perhaps, it might be so, from the moment he got your letter; and that the moment he saw me he felt sure that it would be so, for it must be, if you had any eyes in your head."
When Major O'Connor came home he was greatly pleased, but he took the news as a matter of course.