“Oh, yes! I am well,” I said, half displeased at this interpretation of the moody face which looked so black and clouded beside Flora’s. “Will you wait for me, Miss Ennerdale, while I get ready?”
“Don’t call me Miss Ennerdale, please don’t,” entreated the girl; “papa says we are as good as first cousins, for his father was your mamma’s uncle, and his mother was her aunt. Do you not know, Mrs. Southcote? your grandpapa and mine were brothers, and they married two sisters—that is how it is—and we are as good as first cousins—and I think, you know, that we ought to call each other—at least, that you ought to call me by my own name.”
“Very well, we will make a bargain,” said I; “do you know my name, Flora?”
“Oh yes! very well—it is Hester,” said Flora, with a blush and a little shyness. “I have no other cousins on papa’s side—and I always liked so much to hear of you.”
“Why?”
“Because—I can’t tell, I am sure!” said Flora, laughing. “I always could see my other cousins, but never you—and so few people knew you; and do you know,” she added quietly, lowering her tone, and drawing near to me, with that innocent pathos and mystery which young girls love, “I think my father, when he was young, was very fond of your mamma.”
“Strange! he, too! everybody must have loved her,” I said to myself, wonderingly.
“Yes, he says he never saw any one like her,” said Flora, with her sweet girlish seriousness, and perfect sincerity.
“Did no one ever say you were like me?” I asked.
Her face flushed in a moment with a bright rosy color.