"Oh, you find it dark?" she said, quickly. "Strangers always do; but I am used to it. If I sit here," pointing to a tall wooden chair beside her, "I can see perfectly; it is when one is unaccustomed that one finds it oppressive—only when one goes out the sunshine is sometimes too dazzling."
"That is why you are so pale, Miss Ramsay," observed Mr. Harland, with a pitying look at her thin, drooping form and sallow complexion. The girl was not pretty, certainly, but it was the absence of all coloring that seemed to mar her good looks. She had well-cut features, a gentle, mobile mouth, and large dark eyes. As he spoke, she looked at him reproachfully.
"Why did you call me Miss Ramsay? Is that the English fashion, my cousin? You know I have never lived in England, and its ways are foreign to me. To a relative I am Annette—is it not so?"
"Yes, of course; you are perfectly right," replied Mr. Harland, cheerfully; "you will soon be English enough, Miss Annette. The fact is, you have made a mistake: I am not your cousin, though I shall hope to be considered as a friend. Your cousin, Mr. Leonard Willmot, died two years ago."
"Il est mort!" with a sudden relapse into French. "Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" clasping her hands, with a gesture of despair, "is it my fate that every one belonging to me must die? Then I am desolate indeed!"
Mr. Harland found it necessary to clear his throat; that young, despairing face was too much for him.
"My dear Miss Ramsay," he exclaimed, "things are not as bad as you think. It is true that poor Willmot has gone—a good fellow he was, too, in spite of one or two mistakes—but his daughter is ready to be your friend. She is your cousin, too, so you have one relative, and she has commissioned me, as her oldest friend, to find you out, and offer you a home."
Annette's eyes filled with tears.
"A home! do you really mean it? Monsieur, will you tell me the name of this unknown cousin? Is she a girl like myself?"
"How old are you, Miss Ramsay?"