'None.'
'And your father and mother are dead?'
'Yes. My mother died when I was born, and I was reared by a nurse. I know her only by her picture.'
'John, tell me,' she looked at him very earnestly, and with her expressive and sweet face full of compassion; 'tell me—have you no one then to love you?'
He shook his head. 'No one.'
'At Welltown—no one?'
'My nurse. No one else.'
'How lonely in the world you must be!'
'Utterly,' he answered.
Then she brightened up, and, dashing some tears from her eyes, held out her hands to him laughingly across the glowing hearth. 'There, there, poor boy! We have been talking of Cornwall. There you may be alone and unloved, but here, in old Devon, under the shadow of Cosdon, you have a home, and hearts that care a great deal for you; there is my father, here am I, then there is Joyce, and lastly my white cat! See! he is up on your knee this moment. There! never again say that you are solitary and unloved. It is not true, it is utterly false. Good-night, Cousin John! sweet sleep, happy dreams, and a glad awaking to you!'