"I should think they could not," said Mr. Rossitur.
"Oh, they were not!" Fleda repeated. "I have always heard that."
After paying her respects to aunt Syra in the kitchen, she had come back time enough to hear the end of the discourse in the parlour, and had felt its full teaching. Doubts returned, and her spirits were sobered again. Not another word was spoken till they reached home; when Fleda seized upon Hugh, and went off to the rock after her forsaken pie.
"Have you succeeded?" asked Mrs. Rossitur, while they were gone.
"Yes that is, a cousin has kindly consented to come and help me."
"A cousin!" said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Ay we're in a nest of cousins."
"In a what, Mr. Rossitur?"
"In a nest of cousins; and I had rather be in a nest of rooks.
I wonder if I shall be expected to ask my ploughmen to dinner!
Every second man is a cousin, and the rest are uncles."