“Indeed, Harry!—has there, then, been no meaning to your attentions in that quarter?”
“Why, as to that,” he replied, “I have always admired the girl’s beauty, and have flirted with her too much, perhaps, but there is not enough in her to pin a genuine love to; I have found her utterly characterless; and then, she affects a ridiculous fear of fire-arms, and behaves like a sick baby on horseback.”
“But, cousin,” I rejoined, “you do not want a wife to hunt with you, and ride horseback; Miss Grant is a young lady of domestic virtues and refined tastes—is she not?”
“Yes, and no. I believe she is a good housekeeper; she takes pains to let one know that—a perfect walking cookery-book; but for her refinement! Have you never noticed her coarse voice, and how much use she makes of provincialisms? She might sing well, but always makes mistakes in the words. She professes a passion for flowers; but last spring, coz, I helped her make her garden, and heard her say ‘piney’ and ‘layloc’—I never could marry a woman who said ‘piney’ and ‘layloc!’ and then she called pansies—‘pansies, that’s for thoughts’—those flowers steeped in poetry as in their own dew—‘Jonny-jump-ups!’ Bah! and then, she vulgarizes her own pretty name into Lo-izy!”
Need I confess that I was far from displeased with this little speech of my cousin’s. I was silent for a few moments, and then, with my head full of Kate and her fortunes, said, while pulling to pieces a wild-flower, which Harry had just gallantly presented to me,
“Well, then, cousin, you don’t love any body in particular, just now, do you?”
I raised my eyes when I had said this, to meet Harry’s fixed on my face, with a strange, indefinable expression—something of what is called a “killing look,” so full of intense meaning was it; but around his mouth lurked a quiet drollery, which betrayed him, even while he replied to my singular question in a tone meant to tell,
“Why, my dearest cousin, at this moment, I cannot say that I do not.”
I broke at once into a laugh of merry mockery, in which he joined at last, though not quite heartily; and we hastened to rejoin Ned, Kate and Alice, who were somewhat in advance.
On reaching our room I told Kate enough of my conversation with Harry to prove that he was really not the lover of Louisa Grant; and with a blush and a smile, she kissed and thanked me. Why should she thank me?