be made of it, cast them down again with a slight shrug of her shoulders, and made no reply. "Why should I take the trouble to talk?" she seemed to say, which was not very civil to Mrs. Drainham, nor encouraging to that lady's benevolence, it must be allowed. "You never thought of that view of the matter?" said the persevering woman. "But you ought to think of it. Few people, unless they are very rich, are disposed to take all the responsibility of a girl like you. They might help you, and be kind to you; but they would most likely think it was right and best that you should contribute at least to your own support." posure without any thought of politeness. Frederick came in looking (as he was) something of an invalid still. He was pale; he had that look of convalescence we have already referred to on his interesting countenance. He came forward, holding out both his hands to the girl, who stood devouring him with her eyes, which for once were fully opened. She could not say anything; she could scarcely breathe. Many speculations had crossed her mind as to the kind of messenger who might arrive. This young man, looking not unlike one of the heroes of her dreams, pale, melancholy, yet smiling, holding out his hands to her, made such a sudden lodgment in the girl's in"I do not know what you mean," said experienced heart as I can neither define Innocent, looking at her with mingled nor account for. The chances are that wonder and resentment. She pushed his mother, who was much kinder than away her little tray from her, and in sheer Frederick, would have made no impresbewilderment took up the scaldino, put- sion at all upon Innocent. She looked ting it in her lap, and holding her hands at him with her eyes all aglow and shinover it. This was another thing upon ing, with a sudden glad contraction and which the doctor's wife, as she herself avowed, could not look with any toleration. She made a little gesture of distress, as if she would have put it away. "Oh, for heaven's sake, my dear, don't let me see you with that odious thing on your knee An English girl keeps her hands warm with doing something or other. You will find nothing of that sort in England. There your time will be all filled up in a rational way. There is always something going on, and you will find no time to nurse your hands in your lap. Of course, there is a great deal that will be very novel. Put down that scaldino, dear. I can't bear to see you with it. It is such an odd thing for an English girl to do." then expansion of her heart. She put down the scaldino, and went a step forward. "You are my little cousin," said Frederick, in a voice which the natural impulse of kindness and the pleasant sense of beneficence made melodious. He looked at her with no criticism in his eyes, rather with admiration and pleasure. The girl paused all aglow, on tiptoe, her sudden impulse betraying itself in every line of her slim figure. Then she obeyed that impulse, poor, forlorn child. She threw herself forward, took the outstretched hands, and bent down and kissed them in her pretty Italian way. "Yes, I am Innocent," she said; "oh, take me away! take me away!" CHAPTER VIII. THE COUSINS. "Am I an English girl?" said Innocent, dreamily. She did not respond to what was said to her. "She never gives you a reasonable answer," Mrs. Drain- THIS little scene was odd and someham said afterwards, with an impatience what embarrassing to a young Englishfor which it was not difficult to account. man utterly unaccustomed to have his It was just then that the tinkling bell hand kissed; but I think it highly probat the door pealed, and Niccolo after able that Frederick would have felt much some parley admitted a stranger. Nic- less objection to it had it not been for the colo recognized the name at once, though presence of that Gorgon of British prono English visitor could have recognized priety, which kept staring at him with an it had he heard it from Niccolo's lips. expression of shocked and suspicious "Signor Estvode," he said, looking in watchfulness from the other side of the at the door, and pausing, with the true stove. He laughed with the embarrassinstinct of an Italian servant, to watch ment common to his nation under the cirthe effect of the announcement. Inno- cumstances. There is nothing so awkcent started to her feet, in her haste drop- ward, so unhappy, and unready, as an ping instinctively from her shoulders her Englishman who is called upon to show old velvet mantle, and Mrs. Drainham any natural feeling of the softer kind besat and stared with genuine British com-fore strangers. Why we all, and we aione, should feel that we are ridiculous when | Paris hotel, which was the first one that our hearts are touched, I cannot tell; but came to his hand. He knew it by a crease so it is. Frederick Eastwood was affected in the corner, and pushed it back again by the eager passion of his welcome; but with a little shudder which he could not with Mrs. Drainham's eyes upon him, he account for: for indeed the Batty episode could do nothing but laugh. The primi- had faded into unimportance already. tive-minded girl, who was not aware of The card, however, was given and acceptthis tacit necessity, shrunk back into her-ed with a gracious smile and bow. That self when, as she thought, he laughed at celestial address, the "Junior Minerva her. But the spectator felt that it was the impressed Mrs. Drainham, as it had imright thing to do, and her disapproval pressed Frederick's less desirable acsoftened. She indicated a chair to the quaintance. A little conversation of the new comer with a little wave of her hand. most amicable character ensued, winding "Dear child," she said in a caressing up by an invitation to dinner for that tone, “you must moderate your feelings. evening. We all understand you; we all excuse "And you will come too, my dear," you; but these are not English ways. Sit said the doctor's wife; "though it is a down a little, while I talk to you and to thing you could not do in ordinary cirthis gentlemen. Mr. Eastwood, I think? cumstances. Nobody could reflect upon so far as one can understand an Ital- you for departing from the usual rules in ian's version of the name we were ex-your position. I will ask no one to meet pecting to hear you. Mr. Eastwood will bring you to us at seven o'clock." "Yes," said Frederick, "I should have arrived a week ago, but for indisposition. I am glad to find my cousin in such good hands." Here they paused, and looked at each other, with sentiments which were not unfriendly, but a certain English community of feeling that made them sensible of the necessity of some sort of preliminary antagonism before the one agreed to accept the other as the person he claimed to be. Mrs. Drainham was a pretty woman, though it was appointed to her at this moment to act the Gorgon's part. And Frederick, with his peaked beard and melancholy eyes, was a handsome young man. The tone of the British matron perceptibly softened, as she took in at a glance the various evidences before her that the new comer was "a gentleman " -all-expressive and all-embracing phrase. She even laughed a little in her turn, and coloured very becomingly as she executed the sterner part of her duty. "I am afraid you will think me impertinent," she said; "and I feel ridiculous; but as my husband and I have taken a great interest in Miss Vane, would you pardon me for asking if you have any credentials -or authority? I am sure I beg your pardon. You will understand what I mean Then they both laughed together which advanced matters still farther. "I have a letter from my mother to my cousin," he said. "I might have got a certificate of identity, had I thought she was so well guarded. And here is my card," he added, taking it out smilingly. It was the card Batty had found in the She Innocent had listened to this conversation vaguely, in a kind of stupor, feeling as if they spoke a language of which she had never before heard a word. Greek would have been as intelligible to her. It even hurt her vaguely that they seemed to understand each other in the language which she could not understand. had been thrust back upon herself, which is always painful-thrust back after, as she thought, a gleam of new life and a new world, into the old dreary world, much drearier than ever by the contrast though it was but momentary. The visionary intensity of a mind living in its own sensations almost annihilates space and time; and though it was but half an hour since Frederick Eastwood came upon the scene at all, there was room enough in that half hour to make the girl feel the force of two revolutions the one from her dreary solitude into a new sphere of brightness, tenderness, companionship which was as a revelation of Heaven to her; and the other, a dreary circle back again, out of the light, out of the society, out of the strange delightful newness which seemed to have changed her being all in a moment. The one was a sudden sun-rising, the other an equally sudden eclipse. She had been raised up to heaven and then suddenly tossed down again. The amount of emotion involved was quite excessive and extravagant, out of all keeping with the momentary character of the incidents; but Innocent was not aware of this, nor could have believed how utterly unimportant to the others was the half-hour which sub'jected her to such vicissitudes of feeling as she had never before felt in her life. | wrong. She threw out her arms and more natural? She had just lost her father; she had no one in the world to turn to, except this new relation who belonged to her. She had been undergoing an unnatural repression, concealing her feelings in that stupor which grief so often brings. Frederick thought he understood it all, and it affected him, though he was glad there was no one else in the room. He put his arm round her, and even kissed the cheek which was partially visible, and said all the kind things he could think of. It lasted so long that, not being very strong himself, he began to totter a little under the unexpected burden, and would gladly have freed himself and sat down by her. But Innocent had been carried away by the tide, and could not stop herself. This was the beginning of their acquaintance. There were no preliminaries. She had never "given way in her life before, except on the occasion we have already referred to- and heaven knows what a strange processes were going on in the girl's half-developed, muchsuppressed nature, as for the first time she gave her tears and emotion way. She made no reply to Mrs. Drainham's clung to him, in a simple effort of nature invitation, which, indeed, she scarcely to grasp at something; and fell into such comprehended. She did not understand a passion of sobs and cries on his bosom the civilities with which her two compan- as frightened him. But yet what was ions parted, Frederick accompanying Mrs. Drainham to the door. What she imagined was that he had thus gone away without taking any further notice of her, and that all was over, and the new hope to which she seemed to have a right, taken from her. She sat in a stupor watching them go away, fingering the folds of the old velvet cloak, which she had picked up mechanically from the floor, and feeling a mingled chill- of her shoulders from the want of her mantle, and of her heart from this strange desertion which made her shiver all over, and gave her that nervous and passionate impulse to cry, which children and women are so seldom able to resist, but which poor Innocent had been victorious over often, tears being among the things which her father turned into highest ridicule. She had ceased almost to be able to weep-forgotten the way; the natural emotions had been frozen in their fountains. But the thrill of new existence of which she had been conscious had broken those frozen chains, and she began to struggle with a hysterical passion which roused all her pride and all her spirit to conquer it. No doubt, she thought, this new cousin, like her father, would despise the weakness which women in dulged in. Innocent despised herself for being a woman, and she would have died sooner than yield to what she supposed to be a purely feminine impulse. She was struggling thus with herself, fighting the hardest battle she had fought since the time when goaded by his ridicule she had rushed upon her father like a little tiger, beating him with her baby fist, choking with suppressed passion, when the door opened again, and Frederick came in once more. She gazed at him with her breast heaving, and her eyes dilated in the fierceness of her struggle to keep off the tears. And if he had laughed, or treated her emotion lightly, Innocent would have conquered. But Frederick's heart was really touched. He felt benevolent, paternal, full of patronage and kindness. He went up to her, and laid his hand caressingly on her head. 66 My little cousin, we must make friends now that woman is gone," he said, smiling upon her. Poor child, she knew nothing of selfcontrol, scarcely anything of right and When the hysterical sobbing came to an end, Innocent lifted her head from his breast and looked at him, still holding him by the arms. She looked up suddenly, half beseeching him not to despise her, half daring him to do so; but there was no scorn in Frederick's eyes. He was very sorry for her. 66 My poor child!" he said, smoothing the ruffled hair upon her forehead. Then a sudden flush came to her face, and light to her eyes. She released him as suddenly as she had clutched him. She sank back gently into her chair with a shy deprecating smile. "I could not help it," she said, putting out her hand. She wanted to retain some hold of him, to be sure that he would not melt quite away like one of the dreams. As for Frederick, though his first feeling, I confess, was great thankfulness at being permitted to sit down, he had no objection to have his hand held by those soft, long fingers, or to bear the eager look of eyes which shone upon him with a kind of worship. He told her how he had been coming to her for a long time, but had been detained-how he had come to take her home how they must start next day if possible, and travel as "Will you leave me when we get there?" the girl asked eagerly, still holding him. Yes, it was flattering; but possibly it might become a bore. "No, no," he said, "I live there too. I am not going to leave you. But my mother will be the chief person then-my mother and Nelly, not me. They will be your chief friends and companions "I would rather have you; I know you; and I don't like women," said the girl. "Listen! Could not we live somewhere without letting them know? I can cook some dishes-very good maccaroni; and I can cook birds. I could do what you wanted, and make your spese. This would be far better than going to live with your mother. I do not like women." quickly as possible; and how his mother my mother "Must you go away?" she cried with a start, holding his hand closer, as he moved. "Not to leave you," he said; "but if we go away to-morrow Can you go tomorrow, Innocent?" 66 "I will go when you go," she said. My dear cousin, you must be less vague. Can you be ready? Can you have your packing done, and all your little affairs settled? Where is your maid? She will know best." "I have no maid. I have nothing to pack. I am ready now whenever you please; only you must not leave me. You must never leave me," she cried, clasping her hands round his arm. "I have no intention of leaving you," he said, half flattered, half embarrassed, "till I have taken you to my mother. is my mother whom you are going to It She warmed as she spoke, turning to face him, with her hand still clasping his "You must not say such things," he said. "Why? This is the first time you have said 'you must not.' My father says women are all bad-not some here and there like men. I am one, but I cannot help it. I always try to be different. I would not do the things they do look like them if I could help it. Are you rich?" nor "No," said Frederick, becoming bewildered. He had risen up, but she detained him with her two hands holding his arm. "That is a pity. We were never rich. If you had been rich we might have taken Niccolo, who could have done everything -he is so clever. We might have stayed here. Stop!" she said, suddenly, "there is a little cloud coming up over your face. Do not let it. Smile. You smiled when you came in first, and I knew that it was you, and was so happy." My poor child! Why were you hap py?" "Because I knew it was you," she said, vehemently. "And now you talk of your mother. I do not want to go to your mother. Let me stay with you." "Listen, Innocent," he said, with a shade of impatience stealing over him. "There is no possibility of questioning where you are to go. You must go to my mother. I live there, too. I cannot afford to have a house for myself. must learn to be fond of my mother, and do whatever she wishes. Now let me go, please. I am going out to see the place. You If we leave to-morrow, I may not have another opportunity. Come, come, you must let me go." was gone. Ready for what? For going out with him in the evening to the house of the lady who found fault with her; who had come to her and talked so much, that the girl neither tried nor wished to understand. Ready! She sat and tried to think what it meant. She had but the black frock she wore - no other-with its little black frill of crape about her neck; no edge of white, such as people wear in England. She could smooth her hair, and put on a locket, or her mother's brooch; but that was all she could do. The packing she never thought of. Niccolo had been nurse and valet combined. He had always arranged everything, and told her what to do. She sat She was looking up into his face, studying it intently, as if it were a book, a close, penetrating gaze, before which his eyes somewhat wavered, hesitating to meet hers. An idea that she would find him out if she gazed thus into the depths of his soul, crossed his mind, and made him half angry, half afraid. Perhaps she divined this feeling; for she let his arm go, slowly, sliding her hands away from it, with a half caressing, half apologetic motion. She smiled as she thus released him, but said nothing. There was something pretty in the act by which she set him free-a mingling of resignation and for a long time quite still, ponderen treaty that at once amused and touched him. Go, if you will it seemed to say -but yet stay with me! It was hard to resist the moral restraint after the physical was withdrawn. But Frederick reflected that to spend this, his only day in a strange new place in Italy — shut up tête-à-tête with a girl who was a stranger to him, though she was his cousin, would be extremely ridiculous. Yet he could not leave her abruptly. He stroked her soft hair once more paternally as he stood by her. "I will come back in time to take you out to this lady's to dinner," he said. "I suppose they have been kind to you? And in the meantime you must see after your packing. I have no doubt you will find a great many things to do. I am sorry you have not a maid to help you. Have you wraps for the journey? You will want something warm." She took up her old velvet mantle with a startled look, and turned it round in her hands, looking at it. It was a garment to delight the very soul of a painter; but, alas! it was not such a garment as Frederick Eastwood, who was not a painter, could walk about by the side of, or travel with. "Is that all you have?" he asked, with a little dismay. "I have a shawl," said Innocent, looking at him with astonished eyes. "Ah! I must speak to Mrs. Drainham about it," he said, with some impatience. "Good-bye for the moment. Will you dress, and be quite ready when I come back? and then we can have a talk about our start to-morrow, and all our arrangements. I am sure if you are to be ready in time there is not a moment to lose." Ready in time! The words seemed to echo about poor Innocent's ears when he ing over the morning with a strange It |
