Belton kissed her cousin. "You are very nearly what
I fancied you," said Mary.

"Am I? I hope you fancied me to be something that you could like."

"Something that I could love very dearly. You are a little taller
than what Will said; but then a gentleman is never a judge of a
lady's height. And he said you were thin."

"I am not very fat."

"No; not very fat; but neither are you thin. Of course, you know, I
have thought a great deal about you. It seems as though you had come
to be so very near to us; and blood is thicker than water, is it not?
If cousins are not friends, who can be?"

In the course of that evening they became very confidential together,
and Clara thought that she could love Mary Belton better than any
woman that she had ever known. Of course they were talking about
William, and Clara was at first in constant fear lest some word
should be said on her lover's behalf,--some word which would drive
her to declare that she would not admit him as a lover; but Mary
abstained from the subject with marvellous care and tact. Though she
was talking through the whole evening of her brother, she so spoke
of him as almost to make Clara believe that she could not have heard
of that episode in his life. Mrs. Askerton would have dashed at the
subject at once; but then, as Clara told herself, Mary Belton was
better than Mrs. Askerton.

A few words were said about the estate, and they originated in
Clara's declaration that Mary would have to be regarded as the
mistress of the house to which they were going. "I cannot agree to
that," said Mary.

"But the house is William's, you know," said Clara.

"He says not."

"But of course that must be nonsense, Mary."

"It is very evident that you know nothing of Plaistow ways, or you
would not say that anything coming from William was nonsense. We are
accustomed to regard all his words as law, and when he says that a
thing is to be so, it always is so."

"Then he is a tyrant at home."

"A beneficent despot. Some despots, you know, always were
beneficent."

"He won't have his way in this thing."

"I'll leave you and him to fight about that, my dear. I am so
completely under his thumb that I always obey him in everything. You
must not, therefore, expect to range me on your side."

The next day they were at Belton Castle, and in a very few hours
Clara felt that she was quite at home with her cousin. On the second
day Mrs. Askerton came up and called,--according to