he
world, but they don't seem to know what to want."

"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in
town, and invite us to visit them?"

"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in
that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening."

Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have
had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope
much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he
had not said enough, especially about the man.

If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks"
had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson
Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty
beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight
for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin
Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson
Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a
less amusing game.

She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a
mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith
saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his
own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a
good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him
along the road he wished to travel.

But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so
would be to put her against him and it.

She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs.
Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in
the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged
it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter
how sweet.

Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense
of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was
afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her
believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way
which proved that blood was thicker than water.

The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make
friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful
because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to
"snobbishness." He wished her to suppose h