eyes. "Old friends--yet at the same time strangely new! My cousin, my
cousin"--and her voice lingered on the word--"it seems so strange to
call him my cousin after thinking these many years that I've no one in
the world but my brother. But he's really so very odd!"

"It's not so much he as--well, as his situation, that deserves that
name," I tried to reason.

"I'm so sorry for his situation. I wish I could help it in some way. He
interests me so much." She gave a sweet-sounding sigh. "I wish I could
have known him sooner--and better. He tells me he's but the shadow of
what he used to be."

I wondered if he had been consciously practising on the sensibilities of
this gentle creature. If he had I believed he had gained his point. But
his position had in fact become to my sense so precarious that I hardly
ventured to be glad. "His better self just now seems again to be taking
shape," I said. "It will have been a good deed on your part if you help
to restore him to all he ought to be."

She met my idea blankly. "Dear me, what can I do?"

"Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him love you. I dare say you
see in him now much to pity and to wonder at. But let him simply enjoy
a while the grateful sense of your nearness and dearness. He'll be
a better and stronger man for it, and then you can love him, you can
esteem him, without restriction."

She fairly frowned for helplessness. "It's a hard part for poor stupid
me to play!"

Her almost infantine innocence left me no choice but to be absolutely
frank. "Did you ever play any part at all?"

She blushed as if I had been reproaching her with her insignificance.
"Never! I think I've hardly lived."

"You've begun to live now perhaps. You've begun to care for something
else than your old-fashioned habits. Pardon me if I seem rather
meddlesome; you know we Americans are very rough and ready. It's a great
moment. I wish you joy!"

"I could almost believe you're laughing at me. I feel more trouble than
joy."

"Why do you feel trouble?"

She paused with her eyes fixed on our companions. "My cousin's arrival's
a great disturbance," she said at last.

"You mean you did wrong in coming to meet him? In that case the fault's
mine. He had no intention of giving you the opportunity."

"I certainly took too much on myself. But I can't find it in my heart to
regret it. I never shall regret it! I did the only thing I COULD, heaven
forgive me!"

"Heaven bless you, Miss Sea