must i' faith be in some sort his
cousin, since Kate, who was his cousin, also spoke of me as one. I
told him nay, but that thou wert cousin only on my mother's side;
but he laughed, and would not listen, and bid me fetch thee, that
he might place thee well to see the mummery. So come with me, fair
cousin, for we must not keep him waiting."

Cherry's cheeks were dyed with bewitching blushes, and her big gray
eyes were shining like stars, as she followed her cousin,
accompanied by a little murmur of congratulation from the waiting
women, who had all fallen in love with the charming child. She
looked a perfect picture as she stood before Lord Culverhouse in
her scarlet petticoat and snow-white hood, making her pretty quaint
reverence to him, hardly daring to raise her eyes, but quite lost
in the glamour of the honour done to her in being thus noticed by a
real lord and good humouredly dubbed a cousin.

And then her hand was actually taken by this handsome and elegant
young gallant, and she felt herself being conducted through rooms
the magnificence of which she could not take in in her timid, hasty
glances. She had almost begun to think it all a dream from which
she must soon awaken, when she heard her companion say in his sweet
voice:

"Mother mine, have you room beneath your ample wing for a little
city guest--a cousin of Cuthbert Trevlyn, who has brought me a most
welcome missive from my dear cousin Kate?"

And then Cherry looked up with a pretty, frightened, trusting
glance, to find herself being examined and smiled at by quite a
bevy of wonderfully-dressed ladies, who after one good look began
to laugh in a very reassuring and kindly way, and made room in
their midst for the little city maiden with that ease of true good
breeding which has ever been the truest test of the blue blood of
the English aristocracy. She looked such a child, in her pretty
confusion and bashfulness, that not one of them resented her
presence amongst them. Courtesy and kindliness had always been Lady
Andover's salient characteristics, and there was a native
refinement and quaint simplicity about Cherry that would have gone
far to disarm severer critics than the present company round Lady
Andover.

"Come, my pretty child," she said; "thou shalt sit beside me, and
tell me all about thyself. The name of Trevlyn is well known and
well loved in this house. Thou comest under good auspices."

And so Cherry again found herself the plaything