? You are my cousin. If anything happened----" She
stopped.

"Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own language, there is a
Providence above all--is there not?"

"Yes, dear Robert. May He guard you!"

"And if prayers have efficacy, yours will benefit me. You pray for me
sometimes?"

"Not _sometimes_, Robert. You, and Louis, and Hortense are _always_
remembered."

"So I have often imagined. It has occurred to me when, weary and vexed,
I have myself gone to bed like a heathen, that another had asked
forgiveness for my day, and safety for my night. I don't suppose such
vicarial piety will avail much, but the petitions come out of a sincere
breast, from innocent lips. They should be acceptable as Abel's
offering; and doubtless would be, if the object deserved them."

"Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless."

"When a man has been brought up only to make money, and lives to make
it, and for nothing else, and scarcely breathes any other air than that
of mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer, or to
mix his idea with anything divine; and very strange it seems that a
good, pure heart should take him in and harbour him, as if he had any
claim to that sort of nest. If I could guide that benignant heart, I
believe I should counsel it to exclude one who does not profess to have
any higher aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune, and
wiping clean from his _bourgeois_ scutcheon the foul stain of
bankruptcy."

The hint, though conveyed thus tenderly and modestly (as Caroline
thought), was felt keenly and comprehended clearly.

"Indeed, I only think--or I _will only_ think--of you as my cousin," was
the quick answer. "I am beginning to understand things better than I
did, Robert, when you first came to England--better than I did a week, a
day ago. I know it is your duty to try to get on, and that it won't do
for you to be romantic; but in future you must not misunderstand me if I
seem friendly. You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?"

"What made you think so?"

"Your look--your manner."

"But look at me now----"

"Oh! you are different now. At present I dare speak to you."

"Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman behind me in
the Hollow. Your kinsman alone stands before you."

"My cousin Robert--not Mr. Moore."

"Not a bit of Mr. Moore. Caroline----"

Here the company was heard rising in the other room. The door was
opened; the pony-carriag