"Hallo, Dot," he said, coming quickly to her side. "At it, I see, like the rest of your kind; but don't it become you, though! Why, you are sweet and fresh this morning as a rose from the old Stoneleigh garden," and the tall young man stooped and kissed the blushing girl two or three times before she could withdraw herself from him. "Why, Bess," he continued, "what a lump of dignity you are this morning! You did not used to wriggle so when I kissed you. What has happened?"
"Nothing has happened," Bessie replied, though she knew very well there had, for what Jack Trevellian had told her that rumor said of Neil and Blanche had opened a new channel of thought, and made her older far than she was before; too old for Neil to be kissing her as if she were a child.
And then, if what Jack said was true, he had no right to kiss her, even if she were his cousin. But was it true? She wished she knew, and after she had thanked Neil for the dress, and asked if he were very angry with her the day before for trying to attract his attention, and he had assured her that he was not, she burst out: "Oh, Neil, is it true you are to marry Miss Blanche? Mr. Jack Trevellian stood by us yesterday and told me who the people were, and he said--"
"Jack be hanged!" Neil interrupted her. "What business has he to talk such nonsense to you? Marry Blanche? Never! What do I want of those light eyebrows and that pointed chin--I, who know you?"
Here he stopped, struck by something in Bessie's face which seemed to brighten and beautify it until it shone like the face of some pure saint to whom the gate of Paradise has just been opened. Then it occurred to Neil suddenly that Bessie was not a child. She was a girl of fifteen and more, with an experience which made her older than her years; and, selfish as he was, and much as he would like to have her look at him always as she was looking now, he felt that he must not encourage it. He had told her he should never marry Blanche, but in his heart he thought it possible, for, as there was no money in his own family, and he could not exist without it, he must marry money and forget the sweet face and soft blue eyes which moved him with a strange power and made him long to fold Bessie in his arms, and, young as she was, claim her as something more than a cousin. But, always politic and cautious, he restrained himself, and said to her instead: "I do not believe I shall ever marry anybody, certainly not for many years, and you and I will be the best of friends always, brother and sister, which is better than cousins. Do you consent?"