"Then let me call you so. I have no girl cousin in the world," and
leaning forward he put back from her forehead one of her short,
glossy curls, which had been displaced by the evening breeze.
This was a good deal for him to do. Never before had he touched a
maiden's tresses, and he had no idea that it would make his fingers
tingle as it did. Still, on the whole, he liked it, and half-wished
the wind would blow those curls over the upturned face again, but it
did not, and he was about to make some casual remark when J.C., who
was not far distant, called out, "Making love, I do believe!"
The speech was sudden, and grated harshly on James' ear. Not because
the idea of making love to Maude was utterly distasteful, but
because he fancied she might be annoyed, and over his features there
came a shadow, which Maude did not fail to observe.
"He does not wish to be teased about me," she thought, and around
the warm spot which the name of "Cousin Maude" had made within her
heart there crept a nameless chill--a fear that she had been
degraded in his eyes. "I must go back to Louis," she said at last,
and rising from her mother's grave she returned to the house,
accompanied by Mr. De Vere, who walked by her side in silence,
wondering if she really cared for J.C.'s untimely joke.
James De Vere did not understand the female heart, and wishing to
relieve Maude from all embarrassment in her future intercourse with
himself, he said to her as they reached the door: "My Cousin Maude
must not mind what J.C. said, for she knows it is not so."
"Certainly not," was Maude's answer, as she ran upstairs, hardly
knowing whether she wished it were or were not so.
One thing, however, she knew. She liked to have him call her Cousin
Maude; and when Louis asked what Mr. De Vere had said beneath the
willows she told him of her new name, and asked if he did not like
it.
"Yes," he answered, "but I'd rather you were his sister, for then
maybe he'd call me brother, even if I am a cripple. How I wish I
could see him, and perhaps I shall to-morrow."
But on the morrow Louis was so much worse that in attending to him
Maude found but little time to spend with Mr. De Vere, who was to
leave them that evening. When, however, the carriage which was to
take him away stood at the gate, she went down to bid him good-by,
and ask him to visit them again.