A rosy widow of twenty-eight, half cousin, half hostess, doing the honors of an odorous cottage on a midsummer evening, was a phenomenon to which the young man's imagination was able to do ample justice.

Cecilia was always gracious, but this evening she was almost joyous.

She was in a happy mood, and Mallet imagined there was a private reason for it--a reason quite distinct from her pleasure in receiving her honored kinsman.

The next day he flattered himself he was on the way to discover it.
For the present, after tea, as they sat on the rose-framed porch, while Rowland held his younger cousin between his knees, and she, enjoying her situation, listened timorously for the stroke of bedtime, Cecilia insisted on talking more about her visitor than about herself.
"What is it you mean to do in Europe ?" she asked, lightly, giving a turn to the frill of her sleeve--just such a turn as seemed to Mallet to bring out all the latent difficulties of the question.
"Why, very much what I do here," he answered.

"No great harm." "Is it true," Cecilia asked, "that here you do no great harm?
Is not a man like you doing harm when he is not doing positive good ?" "Your compliment is ambiguous," said Rowland.
"No," answered the widow, "you know what I think of you.