If Gustie Robb told Aggie Blake once that he loved her and had made up his mind to live so as to win her for his wife, he told her twenty times. Now, Gustie was not a bad-looking fellow. Tall, dark as to eyes and hair, a half-aquiline nose which gave him a somewhat Jewish cast of countenance, a sweet, persuasive tongue, and groomed to perfection. He was a trifle solemn, however, and in this way so different in character from Aggie, who in manner was very like her brother--always merry, and as often as not singing like the happy bird she was. Gustie was as poor as lobster-shell when there is no more lobster left in it. But that would not have mattered anything to Aggie could she have cared for him. But she did not, and told him so laughingly. 'I don't believe,' she said, 'in marriages between cousins, so I won't marry _you_. I don't believe in marriage at all, so I won't marry any one else.' 'Ah, Cousin Aggie, then I shall live in hope.' 'In hope of what?' she asked. 'In hope of getting'---- She didn't let him finish the sentence--in fact, she finished it for him, for she was feeling full of mischief just then--'In hope of getting my fortune. That's it, isn't it, Gustie?' Her fortune, by the way, was in her own right. Then she seated herself at the piano and began to sing a verse of an old Scots song which her grandmother had taught her: 'O mickle thinks my love of my beauty, An' mickle thinks my love of my kin; But little thinks my love I ken brawlie[A] My tocher's[B] the jewel has charms for him. It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree, It's a' for the honey he'll cherish the bee, My laddie's so mickle in love wi' the siller[C] He canna ha'e love to spare for me.' 'I don't really know, Cousin Aggie, what should be done with a girl like you.' 'Oh, I do, Cousin Gust.' 'Well?' 'Why, leave her alone.' 'Just so. You are very provoking, though I must allow you are pretty when you are provoking. But, really now, dear, I shall never marry until the day when'---- 'When what?' 'When I marry you.' 'And you think that day will ever come?' 'It is certain to. Let me see--you are twenty I think?' 'Twenty, yes. No use calling myself any younger for the next ten years.' 'Well, and I am five-and-twenty, possessed of a moderate share of good looks, have a little money, the _entrée_ to good society, and splendid prospects.' 'Your elephant isn't dead, is he, cousin?' 'Oh, I'm not trumpeting, I'm only pleading my own cause, Aggie. And I know that our union would be--nay, but I shall say _will_ be--a very happy one. And what is more, dear cousin, and what may appeal to you as a sensible girl, your father would not be averse to our marriage.' 'Did you ask him?' 'No. That is--well, I didn't quite ask him, but I seem to feel that he wouldn't object.' 'And I suppose you think this is the correct way of wooing a young girl and gaming her affections, do you?' 'A sensible girl, yes.'