Janie was ready in a moment, and up and down the track of sand we wandered, arm-in-arm, inhaling eagerly the faint breath of sea-air wafted to us from across the plain which separates us from the ocean. ‘Oh, Robert dear!’ said Janie, casting up her pensive blue eyes to meet my own, ‘I wish I had never written that letter to Uncle Henry. I am more sure every day that you don’t like the notion of Lionne staying with us.’ I can’t think what put the letter or her cousin into my wife’s head at that particular moment; for I have not alluded to the subject for several days past. ‘My dearest child,’ I answered her, ‘whether I like it or not is of little consequence. There is no alternative; therefore we must bear the infliction as best we may. Thank heaven, it will not be for ever.’ ‘But you are not to look upon it as an infliction, Robert,’ said Janie, as she squeezed my arm, ‘because, directly you see Margaret, you will like her.’ I shrugged my shoulders incredulously. ‘But indeed you will,’ continued my little wife with, for her, a most unusual display of energy. ‘You don’t know how nice-looking she is; tall and slight, with large dark eyes and—’ ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ I interrupted impatiently. ‘Six feet high, and gaunt as a cab-horse, with flaming black eyes and hair, and a complexion like Spanish olives. I know the sort of woman, Janie; you’ve described her to me often enough. The less said about her beauty the better.’ ‘But she’s not a bit like that,’ said dear little Janie, almost ready to cry at my description of her cousin. ‘Lionne is very graceful and exceedingly handsome; every one says so. Indeed, Robert dear, you are quite mistaken.’ ‘She won’t be handsome to me,’ I answered, appeasing her with a kiss, ‘since she must be so different from yourself, Janie. Nothing will go down with me, darling, except it be golden hair and a marble skin; and then they must be the hair and the skin of but one woman in the world.’ And I looked into the face of my cushat-dove until I made her blush and laugh nervously with her tremulous happiness. Dear little Janie! God keep me ever true to her!—‘Why do you call your cousin “Lionne,” instead of by her proper name?’ I asked, as soon as the billing and cooing episode had somewhat subsided, and we had leisure to revert to the subject under discussion. ‘Margaret is pretty enough, and the other has no connection with it, let alone its signification rendering it very unsuitable for a lady.’ At this question my wife reddened; but, after a little pressing, confessed it was a nickname which had been bestowed on Miss Anstruther at school.