One morning, long after my parents left, my Aunt Gainor looked me over with care, pleased at the changes in my dress, and that evening she presented me with two fine sets of neck and wrist ruffles, and with paste buckles for knees and shoes. Then she told me that my cousin, the captain, had recommended Pike as a fencing-master, and she wished me to take lessons; “for,” said she, “who knows but you may some day have another quarrel on your hands, and then where will you be?” I declared that my father would be properly furious; but she laughed, and opened and shut her fan, and said he was three thousand miles away, and that she was my guardian, and responsible for my education. I was by no means loath, and a day later went to see the man with my Cousin Arthur, who asked, as we went, many questions about my mother, and then if my father had left England, or had been to Wyncote. I had, as he spoke, a letter in my pocket writ in the neat characters I knew so well; our clerk coming from New York had just given it to me, and as I had not as yet read it, liking for this rare pleasure to taste it when alone, I did not mention it to my cousin. I told him I was sure my father would not go to Wales, both because of business, and for other reasons; but I hoped when he came back to get leave to be a year away, and then I should be sure to visit our old nest. My cousin said, “A year--a year,” musingly, and asked when my parents would return. I said, “About next October, and by the islands,” meaning the Madeiras. To this Arthur Wynne returned, in an absent fashion, “Many things may happen in a year.” I laughed, and said his observation could not be contradicted. “What observation?” he replied, and then seemed so self-absorbed that I cried out: “What possesses thee, Cousin Wynne? Thou art sad of late. I can tell thee the women say thou art in love.” “And if I were, what then?” This frankness in a man so mature seemed to me odd, when I thought how shy was the growing tenderness my own heart began to hide. His words troubled me. It could only be Darthea Peniston. After a silence, such as was frequent in my cousin, he added, “I fear that blushing friend of yours is fluttering about a certain bright candle. A pity the lad were not warned. You are my cousin, and of course my friend. I may have to go away soon, and I may ask you to do a certain thing for me when I am gone. No man nor lad shall stand in my way, and you must hold your tongue too.” I was puzzled and embarrassed. I said cautiously, “We shall see.” But as to Jack Warder, I liked not what he said, and for two reasons. I knew that, living next door to Darthea, he was with her almost daily; and here was a new and terrible fear, for who could help but love her? Nor could I hear with patience Jack so contemptuously put aside as a child.