It seemed to me while we talked as though he had just come from my mother’s death-bed, whereas a long time had elapsed, and he had been able to get over the first cruel shock. My own grief was still upon me, and I wondered at his tranquillity. A little later he said: “I see thou hast taken to the foolishness of black garments. This is thy aunt’s doings.” In fact, it was her positive wish. I made no reply, but only looked him in the face, ready to cry like a child. “Why hast thou no answers, Hugh? Thy tongue used to be ready enough. Thou hast thy mother’s eyes. I would thou hadst them not.” This was as near as he ever came to speech of her, whom, to my amazement, he never again mentioned. Was it a deeper feeling than I knew, that so silenced him, or did he wish to forget her! I know not. Some deal thus with their dead. He bade my aunt take away my mother’s clothes, and asked no questions as to how she disposed of them; nor for a month did he desire my return home. What then passed between him and my Aunt Gainor I do not know; but he said nothing more of my dress, although I wore mourning for six months. Nor did he say a word as to my exactness and industry, which was honestly all they should have been. At meals he spoke rarely, and then of affairs, or to blame me for faults not mine, or to speak with cold sarcasm of my friends. Except for Jack, and my Aunt Gainor, and Wilson and Wetherill, of whom I saw much, I should have been miserable indeed. Captain Wynne still came and went, and his strange intimacy with my father continued. I thought little of it then, and for my own part I liked to hear of his adventurous life, but the man less and less; and so the winter of ‘73 and ‘74 went by with fencing and skating and books, which now I myself ordered to suit me, or found in Mr. Logan’s great library, of which I was made free. In March my cousin left us for Canada and the army. Once I spoke before him of the news in my mother’s postscript; but he laughed, saying he had heard some such rumours, but that they were not true. They did not much trouble a hungry beggar of a younger son with letters; still if there had been such good news he should have heard it. He wished it might be so and as to his brother, poor devil! he would last long enough to marry and have children. Were the ducks still in the river! He said no more to me of Darthea, or of what I was to do for him, but he found a way at need, I am sure, to get letters to her, and that without difficulty. At last, as I have said, he was gone to join Sir Guy. I was not sorry.