"For a long time I have had my suspicions, but I wouldn't venture to breathe them to you. I watched mamma; I watched papa. When we were talking of him--it was always I who brought up his name--I set traps for them, and they fell into them unsuspiciously. And then there was what mamma said, in a pretended off-hand way, this morning, when she gave me the letter from Fred. It amounts to this, Phoebe"--she dropped her voice, and said in a whisper--"they think he comes after _me_!" "Why shouldn't he, dear?" "Why should he, dear?" Phoebe stroked her cousin's face fondly, and rested her head on Fanny's shoulder. "I hope," said Fanny, "that they won't be disappointed when they find out that he doesn't mean _me_, after all. But I don't think they will be when they know it is you, darling." "Oh, Fanny! And he has never said one word to me!" "What of that, sly puss? I can speak with my eyes quite as well as I can with my tongue; and Fred Cornwall is a great deal cleverer than I am. I don't positively hate him, you know." "It would be very wrong of you to do so." "And I don't positively love him. I like him, just a little, in a so-soish way. How it might have been if I didn't happen to have the dearest, sweetest, prettiest cousin that a foolish girl could ever boast of, isn't for me to say." (More hugs and embraces here.) "I _might_ have fallen a victim to his lordship's charms; I don't say I should, but I might." "But, Fanny," said Phoebe, in a low tone, her lips slightly trembling, "it is foolish, it is wrong, to speak like this." "Now, Phoebe!" said Fanny, holding up a warning forefinger. "Well, I won't say a word." "That's a good, sensible, sweet-hearted cousin." "You are not sorry, Fanny?" "That he is not made for me? Well, it gives me a pang here to say no"--she placed her hand on her heart, and emitted a comically pathetic sigh--"because, you know, he _is_ the very loveliest waltzer that ever put his arm round a girl's waist. You said so yourself. Now confess, Phoebe, if Fred _did_--eh?--you wouldn't run away, would you?" Phoebe's silence was the most eloquent answer she could give to her cousin's question, which, enigmatical as it may sound in the ears of unsentimental persons, was as clear and as sweet to the young girls as the sound of wedding bells. "If he doesn't," added Fanny, energetically, "I shall call him out!" "Would Aunt and Uncle Leth be very angry?" murmured Phoebe.