"Oh, would I not!" cries Molly, her faultless face lighting up at his words. "You may be sure of it. You won't forget, will you? And you will come early, so as to spend the entire day here, and tell me all about the others who will be staying there. Do you know my cousin Marcia?" "Miss Amherst? Yes. She is very handsome, but too statuesque to please me." "Am I better-looking?" "Ten thousand times." "And Philip Shadwell; he is my cousin also. Do you know him?" "Very intimately. He is handsome also, but of a dark Moorish sort of beauty. Not a popular man, by any means. Too reserved,--cold,--I don't know what it is. Have you any other cousins?" "Not on my mother's side. Grandpa had but three children, you know,--my mother, and Philip's mother, and Marcia's father: he married an Italian actress, which must have been a terrible _mesalliance_, and yet Marcia is made much of, while I am not even recognized. Does it not sound unfair?" "Unaccountable. Especially as I have often heard your mother was his favorite child!" "Perhaps that explains his harshness. To be deceived by one we love engenders the bitterest hatred of all. And yet how could he hate poor mamma? John says she had the most beautiful, lovable face." "I can well believe it," replied he, gazing with undisguised admiration upon the perfect profile beside him. "And Marcia will be an heiress, I suppose?" "She and Philip will divide everything, people say, the place, of course, going to Philip. Lucky he! Any one might envy him. You know they both live there entirely, although Marcia's mother is alive and resides somewhere abroad. Philip was in some dragoon regiment, but sold out about two years ago: debt, I fancy, was the cause, or something like it." "Marcia is the girl you ought to have fallen in love with, Ted." "No, thank you; I very much prefer her cousin. Besides, I should have no chance, as she and Philip are engaged to each other: they thought it a pity to divide the twenty thousand pounds a year. Do you know, Molly, I never knew what it was to covet my neighbor's goods until I met you? so you have that to answer for; but it does seem hard that one man should be so rich, and another so poor." "Are you poor, Teddy?" "Very. Will that make you like me less?" "Probably it will make me like you more," replies she, with a bewitching smile, stroking down the hand that supports the obnoxious umbrella (the other is supporting herself) almost tenderly. "It is only the very nicest men that haven't a farthing in the world. I have no money either, and if I had I could not keep it: so we are well met." "But think what a bad match you are making," says he, regarding her curiously. "Did you never ask yourself whether I was well off, or otherwise?"