That this state of things should have occasioned at first a something of distance in the relations between the cousins is not surprising, nor need it afford subject for wonder that that very _distance_ lent a piquancy to their intercourse which was not, to the petted heiress at least, without its charm. Lady Millicent had been so beset by flatterers, and so cloyed by adulation, that the silence, the fits of absence, and the almost _brusqueries_ of her cousin Cecil were greeted by her as a very agreeable variety. She was sick to death of oversweet confections, of butter and honey she had been positively surfeited, so that the honest brown-bread diet, dry and husky though it was, which was all that she appeared likely to obtain from Cecil Vavasour, tasted fresh and wholesome to her fevered palate. But there was, as I before said, another cause--_the_ cause, in fact--for Lady Millicent’s obvious appreciation of her cousin, and that motive power was her cousin’s future rank; for Mr. Vavasour, simple as he stood before her, quiet, unpretending, noticeable for his carelessness of outward advantages, his simple manners, and his unfashionable dress, could nevertheless, failing some very abnormal event, be the means of obtaining for her in a mitigated degree the fulfilment of her long-cherished desire--the hope of her heart, the insatiable craving, known only to herself, to wear, while retaining the noble name of Vavasour, the coronet of a British peeress on her brow. The courtship, if courtship it could be called, between Lady Millicent and the future Baron de Vavasour was somewhat singular and out of rule; and if any distinct offer of marriage were made between the parties--not a common occurrence, by the way, in set and deliberate phrase, between acknowledged lovers--that offer was believed by those best acquainted with the contracting parties to have emanated from the lady. That Cecil believed--free from personal vanity though he was--in her attachment to himself there could be no doubt; nothing, therefore, remained for the man whose own nature was too noble for him to fear for himself the imputation of mercenary motives, but to put his pride, and his scruples, if such he had, into his comparatively empty pockets, and to accept the goods which his millionaire kinswoman had provided for him.