"I did not mean to say anything disrespectful; but I can't bear to think my cousin insincere." Mrs. Grant pressed the girl in her arms, and said: "You must not cry; you must not weep, my love. I did not mean you had been disrespectful to your father's memory. Heaven forbid! But you must not be too hasty, and like everyone at first sight. That will never do for a young heiress who has no right guardian." The girl ceased to weep, and said in an unsteady voice: "But I never told you I liked him." "You do like him, Maud; you know you do." "How could I like him in one meeting?" "But, Maud, you do like him, and that is why I feel so uneasy." "Indeed I don't like him. I am afraid of him: he makes me feel smaller and helpless. I never feel helpless when Mr. Grey is near me, for he can always tell me what to do; but I feel as if I must do what my cousin says, and after only one meeting too. I was ashamed to confess this until you made me." Her luminous candid spirit looked out of the large soft eyes into the eyes of the woman. Mrs. Grant stole her arm round Maud's waist, and for a while both walked on in silence. At length Mrs. Grant spoke: "I am glad to hear that." "To hear what?" asked Maud, in a tone of abstraction. "That you take no interest in Sir William." "What!" with a start. The eyes of the girl were once more fixed on the eyes of the widow. "I did not say that. On the contrary, he _does_ interest me." Mrs. Grant looked bewildered, and glanced helplessly around her, as if seeking someone to bear out what she was about to say. "Why, child, you told me a moment ago that you did not like him, and that he frightens you!" "That is true, but a lion frightens me, and I can't say that I like lions; but they interest me more than a King Charlie." Maud smiled at the bewilderment of the other. "But, my dear," said Mrs. Grant, with a look of grave trouble in her eyes, "what you say about lions and King Charlie is all nonsense. When you have a King Charlie you play with him, and feed him out of your hand. When you have a lion, you look at him through the bars of a cage. Besides, Maud, it is absurd and romantic to think of an English baronet as a lion. Suppose he was a lion, and he got loose, what should you do?" "Run away as fast as I could," answered the girl, with a faint laugh. "But if he caught you?" "Oh, if he caught me I don't think I could do much." "There now, Maud, I told you so." Mrs. Grant had not told Maud anything about her chance of not being able, single-handed, to defend herself against a lion. When she said, "I told you so," she had suddenly lost sight of the monarch of the forest, and come upon the mental image of the baronet of the Island, in whom this girl had admitted she took an interest, which, in the illustration afforded by the lion, proved to be full of the gravest danger.