ear me! the country cousin is working
wonders," he cried in feigned surprise.

Ruth felt the hot blood rushing to her cheeks, though she tried to look
as if she had not heard the remark; but it spoilt her pleasure in
seeking for shells, and she decided mentally that she should never like
Cousin Gerald. The arrival of her brother seemed to have restored
Julia's good-humour, and when in the evening he proposed a stroll on the
pier she gladly assented, and the whole party set out to hear the band
which played there two or three evenings in the week.

Ruth thought that she had never known anything so charming as that
evening. It was so pleasant to sit in a sheltered corner listening to
the finest music she had ever heard, played by a military band and
accompanied by the gentle splash of the waves against the pier; to feel
the cool fresh sea-breeze blowing around her, and to see the gay dresses
of the ladies as they walked up and down talking to their friends, until
by-and-by the quiet stars came out and the silver moon shone upon the
scene.

Julia was not contented to sit still and look on; she begged Gerald to
let her promenade with him, and for a few minutes he gratified her whim;
but Ruth, although she had changed the dress which had proved so
obnoxious that morning, did not consider herself to be attired richly
enough to mingle with the gay throng that passed and re-passed her in
her quiet corner.

"What do you think of Gerald?" asked Julia, when the two girls had
retired to their bedroom that evening. "Is he not very handsome?"

"Yes," said Ruth, glad that her cousin had asked a question to which she
could give her assent so easily. "But I didn't know that he was so old;
I expected he would be a boy."

"He is only nineteen," said Julia; "but I am sure he looks older."

"Only nineteen! Why, Will is seventeen, and he is quite a boy compared
with Cousin Gerald."

"That is very likely, for he has been brought up in the country, and
that makes a great difference. Now I am sure that Gerald knows quite as
much as most men do, and I think it is too bad for father to treat him
like a boy."

"Does he?" asked Ruth innocently.

"Yes; he won't even allow him to have a latch-key, and then he complains
if Gerald is rather late home in the evening, and he has to sit up for
him. And even mamma annoys him dreadfully sometimes by calling him 'her
dear boy.'"

"I thought mothers did that even when their sons were quite grown