whatever to being called
cousin without delay.

"Well, cousin Rose," said Oliver, "if it be not prying into secrets, I
should like to know how long it is since my uncle adopted you."

"About nineteen years ago," replied Rose.

"Oh!" said Oliver remonstratively, "before you were born? impossible!"

Rose laughed--a short, clear, little laugh which she nipped in the bud
abruptly, and replied--

"Well, it was only a short time after I was born. I was wrecked on this
coast"--the expressive face here became very grave--"and all on board
our ship perished except myself."

Oliver saw at once that he had touched on a tender subject, and hastened
to change it by asking a number of questions about his uncle, from which
he gradually diverged to the recent events in his own history, which he
began to relate with much animation. His companion was greatly
interested and amused. She laughed often and heartily in a melodious
undertone, and Oliver liked her laugh, for it was peculiar, and had the
effect of displaying a double row of pretty little teeth, and of almost
entirely shutting up her eyes. She seemed to enjoy a laugh so much that
he exerted all his powers to tickle her risible faculties, and dwelt
long and graphically on his meeting with the irascible old gentleman in
the lane. He was still busy with this part of the discourse when a
heavy step was heard outside.

"There's my uncle," exclaimed Rose, springing up.

A moment after the door opened, and in walked the identical irascible
old gentleman himself!

If a petrified impersonation of astonishment had been a possibility,
Oliver Trembath would, on that occasion, have presented the phenomenon.
He sat, or rather lay, extended for at least half a minute with his eyes
wide and his mouth partly open, bereft alike of the powers of speech and
motion.

"Heyday, young man!" exclaimed the old gentleman, planting his sturdy
frame in the middle of the floor as if he meant then and there to demand
and exact an ample apology, or to inflict condign and terrible
chastisement, for past misdeeds; "you appear to be making yourself quite
at home--eh?"

"My _dear_ sir!" exclaimed Oliver, leaping up with a look of dismay;
"how can I express my--my--but is it, _can_ it be possible that you are
Mr Donnithorne--m-my--uncle?"

Oliver's expression, and the look of amazement on the countenance of
Rose Ellis, who could not account for such a strange reception of her
newly-found cousin,