ought as I did, it was simply from
contrasting your condition with my own, and seeing that in everything where
my lot has gloom and darkness, if not worse, yours, my ungrateful cousin,
was all sunshine.'

'Let us see a little of this sunshine, Cousin Nina. Sit down here beside
me, and show me, I pray, some of those bright tints that I am longing to
gaze on.'

'There's not room for both of us on that bench.'

'Ample room; we shall sit the closer.'

'No, Cousin Dick; give me your arm and we'll take a stroll together.'

'Which way shall it be?'

'You shall choose, cousin.'

'If I have the choice, then, I'll carry you off, Nina, for I'm thinking of
bidding good-bye to the old house and all within it.'

'I don't think I'll consent that far,' said she, smiling. 'I have had my
experience of what it is to be without a home, or something very nearly
that. I'll not willingly recall the sensation. But what has put such gloomy
thoughts in your head? What, or rather who is driving you to this?'

'My father, Nina, my father!'

'This is past my comprehending.'

'I'll make it very intelligible. My father, by way of curbing my
extravagance, tells me I must give up all pretension to the life of a
gentleman, and go into an office as a clerk. I refuse. He insists, and
tells me, moreover, a number of little pleasant traits of my unfitness to
do anything, so that I interrupt him by hinting that I might possibly break
stones on the highway. He seizes the project with avidity, and offers to
supply me with a hammer for my work. All fact, on my honour! I am neither
adding to nor concealing. I am relating what occurred little more than an
hour ago, and I have forgotten nothing of the interview. He, as I said,
offers to give me a stone-hammer. And now I ask you, is it for me to accept
this generous offer, or would it be better to wander over that bog yonder,
and take my chance of a deep pool, or the bleak world where immersion and
death are just as sure, though a little slower in coming?'

'Have you told Kate of this?'

'No, I have not seen her. I don't know, if I had seen her, that I should
have told her. Kate has so grown to believe all my father's caprices to be
absolute wisdom, that even his sudden gusts of passion seem to her like
flashes of a bright intelligence, too quick and too brilliant for mere
reason. She could give me no comfort nor counsel either.'

'I am not of your mind,' said she slowly. 'She has the great gift of