dear cousin," said Mr. Montfort, quietly.
"Anthony _is_ my second cousin. I will go further to meet you, and admit
boldly that these children are my second cousins once removed, and
Margaret's third cousins. Where shall we put them, Margaret?"

"My dearest John," cried Miss Sophronia, in her gayest tone, "you are
not to give it a thought! Is he, Margaret? No, my dear fellow! It is
noble of you--Quixotic, I must think, but undeniably noble--to take in
these poor little waifs; but you shall have no further thought about
providing for them. Everything shall be arranged; I know the house from
garret to cellar, remember. I will make every arrangement, dearest John,
depend upon me!"

The evenings were not very gay at Fernley just now. Miss Sophronia could
not keep awake while any one else read aloud; so she took matters into
her own hands, and read herself, for an hour by the clock. Her voice was
high and thin, and kept Mr. Montfort awake; she was apt to emphasise the
wrong words, which made Margaret's soul cry out within her; and she
stopped every few minutes to chew a cardamom seed with great
deliberation. This simple action had the effect of making both her
hearers extremely nervous, they could not have explained why. Also, she
was afflicted with a sniff, which recurred at regular intervals,
generally in the middle of a sentence. Altogether the reading was a
chastened pleasure nowadays; and this particular evening it was
certainly a relief when she declared, before the hour was quite over,
that she was hoarse, and must stop before the end of the chapter. On the
whole, she thought it might be better for her to go to bed early, and
take some warm drink. "It would never do for me to be laid up, with
these children coming to be seen after!" she declared. So she departed,
and Margaret and her uncle sat down to a game of backgammon, and played
slowly and peacefully, lingering over their moves as long as they
pleased, and tasting the pleasure of having no one say that they should
play this or that, "of course!"

The game over, Mr. Montfort leaned back in his chair, with an air of
content.

"This is pleasant!" he said, slowly. "Margaret, my dear, this is very
pleasant!" Margaret smiled at him, but made no reply. None was needed:
the uncle and niece were so much alike in tastes and feelings, that they
hardly needed speech, sometimes, to know each other's thoughts. Both
were content to sit now silent, in the soft, cheerful candl