"I'm so glad he's pleased," said J.C. "I would rather have his approval than that of the whole world. But what! Crying, I do believe!" and turning Maude's face to the light he continued, "Yes, there are tears on your eyelashes. What is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing," answered Maude, "only I am so glad your relatives like me."
J.C. was easily deceived, so was Maude--and mutually believing that nothing was the matter, J.C. drummed on the piano, while Maude tore open the note which James had written to her. It seemed so strange to think he wrote it, and Maude trembled violently, while the little red spots came out all over her neck and face as she glanced at the words, "My dear Cousin Maude."
It was a kind, affectionate note, and told how the writer would welcome and love her as his cousin, while at the same time it chided her for not having answered the letter sent some weeks before.
"Perhaps you did not deem it worthy of an answer," he wrote, "but I was sadly disappointed in receiving none, and now that you are really to be my cousin I shall expect you to do better, and treat me as if I had an existence. J.C. must not monopolize you wholly, for I shall claim a share of you for myself."
Poor, poor Maude! She did not feel the summer air upon her brow--did not hear the discordant notes which J.C. made upon the piano, for her whole soul was centered on the words, "sadly disappointed,"
"love you as my cousin," and "claim a share of you for myself."
Only for a moment, though, and then recovering her composure she said aloud, "What does he mean? I never received a note."
"I know it, I know it," hastily spoke J.C., and coming to her side he handed her the soiled missive, saying, "It came a long time ago, and was mislaid among my papers, until this letter recalled it to my mind. There is nothing in it of any consequence, I dare say, and had it not been sealed I might, perhaps, have read it, for as the doctor says, `It's a maxim of mine that a wife should have no secrets from her husband,' hey, Maude?" and he caressed her burning cheek, as she read the note which, had it been earlier received, might have changed her whole after life.
And still it was not one-half as affectionate in its tone as was the last, for it began with, "Cousin Maude" and ended with "Yours respectfully," but she knew he had been true to his promise, and without a suspicion that J.C. had deceived her she placed the letters in her pocket, to be read again when she was alone, and could measure every word and sentiment.
That afternoon when she went to her chamber to make some changes in her dress she found herself standing before the mirror much longer than usual, examining minutely the face which James De Vere had called beautiful.
"He thought so, or he would not have said it; but it is false," she whispered; "even J.C. never called me handsome;" and taking out the note that day received, she read it again, wondering why the name "Cousin Maude" did not sound as pleasantly as when she first heard it.
That night as she sat with Louis in her room she showed the letters to him, at the same time explaining the reason why one of them was not received before.
"Oh, I am so glad," said Louis, as he finished reading them, "for now I know that James De Vere don't like you."
"Don't like me, Louis!" and in Maude's voice there was a world of sadness.
"I mean," returned Louis, "that he don't love you for anything but a cousin. I like J.C. very, very much, and I am glad you are to be his wife; but I've sometimes thought that if you had waited the other one would have spoken, for I was almost sure he loved you, but he don't, I know; he couldn't be so pleased with your engagement, nor write you so affectionately if he really cared."
Maude hardly knew whether she were pleased or not with Louis' reasoning. It was true, though, she said, and inasmuch as James did not care for her, and she did not care for James, she was very glad she was engaged to J.C.! And with reassured confidence in herself she sat down and wrote an answer to that note, a frank, impulsive, Maude-like answer, which, nevertheless, would convey to James De Vere no idea how large a share of that young girl's thoughts were given to himself.
The next day there came to Maude a letter bearing the Canada postmark, together with the unmistakable handwriting of Janet Hopkins. Maude had not heard of her for some time, and very eagerly she read the letter, laughing immoderately, and giving vent to sudden exclamations of astonishment at its surprising intelligence.
Janet was a mother!--"a livin' mother to a child born out of due season," so the delighted creature wrote, "and what was better than all, it was a girl, and the Sunday before was baptized as Maude Matilda Remington Blodgett Hopkins, there being no reason," she said, "why she shouldn't give her child as many names as the Queen of England hitched on to hers, beside that it was not at all likely that she would ever have another, and so she had improved this opportunity, and named her daughter in honor of Maude, Matty, Harry, and her first husband Joel. But," she wrote, "I don't know what you'll say when I tell you that my old man and some others have made me believe that seein' I've an heir of my own flesh and blood, I ought to change that will of mine, so I've made another, and if Maude Matilda dies you'll have it yet. T'other five thousand is yours, anyway, and if I didn't love the little wudget as I do, I wouldn't have changed my will; but natur' is natur'."
Scarcely had Maude finished reading this letter when J.C. came in, and she handed it to him. He did not seem surprised, for he had always regarded the will as a doubtful matter; but in reality he was a little chagrined, for five thousand was only half as much as ten.
Still his love for Maude was, as yet, stronger than his love for money, and he only laughed heartily at the string of names which Janet had given to her offspring, saying, "It was a pity it hadn't been a boy, so she could have called him Jedediah Cleishbotham."
