“I mean,” she replied, “that you ought to act toward Eudora as men generally act who wish to win a fair lady.  Do not deceive yourself with the idea that she loves you.  She would tell you she did in a moment, if you asked her,—­and wonder, besides, why you thought it necessary to put the question.  But she knows nothing about it.  The thought of becoming your wife never enters her head, and you would frighten her, if you spoke to her on such a subject.  No, my cousin; it is time you behaved as other men behave.  Eudora is grateful to you beyond expression.  She believes you to be perfect; and you seem content to sit and let her tell you so, when you ought to be a manly wooer.”

I will not detail the remarks of my cousin.  She talked with me at least two hours.  I was perfectly confounded by what she said.  I began to hate her for the ridiculous advice she gave me.  I put it down to a curious, meddlesome nature.  I grew vexed, too, with Eudora, because my cousin said she did not love me.  I did not reflect that I had done nothing to excite love.  I had drawn perpetually on a heart overflowing and grateful,—­selfish caitiff that I was!  This, however, I did not then understand,—­so completely were my eyes blinded!

I left my cousin in a petulant spirit, and sought Eudora.  She saw I was troubled, and asked me the cause.  I told her.  A shadow, a dark, portentous shadow, suddenly clouded her face;—­as suddenly it passed away, giving place to a look of sharp, painful agony, which was succeeded by a return of something like her natural expression.  Then she scrutinized my face calmly, critically.  All this did not occupy half a minute.  Ere one could say it had been, Eudora was apparently the same as ever.  God alone knows all which in that half-minute rose in that young girl’s heart.  She took my hand; she reproached me for my apparent distrust of her; she said she was mine to love and to honor me forever.  She would go at once to her mother—­so she called my cousin—­and tell her so.  Thus saying, she left me.  And I—­I did not then understand the struggle and the victory of the poor girl over herself.  I did not reflect that no maidenly blush, no charming confusion, announced my happy destiny,—­no kiss, no caress, no sign that the heart’s citadel had surrendered; but, instead, a calmness, a composure, and a hastening from my presence.  No, I thought nothing of this; I only considered that now the time was at hand when Eudora would be mine!

I married her. It was but three weeks after this conversation.  I was in haste, and Eudora herself seemed desirous that the day should be an early one.  My cousin was amazed.  I enjoyed her discomfiture; for she did not relish the thought that I should thus set at nought her advice and overturn her theory.  She shook her head,—­she attempted a protest,—­and then began zealously the preparations for the wedding.