The plan so hastily sketched was subsequently thoroughly discussed and carried out.  The cottage at Ryebank was taken, and one evening at the end of June the two ladies took possession of it.  The new widow Clare had engaged a maid in New York, and fell into her part with charming ease and a very pretty assumption of authority; and the real widow, in her plain dress and pensive, quiet manners, realized effectively the idea of a cultivated but dependent companion.  They had two days in which to rehearse their parts and get all the household machinery in order, and then the gentlemen arrived at Ryebank.

Fan and Clementine were quite ready for their first call; the latter in a rich and exquisite morning costume, the former in a simple dress of spotted lawn.  Clementine went through the introductions with consummate ease of manner, and in half an hour they were a very pleasant party.  John’s “cousinship” afforded an excellent basis for informal companionship, and Clementine gave it full prominence.  Indeed, in a few days John began to find the relationship tiresome; it had been “Cousin John, do this,” and “Cousin John, come here,” continually; and one night when Cleve and he sat down to smoke their final cigar, he was irritable enough to give his objections the form of speech.

“Cleve, to tell you the honest truth, I do not like Mrs. Clare.”

“I think she is a very lovely woman, John.”

“I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don’t like her, and I have no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills.  The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you.”

“Don’t fall in love with the wrong woman, John.”

“Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love.  There is no use in us deceiving ourselves or each other.  You seem to like the widow—­why not marry her?  I am quite willing you should.”

“Thank you, John; I have already made some advances that way.  They have been favorably received, I think.”

“You are so handsome, a fellow has no chance against you.  But we shall hardly quarrel, if you do not interfere between lovely little Clement and myself.”

“I could not afford to smile on her, John; she is too poor.  And what on earth are you going to do with a poor wife?  Nothing added to nothing will not make a decent living.”

“I am going to ask her to be my wife, and if she does me the honor to say ‘Yes,’ I will make a decent living out of my profession.”

From this time forth John devoted himself with some ostentation to his supposed cousin’s companion.  He was determined to let the widow perceive that he had made his choice, and that he could not be bought with her money.  Mr. Selden and Miss Marat were always together, and the widow did not interfere between her companion and her cousin.  Perhaps she was rather glad of their close friendship, for the handsome Cleve made a much more delightful attendant.  Thus the party fell quite naturally into couples, and the two weeks that the gentlemen had first fixed as the limit of their stay lengthened into two months.