Fanny’s heart was very full, for she felt how much, how desperately, she wanted such a friend as Kilcullen described.  How delightful it would be to have such a friend, and to find him in her own cousin!  The whole family, hitherto, were so cold to her—­so uncongenial.  The earl she absolutely disliked; she loved her aunt, but it was only because she was her aunt—­she couldn’t like her; and though she loved Lady Selina, and, to a degree, admired her, it was like loving a marble figure.  There was more true feeling in what Kilcullen had now said to her, than in all that had fallen from the whole family for the four years she had lived at Grey Abbey, and she could not therefore but close on the offer of his affection.

“Shall we be such friends, then?” said he; “or, after all, am I too bad?  Have I too much of the taint of the wicked world to be the friend of so pure a creature as you?”

“Oh no, Adolphus; I’m sure I never thought so,” said she.  “I never judged you, and indeed I am not disposed to do so now.  I’m too much in want of kindness to reject yours,—­even were I disposed to do so, which I am not.”

“Then, Fanny, we are to be friends—­true, loving, trusting friends?”

“Oh, yes!” said Fanny.  “I am really, truly grateful for your affection and kindness.  I know how precious they are, and I will value them accordingly.”

Again Lord Kilcullen took her hand, and pressed it in his; and then he kissed it, and told her she was his own dear cousin Fanny; and then recommended her to go and dress, which she did.  He sat himself down for a quarter of an hour, ruminating, and then also went off to dress; but, during that quarter of an hour, very different ideas passed through his mind, than such as those who knew him best would have given him credit for.

In the first place, he thought that he really began to feel an affection for his cousin Fanny, and to speculate whether it were absolutely within the verge of possibility that he should marry her—­retrieve his circumstances—­treat her well, and live happily for the rest of his life as a respectable nobleman.

For two or three minutes the illusion remained, till it was banished by retrospection.  It was certainly possible that he should marry her:  it was his full intention to do so:  but as to retrieving his circumstances and treating her well!—­the first was absolutely impossible—­the other nearly so; and as to his living happily at Grey Abbey as a family man, he yawned as he felt how impossible it would be that he should spend a month in such a way, let alone a life.  But then Fanny Wyndham was so beautiful, so lively, so affectionate, so exactly what a cousin and a wife ought to be:  he could not bear to think that all his protestations of friendship and love had been hypocritical; that he could only look upon her as a gudgeon, and himself as a bigger fish, determined to swallow her!  Yet such must be his views regarding her.  He departed to dress, absolutely troubled in his conscience.