BENNET CULLEN was a hearty young man who considered that whenever he had something particularly difficult to do with anybody, it always made matters easier to give that person a good dinner; and in his cousin "Eth" he found he had an obstinate proposition.
"About the last girl in the world to act up, I'd have said you were," he rebuked her, with a sense of personal injury in her action, as she and he always had been the best of friends. At his first acquaintance with this cousin, upon the occasion when his father and mother brought her back from France to Chicago, he had found that she was an unusual girl in being invariably able to take care of herself, was "game" for almost anything, never was fussy when accidents happened to her and yet never tried to be, or cared about being, a boy. Indeed, she thought girls had quite as good a time, and she played with Julia as much as with him.
When they were older and went out together to dances, Eth was a mighty good one to have in your party; she wasn't critical of you, like a sister; she looked awfully well and danced wonderfully; the best sort of men wanted to know her; and altogether it was pretty good to possess the proprietorship in her which went with the introduction of "my cousin." When
