THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 51 tvhat she feared next afterwards was that she should be so. Bat she nevertheless made no scruple of abounding in her cousin's sense, and pretending to sigh for the charms of her native land. She would be as American as it pleased him to regard her, and if he chose to laugh at her, she would give him plenty of occupation. She defended England against his mother, but when Ralph song its praises, on purpose, as she said, to torment her, she found herself able to differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October pear ; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her good-humour nagged at moments, it was not because she thought herself ill-used, but because she suddenly felt sorry for Ralph. It seemed to her that he was talking as a blind and had little heart in what he said. " I don't know what is the matter with you," she said to him once ; " but I suspect you are a great humbug." " That's your privilege," Ralph answered, who had not been used to being so crudely addressed. " I don't know what you care for ; I don't think you care for anything. You don't really care for England when you praise it ; you don't care for America even when you pretend to abuse it." "I care for nothing but you, dear cousin," said Ralph. " If I could believe even that, I should be very glad." "Ah, well, I should hope so ! " the young man exclaimed. Isabel might have believed it, and not have been far from the truth. He thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind. At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him, her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph for many wev j ks had been steeped in melancholy ; his out-look, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud. He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital. The old man had been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with. Just now he appeared tolerably comfortable, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard. If the manoeuvre should succeed, there would be little hope of any great resistance. Ralph had always taken for granted that his E 2
