“I don’t want to be thanked; you know that well enough; but there’s so much demonstration in your family you can’t understand anybody’s keeping themselves exclusive.  I don’t like to fuss over people or have them fuss over me.  Kissing comes as easy to you as eating, but I never could abide it.  A nasty, common habit, I call it!  I want to give what I like and where and when I like, and act as I’m a mind to afterwards.  I don’t give because I see things are needed, but because I can’t spend my income unless I do give.  If I could have my way I’d buy you a good house in Buffalo, right side of mine; take your beggarly little income and manage it for you; build a six-foot barbed wire fence round the lot so ’t the neighbors couldn’t get in and eat you out of house and home, and in a couple of years I could make something out of your family!”

Mrs. Carey put down her sewing, leaned her head back against the crimson rambler, and laughed till the welkin rang.

“I suppose you think I’m crazy?” Cousin Ann remarked after a moment’s pause.

“I don’t know, Cousin Ann,” said Mrs. Carey, taking up her work again.  “Whatever it is, you can’t help it!  If you’ll give up trying to understand my point of view, I won’t meddle with yours!”

“I suppose you won’t come to Buffalo?”

“No indeed, thank you, Cousin Ann!”

“You’ll stay here, in this benighted village, and grow old,—­you that are a handsome woman of forty and might have a millionaire husband to take care of you?”

“My husband had money enough to please me, and when I meet him again and show him the four children, he will be the richest man in Paradise.”

Cousin Ann rose.  “I’m going to-morrow, and I shan’t be back this year.  I’ve taken passage on a steamer that’s leaving for Liverpool next week!”

“Going abroad!  Alone, Cousin Ann?”

“No, with a party of Cook’s tourists.”

“What a strange idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Carey.

“I don’t see why; ’most everybody’s been abroad.  I don’t expect to like the way they live over there, but if other folks can stand it, I guess I can.  It’ll amuse me for a spell, maybe, and if it don’t, I’ve got money enough to break away and do as I’m a mind to.”

The last evening was a pleasant, friendly one, every Carey doing his or her best to avoid risky subjects and to be as agreeable as possible.  Cousin Ann Chadwick left next day, and Mrs. Carey, bidding the strange creature good-bye, was almost sorry that she had ever had any arguments with her.

“It will be so long before I see you again, Cousin Ann, I was on the point of kissing you,—­till I remembered!” she said with a smile as she stood at the gate.

“I don’t know as I mind, for once,” said Miss Chadwick.  “If anybody’s got to kiss me I’d rather it would be you than anybody!”