Mr. Nyle, who was somewhat older
than his wife, was one of these placid, easy going husbands that the
world knows little about on account of their retirement and admirable
domestic qualities. Zita was then a pretty, growing girl of sixteen
summers and Louis a handsome boy of eighteen.
I lived with cousin Bessie for many seasons, and at the end of that
time I had become more truly attached to her and her dear family than
I had ever been to my own. Yet they were plain people, living a quiet,
unostentatious life in the very heart of social exuberances, they were
not rich either, in fact they had little more than medium comforts, of
those which it takes money to buy, but the sweetness and happiness of
their home was not of that kind which gold can gather, it is richer
and rarer far than that.
It pleased me to find that they were not wealthy nor worldly. I had so
little now, myself, that richer relatives would have pitied me and
been urged to bestow petty charities upon me now and then, when my own
diminished income proved insufficient to meet the great demands that
stylish living could not fail to make upon it.
"I hope you won't feel like a captive bird in this little cage of
ours," cousin Bessie remarked with a quiet smile the morning after my
arrival. "I offered it only as a shelter, Amey, you know, until you
can make yourself more comfortable elsewhere."
I looked at her reproachfully and answered without hesitation:
"I am glad you do not specify my time.
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