52 COUSIN CATHERINE’S SERVANTS.

A white pigeon was sitting on her shoulder, while several more
were fluttering and wheeling about her head ; a dear little woolly
lamb lay at her feet, and a cat with three kittens was licking
her paws on the doorstep.

“But where is my cousin?” Edith had run up to say, and
then the old lady had stooped kindly down to kiss her, saying
in a soft voice, ‘I am your cousin, dear. I suppose you thought
that cousins must always be little and young? Well, I am an
old woman, but I am your father’s cousin, and yours too, and
perhaps you will learn to love me a little, though I am old.”

Ever since that day Edith had loved her Cousin Catherine
more and more each time that she saw her; and she liked the
cocks and hens and the pretty cow with a bell tied to her neck
which fed in a meadow, and Cousin Catherine’s pet lamb, and
all the other free, happy creatures which she liked to have living
near her.

Edith did not love her at all less because she was not a
little girl.

On the morning when nurse, Edith, and her dolly reached
the door of her little thatched house, Cousin Catherine was very
much surprised to see them. Nurse told Edith she might run
round and look at the chickens while she spoke to the old lady
alone; and then she told her how Edith’s mother feared that
her baby Alice was going to be ill from fever, and that she
begged Cousin Catherine to keep Edith with her until she had
sent for the doctor, who would tell her whether it was safe for _
Edith to come back or not. ‘And my mistress told me to say,
ma’am, that she would send over one of the servants to take
care of Miss Edith, only she said I was to ask you first, in case
of your not wishing it.”

“No, thank you, nurse,” said Cousin Catherine laughingly.
‘No more servants for me; they are more plague than profit—