"But he will stand between us," she said; "he will shield me from
her anger," and grateful for so potent a protector, she fell asleep,
dreaming alas, not of J.C., but of him who called her Cousin Maude,
and whose cousin she really was to be.
J.C. De Vere, too, had dreams of a dark-eyed girl, who, in the
shadowy church, with the music she had made still vibrating on the
ear, had promised to be his. Dreams, too, he had of a giddy throng
who scoffed at the dark-eyed girl, calling her by the name which he
himself had given her. It was not meet, they said, that he should
wed the "Milkman's Heiress," but with a nobleness of soul unusual in
him, he paid no heed to their remarks, and folded the closer to his
heart the bride which he had chosen.
Alas! that dreams so often prove untrue.