"To confess the truth, Cuthbert, I hung around for a long time to get a glimpse of that little cousin you spoke of, and fortune was kind enough to let me see her several times. Just as you say, she looks like a fairy and somehow made me think of a picture I have of my mother when she was young. I had quite a little talk with her, too, which made it very pleasant. And while I'm about it I might as well own up that the sight of her, together with the thoughts swarming into my mind, caused me to finally wander off into the woods, where alone I could fight the whole thing out and come to such a conclusion as the mother I loved would have had me do. It's been a hard tussle, I tell you, but I think I've won out," he said, with a quiver in his voice, and it was easy to see that the lad had been recently racked by emotions that for some time he had succeeded in keeping under restraint.