Chapter X.
Ruth and her Cousin.
Ruth's mother and Robert Pearson were second cousins, and about the same age, but he seemed to every one much younger than he really was. It was not altogether by chance that Matthew Watson had located where he did when he came to America. He had heard from his wife of her cousin Robert's flourishing condition. How with but a mere remnant of a wrecked fortune he had come to West Jersey, and now, in a few years, had become a substantial man of affairs. He had preceded the Watsons several years, and, fond of company and partial to his own kin, had been very urgent, when he heard of their arrival at Philadelphia, that they should take up the tract of land that was separated in part from his own by the creek. He had succeeded in carrying his point, and Mat-
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