Cousinliness

Unkindness would have implied intimacy, or, at any rate, cousinliness, whereas, but for his presence in her boudoir, and his familiar tone with her mother, a stranger might have supposed the two young people to be the merest casual acquaintances.

Now perhaps you will understand why, feeling this exuberance of joy and loving kindness as I mostly do, and your defenceless head having popped up within my range of late, I shower so much affection on you—quite passing the mild limits of cousinliness.

There was no way that Elizabeth, with her own particular nature, could have indulged in feelings of sisterliness or cousinliness towards Mary, as she had to defend herself: it was ultimately survival.