CHAPTER XIII.

Our journey was short and pleasant. Cornelius seemed quite gay again. In order to surprise Kate, we stepped down from the cab at the end of the lane, talking of that evening seven years before, when he had brought me along the same path to the same dwelling.

"Oh, Cornelius," I exclaimed, looking up at him, "was it not kind of Mr Thornton to let me come back?"

He looked down at me, and smiled as he replied:

"I don't know that he meant it as any particular kindness to me; but that he could do me none greater, I mean to show him yet."

The lane was long; we walked slowly; the evening was one of early autumn's most lovely ones, brown and mellow, our path was strewn with fallen leaves, but the beauty of summer was still in the sky, and its warmth in the glorious setting sun. As we approached the well-known door, we saw Kate in her hair, standing on the threshold and talking to two little Irish beggars, whom she was scolding and stuffing at the same time. As she turned round, she saw us, and looked at us with incredulous astonishment. I ran up to her, and threw my arm around her neck.

"I am come back," I cried, "indeed I am."

"I see and feel it; but is it for good?"

"To be sure."

She kissed me heartily, then pushed me away and said, "there was no getting rid of that girl, but that she knew well enough Cornelius would not come back without her," then she turned to the two petitioners, bade them be off and never show their faces again, and ended by telling them to call for some cold meat on Monday. This matter dispatched, she shut the door and followed us in. As we passed through the garden, I saw with surprise that it was no longer separated from its neighbour.

"No," said Kate, with some pride, "it is now one garden and one dwelling, Daisy. No more tenants, you know. I like room. Are you too tired to come and see the changes I have made?"

We both said "No," and Miss O'Reilly took us over the whole house at once. It was much larger, and much improved; we had parlours to spare now; drawing-rooms elegantly furnished, bed-rooms more than we needed; so that, as Kate said, if any old friend came from Ireland--though she was afraid they must be all dead, for they never came--or if those two good friends of Cornelius, Schwab and Armari, should leave fair Italy for smoky London, they could be accommodated easily. Thus talking carelessly, Miss O'Reilly took us to the top of the house, where we found the old dream of Cornelius fairly realised: several rooms thrown into one, with a skylight. She laughed at his surprise; pushed him away, and told him to keep his distance when he kissed her, then suddenly flung her arms around his neck and embraced him ardently.

We returned to our old life on the very next day, as if it had known no interruption. I sat to Cornelius, who painted with renewed ardour; towards dusk he took me out walking; when evening had fairly set in, he gave me my Italian lesson, and when that was over, he sang and played or read aloud. He never seemed to think of going out; one evening, when his sister insisted on making him leave us, he returned at the end of ten minutes. "He had not been able," he said, "to get beyond the end of the grove. There was, after all, no place like home."

"Domestic man!" observed Kate, smiling as he sat down by me on my sofa.

Without seeming to hear her, he took up Shakespeare from the table, and began reading aloud the most fervent and beautiful passages from Romeo and Juliet. Then he suddenly closed the book and turning on me, asked how I liked the story of the two Italian lovers.

"Were they not a little crazy, Cornelius?" I replied; "but I suppose love always makes people more or less ridiculous."

On hearing this heretic sentiment, Cornelius looked orthodox and shocked.

"Ridiculous!" he said, "who has put such ideas into your head?" He glanced suspiciously at Kate who hastily observed:

"I had nothing to do with it."

"Do you think I could not find that out alone?" I asked, laughing.

But Cornelius remained quite grave. Did I not know love was a most exalted feeling? That angels loved in Heaven, and that poor mortals could not do better than imitate them on earth? That love was the attribute of the female mind, its charm and its power? On these high moral grounds, he proceeded to give me an eloquent description of the universal passion. It was pure, it was noble, tender and enduring; it was light and very joyous; it had sweetness and great strength; it refined the mind; it purified the heart; and, though seemingly so exclusive, it filled to overflowing with the sense of universal charity. It was a chain of subtle and mysterious sympathies.

Here I rapidly passed my forefinger along his profile, and resting it on the tip of his nose, I said gravely:

"Kate! is it aquiline or Roman? Aquiline, I think."

On feeling and hearing this piece of impertinence, Cornelius turned round on me with such a start of vexation and wrath, that I jumped up, and ran off to the chair of Kate. She only laughed at her brother's discomfiture. He said nothing, but sat fuming alone on the sofa.

"Serve you right," she said, "why will you explain love philosophically to a girl of seventeen? Don't you see her hour is not come, and that if it were, she would know more than you could tell her?"

Cornelius sharply replied "that was not at all the question, but that when he spoke, he thought he might be listened to."

"I did listen to you," I said, "your last words were: 'a chain of subtle and mysterious sympathies.'"

He did not answer, but took up Shakespeare, and looked tragic over it.

"He's vexed," I whispered audibly to Kate. "He looks like Othello, the Moor of Venice. What shall I do? I am afraid of the sofa-pillow, if I go near him! He looked a while ago as if he longed to throw it at me; just because I said his nose was aquiline, and broke his chain of subtle and mysterious sympathies."

"Kate!" said Cornelius, looking up from his book, "can't you make that girl hold her tongue?"

Kate declined the office, and sent me back to him. He pretended to be very angry, but when I deliberately took Shakespeare from him and shut it, he smiled, smoothed my hair, and called me by two or three of the fondest of the many fond and endearing names in Irish, English, and Italian, which it was now his habit to bestow upon me, and thus our little quarrels always ended.

I was very happy; yet here as well as at Leigh, the restless spirit of youth was stirring within me. Kate had suffered much, she liked repose; Cornelius had travelled, home sufficed him. My sorrows had been few, and Leigh was the extent of my peregrinations. Of home, of the daily comedies and dramas, which can be enacted in a human dwelling, I knew something; but of life, busy, active, outward life I knew less than most girls of my age, and they--poor things--knew little enough. Kate seldom went beyond her garden; when Cornelius took me out in the evening, it was for a quiet walk in the lanes. I said nothing, but I never passed by the landing window on my way to or from the studio, without stopping to look with a secret longing at the cloud of smoke hanging above London. Cornelius found me there on the afternoon which followed his Shakspearian reading, and he said with some curiosity:

"Daisy, what attraction is there in that prospect of brick and smoke?"

"What part of London lies next to us?" I asked, instead of answering.

"Oxford Street; you surely know Oxford Street?"

"I remember having been there two or three times."

"Two or three times! You do not mean to say you have never been in Oxford Street more than two or three times!"

"Indeed I do, Cornelius. I was ten when I came here, always weak and sickly; then we went to Leigh, and we have been back about a fortnight. It is not so wonderful, you see."

Cornelius smiled, smoothed my hair, and said something about "violets in the shade, and birds in their nests."

"Yes, but birds leave their nests sometimes, don't they, Cornelius?" I asked a little impatiently.

"You want to go to town," he exclaimed, astonished.

I smiled.

"Oh!" he said, reproachfully, "have you really a wish, and will you not give me the pleasure of gratifying it? Do tell me what you wish for, Daisy--pray do."

He spoke warmly, and looked eagerly into my face.

"Well, then," I replied, "take me some day to Oxford Street. I know the Pantheon is there, and I remember it as a sort of fairy-palace."

"Some day!--to-day, Daisy--this very day. Though this is not the season, there must be places worth seeing; museums, exhibitions--"

"The streets with the shops, the people, and the great current of life running through them, will entertain me far more than museums or made-up exhibitions."

"Why did you not say so sooner?"

"Kate dislikes long walks."

"But do I?--do I dislike long walks with you, Daisy, in town or country, in lanes or in streets? Is there anything I like better than to please or amuse you?"

Without allowing me to thank him, he told me to make haste and get ready. I obeyed, and within an hour, Cornelius and I were walking down Oxford Street.

London, according to a figurative mode of speech, was quite empty; that is to say, a few all-important hundreds had taken flight, and left the insignificant thousands behind, just to mind the place in their absence. To me, after the long quietness of Leigh, it looked as gay and crowded as a fair. At once I flew to the shops, like a moth to the light, and Cornelius, with a good humour rare in his sex, not only stood patiently whilst I admired, but kept a sharp look out for every milliner's and linendraper's establishment, saying, eagerly:--

"There's another one, Daisy."

But, after a while, I was dazzled with all I saw, deafened with the sound of rolling carriages, bewildered with the unusual aspect of so many people, and glad to take refuge in the Pantheon, with its flowers, its birds, its statues, its pictures, its fanciful stalls, and its profusion of those graceful knick-knacks which have ever been, and ever will be, the delights of a truly feminine heart.

We had entered this pretty place by Great Marlborough Street. Cornelius began by buying me a beautiful, but most extravagant bouquet, which I had been imprudent enough to admire, and did not like to refuse. As we loitered about, I looked at one of the birds in the cages around the little fountain, and praised its glowing plumage.

"Have it," eagerly said Cornelius, and his purse was out directly.

"No, indeed," I quickly replied, "I do not like birds in cages."

"Well, then, have one of those squirrels."

"I will have nothing alive. And I will not have a plant either," I added, detecting the look he cast at the expensive flowers around us. I compelled him to put back his purse; but as we went on, and inspected the stalls, I bad to entreat add argue him out of buying me, first a vase of magnificent wax flowers; then a _papier-mach?_ table, and thirdly, some costly china. No sooner did my eye chance to light with pleasure on anything, than he insisted on giving it to me. At length, I told him he spoiled all my enjoyment. He asked, with a dissatisfied air, if I was too proud to accept anything from him. I assured him I had no such feeling, and that he might buy me something before we went home, if such was his fancy.

"What?" he asked, with a look of mistrust.

"Anything you like; but for the present, pray let me look about."

He yielded; but I wished afterwards I had let him have his own way; for as we were leaving the Pantheon, with all its temptations, and I thought all right, Cornelius suddenly took me into a shop, and before I could remonstrate, he had bought me a light blue silk dress, as dear as it was pretty. I left the place much mortified; he saw it, and laughed at me, telling me to take this as a lesson, for that he would not be thwarted.

We took a cab and rode home; yet it was dusk when we reached the Grove. A light burned in the drawing-room window. We wondered what company Kate was entertaining; and on going up-stairs, found her sitting with our old friend, Mr. Smalley. We had not seen him since his marriage with Miriam Russell. He was now a widower. He looked paler and thinner than formerly; but as good and gentle as ever. He and Cornelius exchanged a greeting friendly, though rather calm and reserved. With me, Mr. Smalley was more open; but as he held my hand in his, he looked at me, and, smiling, turned to Cornelius.

"I should never have known in her the sickly child whom I still remember," he said; "indeed, my friend, your adopted daughter has thriven under your paternal care. Hush, darling!"

He was addressing a child of two or three, who clung to him, casting shy looks around the room, and seeming very ready to cry. To pacify her, he sat down again, and took her on his knee. She nestled close to him, and was hushed at once. Mr. Smalley made a little paternal apology. Darling had insisted on coming with him, and as she would not stay with his sister Mary, he had to take her with him wherever he went.

"Those young creatures," he added, looking at Cornelius, "twine themselves around our very heart-strings. I know what a truly paternal heart yours is for your adopted daughter."

"Ay, ay!" interrupted Cornelius, looking fidgetty, "how is Trim?"

"He died a year ago," gravely replied Mr. Smalley. "Ah! my friend, my heart smote me when I heard the tidings. I had always been harsh to Trim, you know."

"You harsh to any one!" said Cornelius, smiling.

But Mr. Smalley assured him his nature was harsh; though, with the grace of God, he had been able to subdue it a little. Darling, he might add, had been the means of softening many an asperity. He kissed her kindly as he spoke. She was a pale, fair-haired little creature, very like him, and evidently indulged to excess. He was wrapped in her, and when of her own accord, she left him to come to me, he felt so much astonished, that he could speak of nothing else. In her two years' life, Darling had never done such a thing before. Indeed her shyness, he plainly hinted, was alone an insuperable obstacle to a second union.

"Mr. Smalley," I said, "Darling has just agreed to stay with me, if you will leave her."

"You have bewitched her," he replied, giving me a grateful look; but he confessed it would be a great weight off his mind; and with many thanks and evident regret, he left me the treasure of his heart.

Darling soon fell asleep in my arms. One of her little hands was clasped around my neck, the other held mine; her fair head rested on my bosom, and her calm, sleeping face lay upraised and unconscious with closed eyes and parted lips. I stooped, and with some emotion, softly kissed the child of my persecutor. Cornelius, who sat by me, whispered the two concluding lines of Wordsworth's sonnet, with a slight modification:

"How much is mixed and reconciled in thee, Of mother's love, with maiden purity."

Then bending over me, he attempted to embrace Darling; but his beard woke her; she screamed, kicked, burst into a new fit of crying every time he attempted to sit near me, and said "her papa should take me to Rugby."

"And be your mamma. No, indeed, Miss Smalley," replied Cornelius, tartly. "She is mine, and I keep her."

To teaze her, he passed his arm around me, and caressed me, upon which Darling got into such a passion, that he asked impatiently "if I would not put the sulky little thing to bed?"

She succeeded on this and on subsequent occasions in keeping him at a safe distance from me. At first her childish jealousy amused him, but as she was in other respects a very endearing little thing, and engrossed me like a new toy, Cornelius did not relish it at all. He looked especially uncomfortable during Mr. Smalley's daily visits, and to my amusement, for I know well enough what he was afraid of, he did not seem easy, until both Darling and her papa were fairly gone.

I always made my own dresses, and I made the blue silk one with great care. It was finished one afternoon before dusk. I put it on in my room, and came down to show it to Kate; she was not in the parlour. I felt anxious to see how it fitted, and got up on a chair to look at myself in the glass over the fire-place. At that very moment Cornelius entered. I jumped down, rather ashamed at being caught. He came up to me, and without saying a word, took a white rose from a vase of flowers, and put it in my hair. I took another, and fastened it to the front of my dress. Then he took my hand in his, and drawing a little back from me, he smiled. I sighed, and asked:

"What shall I do with it, Cornelius?"

"Look pretty in it, as you do now."

"But where shall I wear it?"

"Here, of course."

"It is only fit for a party. Why have we no party to go to?"

"Because people don't ask us," was his frank reply.

"I wish they would."

"To be seen and admired by others besides Cornelius O'Reilly, you vain little creature."

"It is not for that; but I should like a party or so."

"Well, when we get invited, I shall take you," he replied, with a smile that provoked me.

"Yes," I said, colouring, "but you know no one will ask us. We go nowhere; we see no one, not even artists. I wish you would see artists."

"I don't care about English artists," he replied, drily.

"Well then, Irish."

"Still less. The three kingdoms and the principality do not yield one with whom I would care to spend an hour."

"But I want to see artists."

"And am I not an artist?"

"Oh! I know you so well! What is your friend Armari like?"

"A good-looking Italian," replied Cornelius, whistling carelessly, with his hands in his pockets, "rather given to be in love with every woman he sees."

"And Mr. Schwab?"

"A good-looking German, and a professed woman-hater."

"I wish they would come."

"But they won't," he said, with evident satisfaction.

"You are glad of it!" I exclaimed a little indignantly. "You are glad that I have no parties to go to; that I see no one."

I turned away half angrily; he caught me back, ardently entreating me not to be vexed with him; "He could not bear it," he said. Astonished and mute, I looked up into his bending face. The time had been when I had trembled before a look and a frown, and now a petulant speech of mine distressed him thus.

"Forgive me," he earnestly continued, "for not having forestalled your wishes; but I cared so little for other society than yours, that I forgot mine might not be to you so delightful and engrossing. A party, I cannot command, but I shall take you to the play this very evening."

I wanted to refuse, but he would hear of no objection, though I told him plainly he had not the money to spare.

"And if it is my pleasure to spend on you the little I have--what about it, Daisy?"

At length I yielded; and, on his request, went up to ask Kate to join us. She refused peremptorily, and said she liked home best. As she helped me to finish my toilet, she gave me sundry instructions concerning my behaviour. I was to let Cornelius be civil to me, it was his turn now, and if he picked up my glove, carried my shawl or put it on, I was to take it as a matter of course.

"Very well, Kate," I said, "but it is odd."

"Why so!"

"I don't know, but it is odd."

We were entering the parlour where Cornelius stood waiting for me. I gave him the shawl I had brought down on my arm.

"You are to put that on me," I said, "for Kate says you are to be civil to me; so I hope you will, and not disgrace me in the face of the whole house by any want of proper attention due to the sex. I cannot go and tell the people 'you need not wonder at his being so rude; it is all because he knew me when I was a little girl.'"

"Impertinent little thing," observed Kate, "I only told her not to be civil to you."

"Well, am I? I spoke as impertinently as I could. Did I not, Cornelius?"

"Indeed you did," he replied, smiling, and helping me to pin my shawl on. "Have you any more commands for me?"

"Only just to hold my fan, my gloves, my scent-bottle, my handkerchief, and to give me your arm."

He managed to obey me; Kate smiled approvingly, and we entered the cab which was waiting for us at the door. Cornelius took me to a house which had not long been open, but where both performances and actors were said to be good. We occupied the front seats of a centre box, and commanded a full view of the stage and audience. I was young, unaccustomed to pleasure, and easily amused. I felt interested in the play, and when the second act was over, I turned to Cornelius and said--

"Do you think Lady Ada will marry her cousin?"

"I suppose so," he replied, without looking at me.

"Oh! Cornelius, I hope not; he is not the right one, you know."

"Is he not?"

"Oh! dear, no; what can you have been thinking of?"

"That there never was a more insolent fellow than that man in the pit," replied Cornelius, who looked much irritated, "for the whole of the last act he has kept his opera-glass fully bent upon you."

"Then his neck must ache by this."

"How coolly you take it!"

"What am I to do?"

"Nothing, of course; but surely you will grant that sort of admiration is very insolent."

"How do I know it is admiration? He may be thinking 'poor girl, what a pity she is so shockingly dressed, or has such a bad figure, or has not better features!'"

"Do you think a man loses a whole act to find out that a girl is plain?" sceptically asked Cornelius.

I did not answer. He very unreasonably construed this into being pleased with being looked at. Wishing to get rid of the subject, I asked him to change places with me; he accepted at once, and took my seat, whilst I sat partly behind him. At first this produced nothing; the gentleman with the opera-glass really seemed to enjoy the face of Cornelius quite as much as mine.

"He has not found it out yet," I said. But even as I spoke, the individual I alluded to rose and left the pit.

"Oh! he has found it out, has he?" ironically inquired Cornelius.

The third act was beginning when the door of our box opened, and a foreign-looking man, dark and handsome, entered. I felt sure it was Armari, it was; but it also was the gentleman with the opera-glass, a fact that gave rather an odd character to the greeting of Cornelius.

Most foreigners are self-possessed. Signor Armari was pre-eminently so. He looked at me as if he knew not the use of the opera-glass, which he still held, and even had the assurance to offer it to me. I did not know Italian sufficiently to understand the whole of his discourse; but it seemed to me that its chief purport was an enthusiastic, intense admiration of the golden hair, blue eyes, and dazzling complexions of English ladies--a theme that, by no means, appeared to delight Cornelius. Signor Armari remained with us until the play was over. We then parted from him, and never once mentioned his name, until we reached the Grove.

Kate was sitting up for us. She received us with a pleased smile, asked how we had been entertained, and what the play was about. I told her as well as I could, but, after the second act, my memory was rather at fault.

Cornelius said, pointedly:

"You must not wonder if she does not remember it better. I was talking to Armari."

"What, your old friend Armari?" interrupted Kate.

"Yes, he is in England."

He spoke with a calmness that astonished her.

"Are you not delighted to see him?" she asked.

"I am very glad to see Armari," he replied, in a tone of ice. "I have asked him to dine with us next Thursday. He has promised to bring Schwab."

"Schwab, too!--was he there?"

"No; he was kept at home by a cold."

"They shall have a good dinner," warmly said Kate. "Midge, is Armari as handsome as Cornelius described him in his letters?"

"He is good-looking," I replied, awkwardly.

"Pleasant?"

"Yes--I don't know--I think so."

"Armari," gravely said Cornelius, "resembles the celebrated portraits of Raffaelle. He is something more than good-looking--he is a delightful companion, and something more than pleasant."

"I am sure he is not the common-place fellow you made him out, Daisy," observed Kate.

"I did not make him out anything; I don't think about him at all," I replied, half vexed.

"Well, you need not colour up so," she said, looking surprised; "and you need not look so glum about it, Cornelius. Tastes differ."

Neither replied. Miss O'Reilly, whose whole thoughts were absorbed in hospitality, did not notice this, but added, with a start:

"How long are they to stay?"

"Two or three weeks."

"Then ask them to spend those two or three weeks here," she rejoined, triumphantly. "I have bed-rooms to spare, you know."

"Here--in the house?" exclaimed Cornelius.

"Where else should I have bed-rooms?"

"Thank you," was his short reply.

"Does thank you, mean yes?"

"No, indeed. What should they do here?"

He seemed impatient and provoked. His sister asked if he would not feel glad to have his friends near him? He replied "Certainly," but that they came to see London, and not to coop themselves up in a suburb. Miss O'Reilly said she would at least make the offer. Her brother looked quite irritated.

"Schwab will smoke you to death," he said.

"As if I were not used to smoking."

"My cigars are nothing to his Turkish pipe. Besides, he swears awfully."

"In German," philosophically replied Kate. "Let him, Cornelius: I shall not understand him; and it will only be the worse for his own soul, poor heathenish fellow."

"He is a confirmed woman-hater."

"Unhappy man, not to know better!--but there is a comfort in it, too. I shall not be afraid of his making love to Daisy."

"He will eat you out of house and home."

"I am astonished at such a mean, paltry objection," replied Miss O'Reilly, waxing indignant.

"Well, then," he said, impatiently, "take it for granted that I do not want Schwab."

"I suppose you could not ask Armari alone?"

"No," was the prompt reply. "To tell you the truth, Kate, I want to work hard, and their presence in the house would interfere with it."

"Could you not say so at once, instead of abusing that unfortunate Schwab? Well, your friends shall at least have a good dinner."

Miss O'Reilly was learned in many a dainty dish, and had imparted to me some of her art. Our united skill and efforts produced as luxurious a little dinner for five as one need wish to see. The guests were punctual to the very minute; there was no delay, no spoiling of dishes and chafing of tempers, and all would have gone on admirably, but for an unlucky circumstance. Kate and I did not speak Italian, and the friends of Cornelius did not speak English; bad French was therefore the medium of our conversation. Kate liked talking, and she sat with a provoked air between her two guests whom I watched with silent amusement. With his dark hair, his classical features, ivory throat, and collar turned down ? la Byron, Signor Armari looked very interesting; but all his vivacity seemed gone. He hung his handsome head with dismal grace, like a wounded bird, smiled at the untouched food on his plate, and gave us looks that seemed to say: "Eat away--eat away."

The injunction was religiously obeyed by his friend Schwab. He belonged to the handsome Germanic type, and was very like an illustrious personage. He had an honest, hearty northern appetite, and marched into the dishes, and tossed off the claret with a careless vigour that edified Kate. It was pleasant to see him dispatch the choicest dainties of the dessert without even a smile. When he came indeed to some tarts, in which I think I may say I had distinguished myself, his countenance relaxed a little; and when Cornelius informed him that they owed their existence to me, Mr. Schwab looked at me with an uplifting of the eye-brow expressive of wonder and admiration.

I had expected a dull evening, and I spent a very pleasant one. The two friends of Cornelius sang and played admirably, and treated us to the most exquisite music I had ever heard. Both Kate and I were delighted, and when they were gone, said how much we had been pleased.

"I like that Schwab," observed Kate, "he is very good-looking, and not the bear you made him out, Cornelius. He has a good appetite, but your great eaters are the men after all. The little eaters are only half-and- half sort of people; and then he sings so well, and so does Armari. How handsome he is; but how melancholy he looks! Is he in love?"

Cornelius looked on thorns, and replied: "he did not know."

To our surprise and vexation, his friends came no more near us. He said they found the distance too great, and spent his evenings with them. I did not like that at all, and one evening spared no coaxing to keep him at home. I passed my arms around his neck, and caressed him, and entreated him to stay with me and Kate. He returned the caresses, called me by every dear name he could think of, protested that he would much rather stay than go, but left me all the same. I had taken the habit--it is one easily taken--of being humoured. I now cried with vexation and grief. Kate said nothing, but privately invited her brother's friends to come and stay with us. They accepted. I shall never forget the face of Cornelius, when she quietly informed him they were coming the next day.

"Coming to stay?" he said looking at her incredulously.

"Yes, coming to stay," she composedly replied, "you did not think I was going to stand that much longer--such a mean way of receiving one's friends. Why, what would be thought of us in Ireland, if it were known! For shame, Cornelius, you look quite dismayed."

So he did, and repeated the word "coming!" with ill-repressed irritation.

"Yes, coming!" persisted Kate, "don't trouble yourself about them. I shall so stuff Mr. Schwab's mouth, as to leave no room even for German swearing, and I shall turn up Signor Armari into the drawing room where he may sing Italian to Daisy. So there's a division of tasks."

"Nice division, indeed," said Cornelius, seeming much provoked. "You forget that I want Daisy."

Our dwelling was honoured the following day by receiving the two strangers. They had made some progress in English; and though Signor Armari was still rather melancholy, we got on much better; but to my annoyance and chagrin, I could scarcely see anything of him or his friend. In the daytime, Cornelius kept me in his studio, which they never entered but twice in my absence; in the evening he either went out with them, or got me in a corner of the sofa, and sat most pertinaciously by me. Once, however, he was late, and accordingly found me between his two friends, hearing them through the universal verb, to love, which one pronounced, "I loaf," and the other, "I loove." They laughed good- humouredly at their own mistakes, and I laughed too; but Cornelius seemed to think it no joke, and looked on with a face of tragic gloom.

He took care this should happen no more. At the end of a fortnight our guests left us. Cornelius saw them off, and came back with a pleased and relieved aspect that did not escape his sister. I was sitting with her in the parlour by the fire, for the cold weather was beginning. He sat down by me, smoked a cigar with evident enjoyment, and declared those were the two best fellows he had ever met with--Schwab especially. Something in my face betrayed me; he took out his cigar, and hastily said:

"What is it, Daisy?"

"What is what, Cornelius?"

"What did Armari do to annoy you?"

"He did nothing."

"Why do you look so odd, then?"

I did not answer.

"Why, you foolish fellow," said Kate, laughing, and not heeding my entreating look, "it was Schwab, that best of good fellows."

"Was he rude or bearish?" asked Cornelius, reddening.

"Rude!" she replied, impatiently, "he was too civil!"

"Schwab!" echoed Cornelius, in the tone of Caesar's 'Et tu Brute'-- "Schwab, too!"

"Cornelius," I said, a little indignantly, "it was Schwab alone, if you please."

He did not heed me; he was lost in his indignation and astonishment.

"Schwab!" he said again--"Schwab, the woman-hater?"

"There are no women-haters," observed his sister; "her tarts softened his obdurate heart from the first day, and Cupid did the rest. Now you need not look so desperately gloomy, Cornelius; he was not more civil than he had a right to be; and when she let him see quietly she did not like it, he, sensible man, thought there were girls as good and as pretty in Germany, and did not break his heart about her. He kept his own counsel, so did we; and but for me, you would be none the wiser."

"Thank you," shortly said Cornelius, "but as I know this much, and as I am sure there is more, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me all about Armari now."

"Ah! poor fellow," sighed Kate, "he is in a very bad way; I noticed he could scarcely eat, and Schwab said he had not slept a wink since that night at the play."

"He will get over it," impatiently interrupted Cornelius. "I have known him seven times in the same way."

"Then he must lead rather an agitated life; but, as I was saying, or rather, as Mr. Schwab told me, he has lost rest and appetite since that night at the play, when he saw the beautiful Mrs. Gleaver in the box next yours."

She knew all about the opera-glass, and glanced mischievously at her brother. He reddened, looked disconcerted, and exclaimed hastily:

"I don't believe a bit of that."

"Yes, you do," she replied quietly, "and now, Cornelius, mind my words: that sort of thing is not in the girl's way, and will not be for a good time yet; perhaps never, for she has a very flinty heart."

"Don't I know it?" he replied composedly, "and was it not Christian charity made me uneasy about poor Armari? I feared lest that brown, golden hair of hers," he added, smoothing it as he spoke, "might prove such a web as even his heart could not break. Lest her eyebrow, so dark and fine, might be the very bow of Cupid. Lest--"

"Spare us the rest," interrupted Kate, "it must be an arrow shot from the eye at the very least. Don't you see, besides, the girl has sense enough to laugh at it all; though I don't mean to say that if Signor Armari loses his heart and gets it back again so easily, he might not have paid her that little compliment. However, he did not, and it is as well, for she does not chance to be one of those soft girls, who, poor things, must be in love to exist; and her jealous grandpapa, who does not care about her himself, and yet won't let another have her, is, if he but knew it, perfectly safe."

"Is he?" said Cornelius, throwing back his head in his old way.

"Indeed he is," replied his sister, poking the fire in her old way, too; "another piece of advice, Cornelius: don't make the girl vain by talking and acting, as if she were the only decent-looking one in existence."

"There grows but one flower in my garden," he said, looking at me with a fond smile, "and so I fancy that every one casts on it a longing eye; as if elsewhere there grew no flowers."

His flower laid her head upon his shoulder, and looking up in his face, laughed at him for his pains.

"Laugh away!" he observed philosophically, "you have opened in the shade, and you know nothing of the sun; but the sun, my little Daisy, will shine on you yet."