CHAPTER XIV.

I have often tried to remember how passed the autumn and winter--but in vain. No striking events marked that time; and its subtle changes I was then too heedless and too ignorant to note or understand. Two things I have not forgotten.

One is that, next to his painting of course, the chief thought of Cornelius seemed to be to please and amuse me. He spent all his money in taking me about, and literally covered me with his gifts. He had an artist's eye for colour and effect, and was never tired of adorning me in some new way more becoming than the last. When I remonstrated and accused him of extravagance, he asked tenderly if he could spend the money better than on his own darling? In short, the great study of his life seemed to be to lavish on me, every proof of the most passionate fondness.

I was and always had been so fond of him myself, that I wondered at nothing, not even at his fits of jealousy; the heart that gives much is not astonished at receiving much, I let myself be loved without caring why or how. I knew he was devotedly fond of me; I feared no rival; I no longer felt the sting of his indifference or the bitter pang of his jealousy. I had nothing to stimulate my curiosity; nothing to desire or to dread; nothing but to be as happy as the day was long.

The other thing, I remember, is that I had in some measure seized on the power it had pleased Cornelius to relinquish. My will was more powerful over him, than his over me. I did not seek for it; but thus it was. It is almost ever so in human affections: perfect equality between two seldom exists; the sway yielded up by one is immediately and instinctively assumed by the other. With the least exertion of his will, Cornelius could again have converted me into a submissive and obedient child; but to govern always requires a certain amount of indifference; and he seemed to have lost both the power and the wish to rule. I should not have been human if I had not taken some advantage of this. I loved him as dearly as ever; but, secure of his fondness and affection, 1 did not, as once, make his pleasure my sole law. I also remembered that we had a few differences; mere trifles they then seemed to me, and Kate herself made light of them.

"Don't fidget," she invariably said to her brother; "she's but a child."

"A child!" he once replied, with a sigh; "you should hear her philosophize with me!"

"Well, then, she's a philosophical child."

"I don't know what she is," he answered, giving me a reproachful look. "I sometimes think Providence sent her to me as a chastisement for my sins."

"Poor sinner!" said Kate, smiling, "what a penance!"

We were all three sitting in the parlour by the fireside. I pretended to be much concerned, and hid my face in the sofa-pillow. Cornelius gently entreated me not to take it so much to heart, assured me I was no penance, but the joy of his life, and the light of his eyes; made me look up, and saw me laughing at him again.

"There," he said, biting his lip and looking provoked, "do you see her, Kate?"

"She is young and merry. Let her laugh."

"But why will she not be serious? Why will she be so provokingly flighty and slippery?"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Kate. "Let her be what she likes now; she'll be grave enough a few years hence."

He sighed, and called me his perverse darling. I laughed again, and bade him sing me an Irish song. He obeyed, and thus it ended.

As I was not conscious of giving Cornelius any real cause of offence, I made light of his vexation or annoyance, of which, indeed, as I have felt since then, he showed me but that which he could not help betraying. Had he been more tyrannical or exacting, my eyes might have opened; but he could not bear to give me pain. He let me torment him to my heart's content, also disdaining, it may be, to complain or lament. Once only he lost all patience. It was towards the close of winter. Kate was out; we sat alone in the parlour by the fireside. Cornelius had made me put down my work, and sat by me, holding my two hands in one of his, smoothing my hair with the other, and telling me--he had an eloquent tongue that knew how to tell those things, neither too much in earnest, nor yet too much in jest--of his fondness and affection. But I was not just then in the endearing mood. I tried to disengage my hands, and not succeeding, I said a little impatiently:--

"Pray don't!"

He understood, or rather misunderstood me; for he drew away, reddening a little, and looking more embarrassed than displeased, he observed:--

"Where is the harm, Daisy?"

"The harm?" I echoed, astonished at the idea, for between him and me I had never felt the shadow of a reserved thought; "why, of course, there is no harm, since it is you," I added, giving one of his dark locks a pull; "but it gives me the fidgets."

Cornelius looked exasperated.

"Thank you, Daisy," he said, with an indignant laugh, "thank you! I am no one; but I give you the fidgets!"

"Why, what have I done now?" I asked, amazed. "How is it, Cornelius, that I so often offend you without even knowing why?"

"And is not that the exasperating part of the business?" he exclaimed, a little desperately. "If you cared a pin for me, you would know--you would guess."

"If I cared a pin for you!" I began; my tears checked the rest.

He stopped in the act of rising, to look down at me with a strange mixture of love and wrath.

"I'll tell you what, Daisy," he said, and his voice trembled and his lips quivered, "I'll tell you what, it is an odd thing to feel so much anger against you and yet so much fondness. I feel as if I could do anything to you, but I cannot bear to see you shed those few tears. Daisy, have the charity not to weep."

He again sat by me. I checked my tears. He wiped away those that still lingered on my cheek. I looked up at him and asked, a little triumphantly:

"Cornelius, where was the use of your flying out so?"

"You may well say so," he replied, rather bitterly. "Do you think I don't know that if 1 were cool and careless, you would like me none the worse; but what avails the knowledge, since I never can use it against you?"

I laughed at the confession.

"And so that is the end of it," he said, looking somewhat downcast, "there seems to be on me a spell, that will never let me end as I begin. Oh! Daisy; why do I like you so well? That is the heel of Achilles--the only vulnerable point which, do what I will, renders me so powerless and so weak."

"Then you do like me, you see," I said, smoothing his hair, "spite of all my faults!"

"Yes, I do like you," he replied, returning the caress with a peculiar look, "and yet, Daisy, I am getting rather wearied of this task of Sisyphus, which I am ever doing, and which somehow or other is never done."

"It was the heel of Achilles a while back, and now it is the stone of Sisyphus! What has put you into so mythological a mood?"

Cornelius coloured, then turned pale, but did not answer.

"Surely," I exclaimed, "you are not offended now about a few light words! Oh. Cornelius," I added, much concerned, "I see matters will never be right until you resume your authority, and I am again your obedient child. If you had always allowed me to consider you as my dear adopted father."--

I stopped short. He had not spoken; he had not moved; he still sat by me, calm, silent and motionless, with his look fixed on the fire and his hand in mine; but as I spoke, there passed something in his face, and even in his eyes, that told me I was probing to the very quick, the wound my careless hand had first inflicted.

"Have I done wrong again?" I asked, dismayed.

"Oh, no!" he replied, negligently; "it is only fair; I was once too careless, too indifferent--the girl has avenged the child--that is all!"

"I am sure I have said something you don't like," I observed, anxiously.

Cornelius took me in his arms and kissed me.

"My good little girl," he said, "you are the best little girl in this world; and if you are only a little girl, you cannot help it--so keep your little heart in peace--and God bless you."

He spoke kindly, and rose, looking down at me with a sort of fondness and pity which did not escape, and which half offended me.

"But I am not a little girl, Cornelius," I replied, in a piqued tone.

"Aren't you?" he said, taking hold of my chin with a smile and look that were not free from irony. "I beg your pardon; I thought you were the little girl that so long made a fool of Cornelius O'Reilly!"

I gave him a surprised look; he laughed and took his hat; I followed him to the door and detained him.

"You are not angry with me!" I observed, uneasily.

"Angry with you!" he said, "no, my pet. What should I be angry for?"

"I don't know, Cornelius; but I am glad you are not angry."

He laughed again, and looked down at me as I stood by him with my hand on his arm, and my upraised face seeking his look; assured me kindly he was not at all angry, and left me. From that evening I could not say that Cornelius was less kind or seemed less fond of me, but I vaguely felt a change in his manner; something lost and gone I could neither understand nor recall. At first I was rather uneasy about it, then I attributed it to his painting, with which he was wholly engrossed. "The Young Girl Reading," had been finished for some time, and he was hard at work on his two Italian pictures. Never did he seem to have loved painting better; never to have given it more of his soul and heart.

I went up to him one mild spring afternoon; I found him looking at his three pictures, and so deeply engrossed that he never heard me until I stood close by him.

"Confess you were admiring them," I said, looking up at him smiling.

He smiled too, but not at me.

"Yes," he replied, quietly, "I see better than any one their merits and their faults; but such as they are, they have given me moments of the purest and most intense pleasure man can know."

He spoke in a low abstracted tone, with a fixed and concentrated gaze. I looked at him again, and found him thin and pale.

"You have been working too hard," I said, "you do not look at all well."

"Don't I?" he replied, carelessly.

"No. Kate made me notice it yesterday, and said 'the boy is in love, I think!' I said 'yes, and painting is the lady.' Confess, Cornelius, you like it better than anything else in this world."

"Yes. Daisy, I do."

"Better than me?"

"Are you a thing?"

"You call me a nice little thing, sometimes."

"And so you are," he answered, smiling. "What do you think of that kneeling woman's attitude?"

"Beautiful, like all you do, Cornelius."

"It is beautiful, Daisy; and, alas! that I should say so, the only truly good thing in the whole picture. Well, no matter; with all my short- comings I am still--thank God for it!--a painter."

"And what a triumph awaits you. Oh! Cornelius, how I long to see it!"

He did not reply. Some imperfection in one of the figures had caught his eye; he was endeavouring to remove it, and appeared lost and intent in the task. I withdrew gently, and paused on the threshold of the door to look at him. He stood before his easel, absorbed in his labour; the light fell on his handsome profile and defined it clearly; his eyes, bent on his canvas, looked as if they could behold nothing else; no breath seemed to issue from his parted lips; he was enjoying in its fulness, the delight and the charm which God has placed in the labour dear to the artist's heart.

In a few days more the pictures were finished and sent to the Academy. Cornelius felt no fear. His confidence was justified, for he soon learned, on good authority, that "The Young Girl Reading" and the two Italian pieces were not rejected. He expressed neither surprise nor pleasure. Indeed there was altogether about him an air of indifference and _ennui_ that struck his sister. She went up to him as he stood leaning against the mantelpiece, and laying her hand on her arm, she asked a little anxiously--

"What's the matter, lad? That girl has not been provoking you again; she's but a child, you know, and will grow wiser."

"Of course she will," he replied, smoothing my hair, for I, too, stood by him; "a year or two will make a great change, Kate."

His sister smiled a little archly.

Cornelius asked if I would not take a walk. I accepted, and we had a long and pleasant stroll in the lanes, that already began to wear the light and tender verdure of spring.

I saw by Kate's face when we returned, that something had happened. At length it came out. Mrs. Brand had called to see me. Mrs. Brand had learned by the merest chance that I was no longer at Thornton House, and was greatly grieved that I had not made the fact known to her sooner. Any resentment against me, for refusing to enter into her scheme, with regard to Mr. Thornton, did not seem to linger in her mind. She was all cousinly love and affection, reminded me of the promise I had made to spend some time at Poplar Lodge, and had parted from Miss O'Reilly with the avowed intention of coming to fetch me the very next day.

I looked at Cornelius, who smiled, and leaning on the back of my chair, said kindly:

"Why should you not have a little change and pleasure, my pet? You will not stay there more than a week or two."

"Yes, Cornelius, but it is the time of the Academy."

"What matter!" he interrupted; "we know the pictures are all right, and we have months to look at them together."

I was very glad he took this view of the subject; for I wished to redeem my promise to my cousin, whose kindness I could not quite forget; and yet I would not for anything or any one have vexed Cornelius. Thus, therefore, it was settled with the approbation of Kate, who added, however, with a peculiar smile:

"You let her go, Cornelius; but you'll be dreadful fidgetty until she comes back."

"Of course I shall," he replied, smiling rather oddly.

I knew he loved me dearly. I looked up at him with some pride; he looked down with an ardent fondness that went to my very heart. Unasked, I promised not to remain more than a week away.

In the course of the next day Mrs. Brand called for me. Cornelius had gone out early, and had not come in. I told Kate to bid him adieu, and tell him I should not remain beyond the week. She smiled.

"A week, child!" she said; "be glad if he lets you remain three days away."

I laughed, kissed her, and entered the light and elegant open carriage in which Mrs. Brand had condescendingly come to visit her obscure little cousin.