CHAPTER VI.

How pleasant is the privilege, so little valued, because it is so common, of living in one home with those we love. Life has few things more true or more deep, and holds forth no promises more delightful. To sleep beneath the shelter of the same roof, to meet morn, noon and evening at the same board, to converse familiarly by the same fireside, to share the same sorrows and pleasures, is the ideal of those who love, whatever name their affection may take. The imagination of lovers themselves--and yet what can they not imagine?--has never gone beyond this. After all the trials, temptations and griefs, which may have beset their path, the magic hope of their future is still: one home.

Of one part of this happiness, we may be fully conscious, but another we seldom feel, unless after long separation; even as we know that life is sweet, yet rarely pause and stand still to enjoy its sweetness, so though we are well aware of the happiness of union, we sometimes forget to be happy. Too often do we accept the presence of those we love best, as we receive sunshine and our daily bread; wants of our nature fulfilled.

I rejoiced in the return of Cornelius with an eager delight I never strove to hide, and which he seemed to share. To hear his step, his voice, his laughter about the house; to meet him daily, and out or within to be constantly near him, was now my happy fate. Twice Miss O'Reilly accompanied us in our long daily walks; but the rest of the time she found some excuse to stay within, and we went out alone. That we should do so, gave her a degree of satisfaction I could not quite make out; but which I could not help perceiving. As I sat alone sewing one morning in the back parlour, Cornelius came, and leaning on the back of my chair, said:

"Where shall we go to-day?"

"Indeed, Cornelius," I replied, gravely, "I cannot always be going out with you, and leaving Kate alone."

"Kate is very fond of solitude," was his calm answer.

"Yes, but she might think it selfish."

The entrance of Kate interrupted the remark.

"The morning is getting very hot," she said, looking at her brother.

"Yes," he carelessly answered, "therefore I shall go out before the heat of the day."

"Quite right."

"I shall even go now."

"Of course, but what else?"

"What else?"

"Yes; do you not take Daisy with you?"

"If you can spare her."

"Of course I can," replied Kate, whose clouded face immediately brightened, "child, why are you not ready?"

What could I do but comply, and again go out walking with Cornelius? I resolved, however, that it should not be so on the following day. I declined accompanying him, giving him my reason, to which he submitted with a silent smile. I even managed to send him off without the knowledge of his sister. He had not long been gone when she came up from the kitchen where she had been engaged. She gave a rapid look round the room, and said hastily:

"Where is Cornelius?"

"He is gone out sketching, Kate," I replied without looking up from my work.

"Why did not you go with him?"

I did not answer.

"Did he not ask you?"

"I did not like to leave you."

"Did he ask you?"

"Yes, he did."

"Do you know where he is?"

"He said he would go down the beach."

"Well, then, put on your bonnet and be off."

I remonstrated, but she was peremptory. I felt the kindness hidden beneath her imperative ways, and, as I rose and passed by her, I could not help giving her a kiss, and saying:

"How good you are, Kate."

"And how foolish you and he are," she replied, smiling, "not to make the most of this good time."

"Why, Kate, we have a whole summer before us, and with it I trust, plenty of fine weather."

She told me not to stand dallying there; in a few minutes I was ready, and running down the path that led to the sands. To my surprise, I found Cornelius quietly sitting on a rock at the base of a cliff, and smoking a cigar. He rose on seeing me, came to meet me, and as he took my arm, said:

"How long you were."

"Did you expect me?"

"Of course I did."

"But you could not know Kate would send me?"

"But I could guess it."

"And if she had not sent me, Cornelius?"

"I should have gone to fetch you."

"Then it seems it is quite a settled matter that I must go out with you every day?"

Cornelius stopped short, and looking at me, said earnestly:

"Do you object, Daisy?"

"Ah," I replied, with a remorseful sigh, "you know very well I only like it too much."

He smiled, and we walked on. There were woods about Leigh, and I took him to one, where we lingered, until its glades and avenues, instead of a golden light pouring in from above through the green foliage, were lit up from beneath by the long, red streaks, of a low, setting sun. As I write, there rises before me a vision of a mossy dell, low sunk down and overshadowed by three wide-spreading oaks, beneath which Cornelius and I sat during the still and burning hours of noon. There was little sketching, yet what we said and of what we conversed I know not now. But memory will sometimes keep the aspects of outward nature, when that which impressed them on the mind has faded away and is lost for ever. I had often seen that wood before, but on no day do I seem to have felt so much the calm of its silence, the freshness of its deep shadow, the sweetness of its many murmurs, ever rising from unknown depths, and dying away again as mysteriously as they had awakened. Never do I seem to have breathed in with so much delight, that wild forest fragrance sweeter than the perfumes of any garden.

Thus passed not merely that day, but many other days, of which I remember still less. There is always something vague and dreamy in the memory of happiness. Seen from afar, that time is like a sunny landscape, beheld through light and warmth. Dazzled and enchanted, you scarcely know what the passing hour was like, and scarcely remember afterwards what it has been; all that remains is a warm, golden hue cast over all things, and such to me was then in the present, and is in memory, the presence of Cornelius.

At the end of a delightful fortnight, I wakened to the consciousness that, though Cornelius went out sketching daily, he sketched very little; and that the two rainy days we had been obliged to spend at home, had been devoted to the task of teaching me Italian, and to nothing else. The little back parlour had been destined, by Kate, to be her brother's studio; but though Mary Stuart stood there, with her face turned to the wall, there came no intimation of a successor to this hapless lady. "Decidedly," I thought, "things cannot go on so." Accordingly, the morning, when, after breakfast, Cornelius stepped up to me, and said:

"Where is it to be to-day?"

I put on a grave face, and replied:

"I must stay at home to-day, Cornelius. I cannot leave everything to Kate, you know."

"Very true," answered he, submissively.

"Therefore, whilst you are out sketching, I shall just sit here in the window, with work-box and work-basket, and make up for lost time."

Before I knew what be was about, the chair was in the window, and near it stood the work-box and work-basket. I felt a little confused at his civility, for which I was, however, going to thank him, when I saw him draw a chair near mine.

"Are you not going out?" I asked.

"No," he quietly replied, and sat down by me. I worked in perfect silence. He sat, with his elbow resting on the back of my chair, and his eyes following the motion of my darning-needle, handing me my scissors when I wanted them, and picking up my thimble, which fell once or twice. I thought he would get tired of this, but he did not. At length, unable to keep in, I looked up, and said:

"Do you not feel dull, Cornelius?"

"Not at all," he replied, smiling. "I had no idea that to watch the darning of stockings was so entertaining."

As to entertain Cornelius was, by no means, my object, I quietly put by my work, and went up to my room. I had not been there half an hour, when I heard a low tap at my door. I guessed from whom it came, and did not answer it any more than the cough, and the low "Daisy!" which followed. He waited a while, then went down. In a few minutes, Kate entered my room.

"Child," she said, "what keeps you here? Cornelius has just found his way to the kitchen, to inform me that you had vanished, and that he felt morally certain you were unwell."

"I am quite well," I replied, gravely; "but, as you see, particularly engaged in airing my things, for fear of the moths."

"Make haste, then, for he is fidgeting in the front parlour."

"Indeed," I thought, "he may fidget. I am not going to make him lose all his time."

Instead, therefore, of joining him, when my task was done, I quietly slipped down to the garden; but I had scarcely sat down on the bench beneath the pine trees, when Cornelius came, and settled himself by me. I seemed intent on my crochet; but, as this produced no effect, I rose, and composedly observed the sun was very hot.

"Burning!" replied Cornelius, rising too.

We went in. The front parlour faced the east, and was as warm as the garden; the back parlour, on the contrary, looked cool and shady. Cornelius quietly brought in my work-basket and work-box, placed a chair for me by the open window, another chair for himself, near mine, then closed the door, and smiled at me.

"Yes," I thought, as I sat down, "I am caught; but, since you have such a relish for my company, you shall even hear a bit of my mind."

I sat darning my stockings, and meditating how to bring this about, when Cornelius observed, with a touch of impatience:

"Am I to see only your side face to-day?"

"Do you object to my side face?" I gravely asked.

"Oh, no!" he hastily replied. "It is a very charming profile; and I was thinking, just now, how well it would look on a medal or ancient coin."

"And why not on a modern coin, as well as on an ancient one?"

"With the legend, Daisy Regina, &c," he answered, smiling.

"Do you mean to imply I could not grace a throne, and bear a sceptre?"

"Heaven forbid; but I wonder what History would say of Queen Daisy!"

I looked up to answer calmly:

"History would despatch her with a few more &cs., Cornelius; such as: 'The most obscure of our long line of sovereigns, &c. Instead of emulating the Elizabeths and the Catherines, &c. Although with the intellectual mediocrity of her sex, &c. Her reign was nevertheless illustrated by a certain Irish artist, &c, &c.'"

"The Irish artist respectfully kisses her Majesty's hand," said Cornelius, raising my hand to his lips with mock homage; "he ventures to hope that, spite of the distance of rank, something like friendship existed between him and Queen Daisy."

He still held my hand in his; encouraged by the friendly kindness of the clasp, I replied:

"So much friendship that, on one propitious occasion, Queen Daisy ventured to remind her friend that time was passing fast, and his fame yet to win."

Cornelius dropped my hand, and asked, gravely:

"Does History say how this advice was received?"

"History is silent," I replied, with a beating heart. "How do you think it ended, Cornelius?"

"I think," he replied, smiling as our looks met, "that most artists would have civilly requested her Majesty to mind the affairs of the State. Painters are a touchy race, better accustomed to royal favour than to royal advice. The brush of Titian was picked up by Charles V.; Holbein found the English Bluebeard gentle; Leonardo da Vinci died in the arms of Francis I.; and, I suppose the artist we now allude to must have been spoiled by favours still more high, for I have heard that on this occasion he had the presumption to request of her Majesty--"

"To mind the affairs of the State," I interrupted, again taking up my stocking.

"Nay," he replied, gently taking it from me, "to leave by those important cares, and idle away a day with him, was the request, says History."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, "I am so glad you are not offended, Cornelius!"

"Then you thought I was; and that explains why you looked at me with a sorrowful audacity that seemed to say: 'Be angry if you like. I have said the truth, nothing but the truth, and by that I stand fast.'"

"Yes, Cornelius, that is just what I felt; but I am very glad that you are not offended for all that."

"Then if you are so glad," he answered smiling, "how did you come to risk it?"

"Because I am not quite a child now," I replied earnestly. "Oh! Cornelius, do you not understand that I can love you better than your good pleasure, and your honour better than you?"

"And do you not understand," he answered, bending over me a warm and animated face, "that I cannot be offended to see the child's blind affection make room for the heart, mind and feelings of the woman; and call that look in the eyes, and that flush on the cheek?"

"I meant to be very quiet," I replied, deprecatingly; "and if I reddened as I spoke, it was because my heart was in it, Cornelius, as it is in everything that concerns you; and I could not help it."

"Who wants you to help it?" he asked with mingled tenderness and impatience in his accent, "or to be quiet either. Quiet affection is nonsense: there is but one way of loving or of doing anything, and that is, as much as one can, Daisy."

He uttered not a word to which something within me did not echo and reply. To this day, I do not understand placid affection, even though it should take the calmest name. Like him I hold that there is but one true way of loving any one, or anything, with one's whole heart.

"As much as one can," I echoed, passing my arm within his; "that's how you are going to set at painting, is it not?"

My upraised face looked into his; he did not reply.

"You know," I continued, "you said you could paint over again Count Morsikoff's pictures."

"And so I will, but not just yet."

"Cornelius, do you no longer like painting?"

"No longer like it! I like it but too well; and as I know its power over me, I delay placing myself under a spell, even you, Daisy, might not be able to break."

"As if I should wish to break it! When do you begin, Cornelius?"

"What a hurry you are in!"

"I am in a hurry to see you famous."

He smoothed my hair with a flattered smile.

"Will you begin to-morrow?" I persisted.

"No."

"After to-morrow?"

"No."

"Next week?"

"No."

"But, Cornelius, when will you begin?" I inquired, rather disappointed.

"Now."

"Now!" I exclaimed, delighted.

"Why did you not tell me sooner that you wished for it?" he asked, reproachfully. "I thought you liked the walks, and put off talking of work from day to day."

I had a confused impression at the time, that there was something odd in this speech, but in my joy at having succeeded, I forgot it.

"It is quite early yet," I said, "you can begin at once. Which shall it be, Cornelius, the women praying, or the children by the fountain?"

"Neither one nor the other for the present," he replied, "that is to say I hope not. I have thought of another subject to begin with."

"What is it, Cornelius?" I asked, much interested.

"I saw a young girl once," he said in a thoughtful tone, like one who looks back into memory, "and she brought to my mind's eye a full and charming picture. She sat within the meditative shadow of an ill-lit room, reading by an open window--well, why do you look at me so?"

"I only think that I was sewing that day--you know, not reading; therefore you cannot mean me."

"Logically concluded. To resume: the room was gloomy, but the open window gave a sense of space, and admitted the light, high and serene, of a pale evening sky. The book lay open on the lap of her who read, one hand rested upon its pages; the other supported her cheek; the eyes were rapt and thoughtful; the silent lips met and closed with a charming and austere grace; the attitude was meditative, even down to the garment's quiet and gathered folds. The slender figure told of early youth, but there was the calmness of an immortal spirit on the brow, and something beyond time in the bearing and the mien. I remembered the Greek's meditating muse, and Corregio's divine Magdalen reading in the wilderness, and I thought though Pagan times be gone and art may have lost her early faith, she still can tell the story of earnest spirits that live and move within the shadow of our own homes, yet ever seem to dwell serene in their own heights. That is the subject, Daisy, and there is a speech for you."

"Is that all, Cornelius?"

"All. It will stand in the catalogue, as 'A Young Girl Reading,' and many, unable to see more in it, will give a brief look and pass on. If a few linger near, even though they scarcely know why; if to them it embodies thought, meditation, or some such thing, I am satisfied. Daisy. Well, what do you think of it?"

"Nothing for the present; I am thinking whether Jane will do."

"What for?" he asked promptly.

"To sit for you. She is very pretty, you know."

"And she looks very meditative, with her bright black eyes ever open, and her cherry lips ever parted."

"I wish you had seen Miss Lindley. She is tall, graceful, and dresses with so much taste. Then she has a pale olive face, and looks very lady- like."

"And a lady-like Meditation--who dresses well too--would be the very thing."

"But Cornelius," I said, rather perplexed, "how will you manage? I can do for the figure pretty well, I dare say, but the face?"

He gave me an odd look, and answered:

"Yes, there is a puzzle."

"How thoughtless of you."

"Very."

"Then how will you manage?"

"Really," he said, turning round to confront me, "is it possible you do not guess whose face I want, Daisy?"

"Mine!" I exclaimed, much astonished.

"Yes, yours," he replied, taking my hand in his. "I once saw you reading--"

"Sewing, Cornelius."

"No [!] reading--do you think I never looked at you but that one time?-- and I liked it, for I saw it would make a very charming picture. The attitude is one in which you often fall unconsciously--simple, true, and graceful. I like it. I like, too, the exquisite colour of your hair, and the meditative light of your gray eyes. Dark eyes may be for passion; blue, for love and sweetness; gray, less beautiful, perhaps, but also less earthly, are for meditation and spiritual thought."

"And the meaning of hazel eyes?" I said, looking up at his.

"Sincerity," he replied, biting his nether lip to repress a smile. "If, for instance, a person with hazel eyes ever tells you 'you are truly pretty, Daisy, though you do not seem to know it,' believe that person, Daisy."

"I shall see about that when the time comes. In the meanwhile, I wish you would begin."

He called me a little tyrant, but it was a tyranny he liked, for he yielded to it with an ardour and alacrity that betrayed him. He placed me in the attitude he wanted--sitting by the window, with a book on my lap-- and began at once. I saw he was quite in his element again; and when, after a long sitting, we both rested, I said to him, a little reproachfully:

"You like it more than ever, Cornelius. I see it in your face."

"It does not annoy you?" he asked, giving me an uneasy look.

"Annoy me, Cornelius! Have you forgotten Daisy?"

"Ah! but she was a sickly child: and for the merry young girl to be shut up--"

"She does not mind being shut up the whole day long, provided it be with Cornelius."

"Who, when once he is at his easel, has scarcely a word or a look to give her."

"She does not want him to give her words or looks. She wants him to paint a fine picture, than which, she thinks, there is nothing finer; and to become a great painter, than which, she believes, there is nothing greater."

"Indeed, then, there is not," he replied, laughing and reddening, and his brown eyes kindling with sudden, though lingering light. "Oh, Daisy!" he added, after a pause, laying his two hands on my shoulders, and looking down at me intently, "what a fine, generous little creature you are!"

"Because I do not mind sitting," I replied, smiling. "You forget. Cornelius, I always liked it. Let us return to it, and surprise Kate."

Miss O'Reilly was certainly surprised when she came up--much more surprised than pleased--to see the historic style put aside; but when her brother gently informed her that Mary Stuart was not quite a masterpiece, she waxed wroth, indignantly said he would never do better, and only hoped he would do as well. Cornelius heard her quietly, and smiled at me with the security of conscious power.

As he went on with his "Young Girl Reading," I was struck with the wonderful progress he had made--it more than fulfilled the promise of the Italian sketches. I expressed my admiration without reserve, and I could not but see in his face, how much it gratified him. The time that followed was, indeed, a happy time, as happy as the past, with much that the past had never known. Cornelius looked engrossed and delighted. He worked either with the impassioned ardour of a lover, or with a lingering tenderness as significant. He dwelt _con amore_, over certain bits, or stood back and looked at the whole fondly, through half-shut eyes, drinking in, with evident delight, that sweet intoxication which lies in the contemplation of our own work, when we can behold in it the fulfilment of some cherished idea. But, at the end of a fortnight, there came a change. He looked gloomy, misanthropic, and painted with the air of an angry lover, who has fallen out with his mistress. Ardour had become scorn--tenderness was changed into sullen languor. I guessed that one of his old desponding fits was on him, and, at length, I spoke. It was on a day when, spite of all his efforts, I could see that he scarcely worked. I left my place, and went up to him. For a while, I looked at the picture; then said:

"How it progresses."

"Wonderfully."

"I wish you would not be ironical, Cornelius."

"I wish you would not, Daisy."

"I only say what I think: that it progresses."

Cornelius laughed, but by no means cheerfully.

"I know you long for me to praise it," I observed, quietly.

"Indeed, I do not," he interrupted.

"Yes, you do: it would give you so good an opportunity of abusing it."

"Do you kindly mean to spare me the trouble?"

"No; for then you would defend it against all my criticisms. I know very well how you rate your picture, Cornelius."

"Do you?"

"Yes; I do. You know it will make your reputation; that it will be praised and admired; but it fails in something on which you have set your heart, and, though it may do for the world, it will not do for Cornelius O'Reilly, his own severest judge, public and critic."

"Oh, you witch!" he replied, unable to repress a smile.

"Do you not like it better now?" I asked, thinking the cloud was beginning to break.

"No, Daisy. It is the old story; something within me to which, do what I will, I cannot give birth; it is this torments me, Daisy, it is this."

"And let it be this," I replied gravely; "let it be this, Cornelius, you will be better than your pictures: if you were not, if you could give all to art, would art be any longer worth living for? Where would be the mystery, the desire, the hope, the charm, to lure you on for ever. I dare say painting resembles life; and that to feel I am better than my pictures, is like the pleasure of feeling 'I am better than my destiny.'"

"And what do you know about that pleasure?" asked Cornelius.

"I have felt it," was my involuntary reply. "Well, why not?" I added, reddening beneath his look, "do you think that because I am a girl, I have had no ambition, no dreams of my own, no longing for a little bit of the heroic? We all have, Cornelius, only we don't confess it, for fear of being laughed at."

He looked attentively at me and smiled.

"What were your dreams about, Daisy?"

"Not worth your losing time in listening to them, Cornelius--time, that leads to fame!"

The smile vanished from his face.

"Not for me," he replied, with a clouded brow.

"Why not?"

"Because I have no genius."

"No genius?"

"No," he said impatiently, "not a bit."

"Do you mean to say, Cornelius, that you will never be one of the celebrated artists of whom I have read so much?"

"Never!" he replied, with a dreary seriousness that proved him, for the moment at least, to be quite in earnest.

"Cornelius," I said, decisively, "I am not going to put up with that, you know; fame is not a thing to be laid aside in that fashion."

"Fame! what is fame?"

"A poor aim, but a glorious reward."

"Empty, Daisy, empty. I do not care one pin for fame."

"Sour grapes," was the prompt reply which escaped me.

"Thank you, Daisy," he answered, reddening.

I felt rather disturbed. He resumed:

"Sour grapes! The illustration is kind and civil. Sour grapes!"

"They must be very sour," I ventured to observe, in a low tone, "for you seem unable to digest them, Cornelius."

"I beg your pardon," he said, very gravely, "I do not care for celebrity, and do not want to be famous."

"But I do," I warmly answered, "you were asking a while ago about my day- dreams: I will tell you one, a favourite one, of which the fulfilment lies with you:--I am out somewhere; for of course we shall not always live in this quiet way, and I overhear Mrs. H-- asking Mrs. G--, in an audible whisper: 'Who is that commonplace-looking girl in white?' 'Something or other to the celebrated artist, Cornelius O'Reilly.' Mrs. H-- looks at me with sudden veneration, whilst I give her a compassionate glance, implying 'Who ever heard of Mr. H--?'"

"You saucy girl," said Cornelius, passing his arm around me, but looking down at me, with anything but a displeased face.

"I am not saucy; I am very humble. I am proud by temper, and yet I cannot fancy that if I were to go and earn my bread, it would have a sweeter taste than that you have earned for me so long. I am ambitious, and instead of winning fame for myself, here am I suing you to do it for me!"

"And shall it not be won for you?" he asked, fondly smoothing my hair, "that and anything else you wish for, my darling."

"Then, don't you see," I replied, triumphantly, "that you have got genius?"

"Oh! Daisy," he said sorrowfully, "what brought up that unlucky word? Look at that figure, cold, lifeless thing, it tells its own story."

I lost all patience. I felt my face flush, and turning round on Cornelius, I put by at once all the filial reverence of years.

"Cornelius!" I exclaimed, indignantly, "you are as capricious as a spoiled child. How can a man of your age indulge in such whims?"

"I am not so old as to have my age thrown in my face!" he replied, looking piqued. "I am only a few years beyond legal infancy."

"You ought to be ages beyond thinking and speaking as you do. If you have no faith in yourself, why do you paint at all? If I were a man, I would rather be a shoemaker or a tailor, than an artist without faith."

"On my word," said Cornelius, looking very angry, "you do speak strongly."

"Because _I_ have faith in you," I replied, passing my arm around his neck, and looking into his averted face. "Call the picture bad, but do not say you have no genius. It cuts me to the heart, indeed it does. Besides, I cannot believe it. I never look at your face, but I seem to see the word 'Genius' written there."

And, as I spoke, I laid my lips on a brow where eyes less prejudiced than mine might have read the same story. A sudden and burning glow overspread the features of Cornelius; he looked another way, and bit his lips, as if seeking for calmness, as striving to curb down that impatient fever of the blood which, in good or in evil, it is always a sort of pain to betray. I half drew back, thinking him vexed again, but he detained me; and turning towards me a flushed and troubled face, he said with a forced laugh:

"Your head has been turned by reading those Lives of the Painters, and you want to turn mine too. To satisfy you, I should be the first painter in England."

"In England!" I echoed; "in Christendom, Sir."

"Rather high-flown, Daisy. Besides that it sounds like a reminiscence of the seven champions."

"High-flown! Ambition is a bird of high feather, Cornelius. I would scorn to aim at the second place when there is the first to win."

"Oh! you witch!" he said again, "how well you know me!"

"What has become of the evil spirit that possessed you?" I asked, smiling.

"Gone to the winds for the present," he answered gaily.

"Well then work."

"Not yet. Let us rest awhile."

He sat down on a low couch by the open window, and made me sit down by him. Since his return, I had not seen his face wear so free and happy a look, as it then wore. His brilliant and deep-set hazel eyes shone beneath the dark arch of the brow, with unusual light, and rested on me with a triumphant tenderness that perplexed me; a warmer glow tinged his cheek, embrowned by a southern sun. There lurked both joy and exultation in the half smile that trembled on his lips: like his sister, he had a very beautiful and fascinating smile; and, as I now gazed at him. I could not help smiling, too, for I thought I had never seen him look half so handsome. In the freak of the moment, I told him so.

"Do you know, Mr. O'Reilly?" I said, taking hold of his curved chin, and looking up at him laughing. "Do you know that you are very good-looking?"

He half threw back his head, as if in scorn of the compliment; but when I added, "I suppose all great artists are so!" he smiled down at me; and if his smile was somewhat conscious, it was still more fond and tender.

"You like me, Daisy; don't you?" he said, bending over me a flushed and happy face.

I laughed, and he laughed, too, with the security of the knowledge.

"Oh! you may laugh," he said with sparkling eyes; "I know you do. I know it, but I have not deserved it," he added, remorsefully. "Oh! when I think how cold, and how careless I have been; and how you might serve me out now!"

"How so, Cornelius?"

He smiled, and smoothed my hair without replying.

"Why it is you who might serve me out," I said.

"Is it?"

"Of course, for it is I who have all to gain or lose."

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

He repressed a smile, gave me a curious look, and said I was an odd girl.

"And won't the other girls be jealous of me, Cornelius?" I asked, proudly.

"Jealous! What for?"

"Because you are immortalizing me in a picture."

"What else?"

"Because you like me."

"What else?"

"Because I am to be always with you."

"And how do you know you are to be always with me?" he asked with a mischievous look; "answer me that."

I did not at first; he laughed.

"Well," I said, piqued, "am I not to be always with you? Was it not agreed before you went to Italy? Am I not to be the governess?"

"The governess!" he echoed, astonished.

It was some time before I could make him remember what had passed between us. If I had not been positive, he would have denied it altogether.

"How can you think of such nonsense?" he asked, impatiently; "the governess of what?"

"Of the children; and please not to call them _what_."

"_Them!_ Will you be pleased to remember that I am a poor artist."

"Sceptic! Providence will send for every child a new picture to paint."

"Providence is very kind. I hope her liberality will know some limits."

"The first must be Cornelius or Kate, second ditto, third--"

"Daisy!"

"There must be a third to be called after the mother, and the fourth after one of her friends; the fifth--"

"Daisy!" indignantly asked Cornelius: "do you mean to make a patriarch of me?"

"Patriarch or not, there must be a fifth--mine, whom you will call Daisy, in memory of the other Daisy you brought home, wrapped in your cloak."

Cornelius turned round to look at me smiling:

"So you were piqued," he said, "and brought up the governess to punish me!"

"Piqued!" I echoed, laughing in his face, "what about?"

He looked a little disconcerted. I thought him vexed, and apologized at once for my want of respect.

"Respect!" he replied seeming half astonished, half displeased, "what do I want with respect--your respect?" And he gave me a glance of mingled incredulity and uneasiness.

"Cornelius, you said before you went to Italy--"

"What about the foolish things, I may have said years ago." he interrupted impatiently; "Surely," he added, looking down at me reproachfully, "surely, we have both outgrown that time."

"I hope I have not outgrown my respect for you, Cornelius," I replied rather gravely.

"Again!" he said with subdued irritation; "why don't, you ask to call me 'Papa?'"

"I would if I thought you would say yes, Cornelius."

"No, you would not," he answered reddening and looking vexed; "you know you would not. You know all this is mere childish talk."

"Put me to the test!" I said laughing.

"I dare you to do it." he replied hastily. "Take warning, and, if troubled with filial feelings, look out for some other paternal parent. C. O. R., Esq., is not the man."

"When Louisa Scheppler asked the good Pastor Oberlin--he consented."

Cornelius looked at me uneasily and tried to smile.

"I know you are only jesting," he observed; "I know it, of course. But yet, Daisy, I would rather you did not."

"Is the idea of a daughter so formidable?" I asked.

"A daughter! Oh, Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius a little desperately, "this is too childish! The next thing will be, that you will get out of the teens altogether, and go back to the little girl of ten whom I found here seven years ago."

"And you don't want me to do that?" I said amused at the idea.

He looked at me expressively.

"Oh, no!" he murmured, "oh, no! Surely, you know yourself how charming you have grown."

I smiled incredulously. I knew I was improved, but thought it was his affection which transformed a little freshness and colour into so comprehensive a word as charming.

"I wonder you will never believe me," he said, looking half annoyed. "I wonder, what is your real opinion of yourself. I do not mean that conventional opinion of one's own inferiority, or at the best mediocrity which, under penalty of being hunted out from decent society, every civilized individual is bound to profess, but that honest opinion of our merits and defects, by which we judge ourselves in our own hearts. Do you mind answering that question?"

"No, it is not worth minding."

"Then answer it."

"You must question me categorically. I have not a ready-made certificate of my good or bad points, to deliver on such short notice."

"What do you think of Daisy morally?"

"A good sort of girl; has received honest principles; devoutly believes she will never do anything very shocking."

"What of her intellectually?"

"Sensible, not brilliant."

"What of her person?"

"Like her mind--plain; but, thank Heaven, has the use of her limbs and senses."

"And this common-place character is your real opinion of yourself!" exclaimed Cornelius almost indignantly.

"My real opinion; but it is scarcely civil to tell me to my face that I am common-place."

"I never said so. That is not my opinion of you, Daisy."

"Ah!" I said a little embarrassed, for it was plain he meant to favour me with that opinion.

"No," he continued very earnestly, "I do not think you that pale, every- day girl you described. I think you more than good, for you are high- minded; I think you more than sensible, for you are original. You may as well laugh out at once," he added in a piqued tone, "for to crown all, Daisy, I think you pretty, ay, and very pretty."

"Oh, Cornelius!" I replied endeavouring to look melancholy; "if you had not made that unlucky addition, I could have believed in the rest--but now!"

"Daisy, beauty is manifold: the greatest fool can discover the beauty of a perfectly beautiful woman."

"Whereas it requires a peculiar talent to find out the invisible sort of beauty. Judicious remark!"

"Allow me to return to the point. My meaning is, that to be able to see and feel none save the self-demonstrative sort of beauty, is common- place."

"The other course is decidedly more original; is that the point, Cornelius?"

"The point," he replied, fairly provoked, "is, that such as you are, pretty or plain, _I_ find you charming."

"Well, then," I said, amused at his persistency, "glamour has fallen on your eyes, and you see me through it."

"What if I do?" he answered, in a tone that, like his look, suddenly softened; "will that sort of magic vex you? What is there so pleasant in this world as the face of one we love; and if your face has that pleasantness for me; if the glamour, as you call it, of affection has fallen on my eyes and heart, why should you mind?"

Oh! not indifferent, even in the purest affection, are these things. I glanced up into his face; and as it told me how thoroughly he meant all he said, I blushed; then ashamed of blushing, I hung down my head. He stooped to look at me.

"Perverse girl," he said, chidingly, "don't you see it was useless to try to frighten and torment me? But you have provoked me. Shall I tell you why I find you so very, very charming?"

I looked up at him, and, passing my arms around his neck, I smiled as I replied:

"Cornelius, it is because as a father you have reared me; because as a father you love me. What wonder, then, that a father should see some sort of beauty in his daughter's face?"

Cornelius looked thunder-struck; then recovering, he gave me an incredulous glance, and attempted a smile, which vanished as he met my astonished look. A burning glow overspread his features: it was not the light blush of boy or girl, called up by idle words, but the ardent fire of a manly heart's deep and passionate emotions. He untwined my arm from around his neck; he rose: his brown eyes lit--his lips trembled. At first he seemed unable to speak; at length he said:

"You cannot mean it, Daisy--you cannot mean it."

"Why not, Cornelius?" I asked, amazed at his manner.

"Do you mean to say that I love you as my daughter or child?"

"Yes, Cornelius."

"Do you mean to say that you love me as your father?"

"Yes, Cornelius."

His voice rose and rang with each question; mine sank with every reply. He darted at me a look of the keenest reproach.

"Never," he exclaimed, with a fire and vehemence that startled me, "never have I loved you, or shall I love you so; never for a second in the past; never for a second in the future; never, Daisy, never!" And turning from me, he paced the room with hasty steps, a flushed brow, and angry look. At length he stopped before me; for, being somewhat calmer, the fire of his look seemed more earnest and concentrated, the accents of his voice more measured and deep. He said:

"Confess you have been jesting."

"No, Cornelius, I spoke as I thought."

"And you thought that I liked you, as a father likes his child; I defy you to prove it! Since I returned from Italy, have I not done all I could to show you that your esteem, approbation, praise, and love were dearer to me than language could express? Have I not, through all our old familiarity, say, have I not mingled reserve and respect with all my tenderness? Have I not acknowledged the woman in you, and that in a hundred ways? The love of a father? I defy you to prove it, Daisy!"

He again paced the room with angry steps. I followed him, and laying my hand on his arm, I said earnestly--

"Cornelius, you should not be angry with me. Have you forgotten that, before you went to Italy, you called me your adopted child? that in your letters you addressed me thus? That on the very evening of your return, when Kate seemed vexed about it, you were not displeased, though you are so angry now?"

Cornelius turned a little pale.

"I had forgotten it," he said bitterly, "but you forget nothing--nothing; years pass, and words spoken in the heedlessness of ignorance and the presumptuousness of youth, still live in your pitiless memory."

"Cornelius," I said, gently, "is it a sin to remember the truth?"

"The truth!" he echoed, indignantly, "do not call that the truth. I may have said it, been fool enough to have believed it, but true it has never been. Never, I tell you, never have I felt for you one spark of the affection a father feels for his child, never. Do not think, dream, or imagine such a thing. I deny it in every way in which man can deny. I would, were it in my power, efface from your mind every such remembrance of a past, beyond which we both should look."

I began to feel startled. What did Cornelius mean? Why did he object so pertinaciously to a matter like this? I looked up at him and said earnestly--

"Cornelius, I do not understand at all why you are so vexed. Pray tell me."

He looked down at me very fixedly. Every trace of ungentle passion had passed away from his features, and there was a strange, undefined tenderness in his gaze, as he said in a low tone--

"If I have been vexed. Daisy, it is to find out a mistake--a great mistake of mine."

"What mistake, Cornelius?"

"Do you really want to know, Daisy?"

"Yes," I said, almost desperately, "I want to know."

There was a pause. He still stood by me, looking down in my face.

"Do not look so pale, and above all so frightened," he said, gently; "there is no need. How you tremble!" he added, taking my hand in both his, and speaking very sadly, "Oh, Daisy! Daisy!" And he turned his look away with a strange expression of disappointment and pain, of shame and mortification.

I hung down my head; I did not dare to look at him, to withdraw my hand, to move. I stood mutely expecting--what I knew not exactly; but I seemed to feel that it must be some shock, dreadful, because violent, that would perforce turn the current of my destiny, and compel it to flow through regions, where of itself, my will would never have led we. Vain fear; unfounded alarm. Cornelius turned to me, and said very calmly--

"The mistake into which I fell, was to think that we understood one another tacitly, Daisy. I do not love you now because I have reared you, but on your own merits, for the sake of that which you have become. And thus I thought that you too liked me, with a higher feeling than gratitude. In short, as I like you myself--as a very dear friend."

He spoke simply and naturally. I breathed freely.

"Oh! how good, how generous you are!" I exclaimed, moved to the heart by so much delicacy of affection. "You want to raise me to an equality with you. God bless you, Cornelius."

I pressed his two hands in mine, with much emotion.

"Are you happy?" he asked, looking down at me.

"So very happy!" I replied, with a joyous smile.

"I am glad of it," he said, trying to smile too.

"Shall we resume the sitting?" I asked.

"Not to-day. 1 am in no mood to work; I think I shall go out for a walk."

I felt somewhat surprised that Cornelius did not ask me to join him; and so was Kate, when she learned from me--she had been in her room all this time--that he was gone out alone.

"Why did you not go with him?" she asked, frowning slightly.

"He did not ask me, Kate."

"You have not quarrelled?"

"Oh, no! we are very good friends."

The cloud passed away from her brow. She kissed me and said "Of course you are."

Cornelius did not come in until late in the evening; he had walked miles, and was so tired that he could scarcely speak.