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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Daisy Burns (Volume 2), by Julia Kavanagh
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Daisy Burns (Volume 2)
+
+
+Author: Julia Kavanagh
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2011  [eBook #36158]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY BURNS (VOLUME 2)***
+
+
+Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), Daisy Burns (1853), volume 2, Tauchnitz 
+edition
+
+ 
+Produced by Daniel FROMONT
+
+
+
+COLLECTION
+
+ 
+
+OF
+
+ 
+
+BRITISH AUTHORS.
+
+ 
+
+VOL. CCLXIV.
+
+ 
+
+DAISY BURNS BY JULIA KAVANAGH.
+
+ 
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+ 
+
+VOL. II.
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+TAUCHNITZ EDITION
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+By the same Author,
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+NATHALIE 2 vols.
+ 
+
+GRACE LEE 2 vols.
+ 
+
+RACHEL GRAY 1 vol.
+ 
+
+ADELE 2 vols.
+ 
+
+A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TOW SICILES 2 vols.
+ 
+
+SEVEN YEARS AND OTHER TALES 2 vols.
+ 
+
+FRENCH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.
+ 
+
+ENGLISH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.
+ 
+
+QUEEN MAB 2 vols.
+ 
+
+BEATRICE 2 vols.
+ 
+
+SYBIL'S SECOND LOVE 
+ 
+
+DORA 2 vols.
+ 
+
+SILVIA 2 vols.
+ 
+
+BESSIE 2 vols.
+ 
+
+JOHN DORRIEN 2 vols.
+ 
+
+ 
+
+DAISY BURNS;
+
+ 
+
+A TALE
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+BY
+
+ 
+ 
+
+JULIA KAVANAGH,
+
+ 
+
+AUTHOR OF "NATHALIE."
+
+ 
+
+
+ 
+
+_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
+
+  
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+ 
+
+VOL. II.
+
+ 
+ 
+
+LEIPZIG
+
+ 
+BERNHARDT TAUCHNITZ
+ 
+
+1853.
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+JULIA KAVANAGH
+
+ 
+
+DAISY BURNS.
+
+ 
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER I.
+ 
+
+It has chanced that for a week or more this narrative has been laid 
+aside. This evening I thought I would resume it, and, before doing so, I 
+looked back on what I had written.
+
+Alas, how long it takes us to forget the angry and evil feelings of our 
+childhood! How I traced, in this record of the past, a lingering 
+animosity against the enemy of my youth, which years, it seems, had 
+failed to efface from my heart! How sad and humbling a lesson has this 
+been to me, of passion warping judgment and holy charity forgotten!
+
+I have represented Miriam without one redeeming trait, and conscience 
+tells me that she was not thus. I now remember many touches of human 
+feeling and human kindness, which, I feel it remorsefully, need not have 
+been omitted, when all that was evil was so faithfully registered.
+
+She had many high qualities. In worldly affairs she was generous and 
+disinterested. Her word was inviolable; she gave it rarely, and never 
+broke it. She was devoted to her blind old nurse, and patient with her 
+infirm aunt. Her temper was calm and enduring; she had in her something 
+of the spirit which makes martyrs, and could have borne persecution with 
+unshaken fortitude. She never spoke of religion, and I doubt if she had 
+any religious feeling; but she was charitable to the poor; she had 
+sympathy for their misery and compassion too for bodily suffering: I 
+remember that once, when I cut my hand rather severely, she showed a 
+concern which even I felt to be sincere. Had I been wholly in her power, 
+and provoked her to the utmost, I knew she would neither have ill-used me 
+herself, nor allowed me to be neglected by others. Her hatred was 
+pitiless; yet in one sense it was not mean, for it disdained to inflict 
+useless pangs. She had an object in tormenting me, but to do so gave her 
+no pleasure. I know that had I not been so tenacious of the affection of 
+Cornelius, so obstinate and proud, she would never have sought my ruin; 
+but she was not one to brook the rivalry or opposition even of a child; I 
+chose to place myself in her path, and she treated me as an obstacle to 
+be removed, or, if that failed, to be conquered, and, if needful, 
+crushed.
+
+She was one of those outwardly calm persons whose real nature can never 
+be known, unless when drawn forth by something or some one. I do not 
+think that one action to be concealed had marked her life until we met. 
+We were antagonistic principles, and, from our conflict, the worst points 
+of each were displayed. But for her Cornelius would never have suspected 
+my jealous nature; but for that jealousy he would never have known the 
+real character of his betrothed. Even Kate, though she had never liked 
+her, was, as I afterwards learned, taken by surprise, and declared, 
+"Cornelius had had a most fortunate escape from marrying such a cruel, 
+treacherous woman." Was Miriam such? I do not think so. True, she had 
+little principle, and was not stopped by falsehood when she held it 
+necessary: but she was never cruel, never treacherous without a purpose. 
+She might have been good but for one mistaken idea--that good and evil 
+are indifferent in themselves; and great but for one sin--self-idolatry.
+
+She lacked that centre of all hearts--God. He who made us, made us so 
+that in Him alone we shall find peace. We may make idols of honour, duty, 
+love, art; of human ideas and human beings; but even this is not to fall 
+utterly. The sense of honour and duty are His gifts; He gave us hearts to 
+love with, souls to know the beautiful, minds to conceive, feelings to 
+spend and bestow. So long therefore as its action is outward, even our 
+grossest idolatry will be pervaded with the sanctity of adoration and the 
+majesty of God. But self-worship is the sin of Satan: we were never meant 
+to be our own centre, our own hope, our own aim and divinity; there never 
+has been a drearier prison than that which can be to itself a human 
+heart; the other circles of hell are broad and free, compared to this 
+narrowest of dungeons--self locked in self.
+
+It was this that, whilst outwardly she seemed so calm and cool, made 
+Miriam internally so restless and unquiet. There was a healthy serenity 
+in the ardour of Cornelius; but hers was agitated like an ever-troubled 
+sea. She sought not in love its divine oblivion of self, but, on the 
+contrary, a consciousness of existence, rendered more intense by the very 
+tumult of passion.
+
+To love, for her, was not to be merged in some other being, but to absorb 
+that other being in herself. All I know of her first lover was, that he 
+was a captain in the navy, and that he perished with his ship four or 
+five years before she met Cornelius. Her affection may have been 
+outwardly devoted, but must have been selfish at heart. To have lovud 
+again would have been no crime; but to wish to do so showed that the man 
+had been nothing in comparison with the feeling.
+
+Even thus with her sister. Whilst she existed, Miriam seemed wrapped in 
+her; once the young girl was in her grave, her name was never mentioned; 
+everything that could recall her was studiously set aside as too painful; 
+a new object, a new passion were eagerly grasped at; she had been, and 
+she was no more. To those who love truly, there may be separation, but 
+there is no death: their heart, like a hospitable lord, keeps sacred for 
+ever the place of the guests he has once received and cherished. With 
+Miriam it was not thus. Once the being in whom she had delighted could no 
+longer minister to her delight, it ceased to occupy her. I never saw her 
+after her parting from Cornelius, yet I can scarcely think that he, to 
+win whose exclusive affection she had done so much, gave her one sad 
+thought; she had not loved, but he had, and to him she left all the 
+sorrow.
+
+How did he bear it? This was a question neither his sister nor I could 
+have answered. He had gone out on the night of the discovery, sent forth 
+by that impulse which in great grief urges us to seek spots no eye can 
+haunt, and the calm silence, so soothing to the troubled senses and 
+wounded heart, of our mother nature. He came in the next morning, looking 
+worn and weary, like one who had wandered far, vainly seeking peace. His 
+sister looked at him sadly, and said, in her gentlest tones--
+
+"It is hard. Cornelius."
+
+He looked up in her face and replied calmly, "It is, Kate; but there is 
+no sorrow that cannot be crushed and conquered."
+
+Pride, stung at having been so deceived, made him shun sympathy, and 
+forbade him to complain. He struggled against his bitter grief in manful 
+spirit. He quietly called me up one morning to the studio, there to 
+resume the sittings for the Stolen Child; in the course of the same week 
+he procured two Gipsy sitters, and gave to work his whole mind, heart, 
+and energies. Yet there were moments when his hand flagged, when his look 
+became drearily vacant, when it was plain that not even all the might of 
+will could compel attention any longer. There were other signs too which 
+I heeded.
+
+A mile down the lane rose a homely little house of God, consecrated to 
+the worship of that faith which, like their country, was only the more 
+dear to Cornelius and Kate for the insults daily heaped upon it. There, 
+Sunday after Sunday, with a brief interruption, I had for three years sat 
+and knelt by the side of Cornelius, and taken a childish pleasure in 
+reading from the same book. But now--and I was quick to notice it--though 
+his hand still held the volume, his eyes no longer perused the page with 
+mine; in his abstracted face I read a worship far more intense, inward, 
+and sorrowful than the quiet attention of old times. Once, as we walked 
+home together, he asked me what the sermon had been about.
+
+But nothing endures in this world. The grief of Cornelius was not of a 
+nature to be brooded over for ever: we never knew exactly when he 
+recovered his inward serenity, but that he recovered it, an event which 
+occurred in the course of the winter proved beyond doubt.
+
+One afternoon, when both Kate and her brother were out, Mr. Smalley 
+called. He had obtained a living somewhere in the North, and was come to 
+bid us adieu. He expressed much regret that his friend and Miss O'Reilly 
+should not be at home, and inquired after them with his usual benignant 
+gentleness.
+
+"They are both quite well; and are you too quite well, Mr. Smalley?" I 
+asked, for as he sat before me, his slender frame slightly bent, I could 
+not but be struck with the pallor and thinness of his face.
+
+"I am very well indeed," he replied with a smile, "and in a very happy--
+though not, I hope, too elated--frame of mind, which is natural enough 
+considering my recent good fortune. Rugby--have you ever heard of Rugby, 
+my dear?"
+
+"No, Sir, I don't think I have."
+
+"Well, it is rather odd, but really nobody seems to hare heard of Rugby, 
+and Trim will have it that it is an imaginary place altogether; but I 
+tell him this is a point on which I must differ from him, as I have 
+actually seen Rugby Well, Rugby, as I was saying, is an extremely 
+picturesque village, almost too picturesque, rising on the brow of a 
+steep hill, with an old church and very quaint parsonage; then there's a 
+splendid torrent, that inundates the place twice a year, but the people 
+are used to it and don't mind it, so it makes no difference, you know."
+
+"But is it not rather unpleasant, Sir?"
+
+"Well, perhaps it is," quietly replied Morton Smalley; then added with a 
+sigh, "but life has greater trials; every one has his or her trial, my 
+dear."
+
+"Yes," I answered, "Miss O'Reilly can't let her house; it is such a pity, 
+is it not?"
+
+"Have her tenants left?" asked Mr. Smalley, a little troubled.
+
+"Miss Russell has given notice; the bill is up, did you not see it?"
+
+"I did not look," he replied in a low tone; then he again said--
+
+"Has Miss Russell left?"
+
+"Her furniture is still there; but she is always at Hastings."
+
+There was a pause; but Mr. Smalley made an effort and asked--
+
+"Is her niece with her?"
+
+"I don't know, Sir."
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+"Oh no! we don't know anything more about Miss Miriam, since she is not 
+to marry Cornelius."
+
+Mr. Smalley turned pale and red, and pale again; but he never put a 
+question to me. He constrained himself to talk of the weather, of what a 
+fine day it was (the rain was drizzling), of how happy it made him to 
+hear Cornelius was so successful (we had never said a word about his 
+success); then he left off at once, rose and bade me good-bye, to my 
+infinite relief, for I was conscious of having committed an indiscretion, 
+and not the first either.
+
+Within the course of the same month, as we sat at breakfast, Kate, who 
+was reading the newspaper, suddenly uttered an exclamation which she as 
+hastily checked. Cornelius took the paper from her hand, glanced over it, 
+and read aloud very calmly--
+
+"On the twelfth instant, at St. George's, Hanover Square, the Rev. Morton 
+Smalley, of Rugby, to Miriam Russell, eldest daughter of the late Thomas 
+Russell, Esq., of Southwell, Norfolk."
+
+"Smalley deserved a better wife," said Cornelius; and he handed back the 
+paper to Kate, without betraying the least sign of emotion. It was thus 
+we learned how utterly dead Miriam was in his heart.
+
+What sort of a wife did she make to Morton Smalley, in his wild northern 
+home? I know not, no more than I know what, unless the thirst of 
+agitation and change, could induce a spirit so feverish and unquiet to 
+unite itself to that pure and calm nature. Did she find peace in his 
+devoted love, and in fulfilling the duties that fall to the lot of a 
+clergyman's wife? Perhaps she did, and perhaps too he drew forth whatever 
+her nature held of good and true. A year after her marriage she died in 
+giving birth to a child, who still lives, and whom her father persists in 
+calling the image of his dear departed saint, though his eyes alone can 
+trace in her the faintest resemblance to her dead mother.
+
+I was not with Cornelius when this event occurred, and how he felt on 
+learning the death of the woman with whom he had thought to spend his 
+life, is more than I have ever known.
+
+Cornelius had, as I said, recovered his serenity, but he was not what he 
+once had been. A boyish lightness of temper had deserted him--his early 
+faith was shaken, and he looked on life a sadder and a wiser man. To his 
+sister he was the same as before; to me far kinder. He loved me all the 
+more for having been to him the cause of so much trouble: a less generous 
+mind and heart could not have forgiven me the mistakes into which I had 
+made him fall, and the disadvantageous position in which I had placed 
+him; both rendered me more dear to Cornelius. The only allusion he made 
+to the past, was to say to me one wintry evening, as, the lessons over, 
+we sat together by the fire-side--
+
+"I think you are happy now, Daisy."
+
+"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, a little moved, "very happy."
+
+"That's right," he said, and rose.
+
+"You are going out," observed Kate, anxiously.
+
+"Yes; shall be in at nine."
+
+"Come back by the Grove."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"The lanes are not safe."
+
+He laughed, said there was no fear, and left us. I saw him go with a 
+sinking heart. The road by which he meant to return was lonely and had 
+witnessed several recent cases of highway robbery. The evening passed 
+quietly; but nine struck and Cornelius came not back. I gave Kate a 
+terrified look.
+
+"Nonsense!" she said indignantly, "how dare you think of such a thing? Go 
+to bed directly."
+
+In vain I begged hard to be allowed to sit up until his return; she said 
+she would have no more such looks, and again bade me go to bed. I felt 
+too wretched to scruple at disobeying her. I left the parlour indeed, but 
+instead of going up-stairs to my room, I softly stole out of the house, 
+crossed the garden, and unlocking the back-door I left it ajar, and 
+stepped out to look in the direction along which Cornelius was to come. 
+The night was dark; a keen wind swept down the lonely lane; I drew the 
+skirt of my frock over my head and crouched within the shelter of the 
+neighbouring hedge. There, with my ear bent to catch every sound, I 
+remained for what seemed an age. Once my heart leaped as I heard a 
+distant tread, and fell again when it drew nearer, and I was conscious of 
+a stranger, who, unaware of my presence, passed by me whistling 
+carelessly.
+
+Dismal visions of Cornelius lying bleeding and inanimate in some dreary 
+spot, haunted me until I felt nearly wild with terror and grief; but at 
+once a sudden joy pervaded my being; I heard his quick, light step coming 
+up the lane--I was sure it was he; he was safe--the dark vision fled like 
+an evil spirit put to flight by a good angel. I could have laughed for 
+gladness, I felt so happy. Joy however did not make me forget my 
+disobedience and its probable consequences; I thought to slip in and go 
+up to my room unperceived, but to my dismay I found that the door had 
+closed on me--I was shut out. There was no remedy for it; so I waited 
+until Cornelius came up and rang, then I made a slight noise in the 
+hedge.
+
+"What's that?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Cornelius," I replied in a low voice, "it is only me."
+
+"Daisy! What brings you here, child?"
+
+"I felt so miserable at your not returning that I came out here to watch 
+for you. The door shut, so I could not get in when I heard you--don't let 
+Kate scold me, Cornelius."
+
+Before he could reply, the door was opened by Kate herself, a proof that 
+she was not without secret uneasiness. In her haste she had brought no 
+light.
+
+"Is that you?" she said quickly.
+
+"Of course it is, Kate."
+
+"Thank God! I was so uneasy; and there's that foolish Midge, whom I sent 
+to bed an hour ago, and who, I am sure, is still lying awake, listening, 
+poor child! I felt angry with her for being so nervous, and I am as bad 
+myself."
+
+She closed the door as she spoke. I had slipped in unperceived, and I 
+might have escaped detection, for Cornelius did not seem inclined to 
+betray me, when, as we were going up the steps leading to the porch, 
+Deborah suddenly appeared bringing a light; she stared at me as I slunk 
+behind Cornelius; Kate turned round, saw me, and uttered an exclamation 
+of astonishment.
+
+"It is very wrong of her," hastily said Cornelius, "but you must forgive 
+her, Kate. I found her outside the door waiting for me. I suppose she had 
+worked herself into a terror of my being waylaid and assassinated, and 
+scarcely knew what she was about."
+
+"Ah!" replied Kate, and she said no more.
+
+We entered the parlour. Cornelius sat down, made me sit down by him, and 
+chafed my cold hands in his. He chid me rather severely, forbade me ever 
+to do such a thing again, said he was very angry, and ended by taking me 
+in his arms and kissing me. Kate had never uttered one word of reproof, 
+but she looked unusually grave. As I sat by her brother, indulged and 
+caressed, spite of my foolish disobedience, I had an unpleasant 
+consciousness of her look being fastened on us both, and shunned it by 
+keeping mine pertinaciously fixed on the kind face which, as if to efface 
+all memory of the past, now seemed unable to look down at me with anger 
+or displeasure.
+
+"Cornelius!" at length said Kate.
+
+"Well!" he replied, looking from me to her.
+
+"Do you remember the story of Goethe's Mignon?"
+
+Cornelius reddened, turned pale, reddened again, and looked both 
+irritated and ashamed.
+
+"What about it, Kate?" he asked at length.
+
+"Nothing." she quietly replied, "only I think of it now and then."
+
+Cornelius did not reply; but he slowly turned towards me, and as I sat by 
+his side, my two hands clasped on his shoulder and my head resting on 
+them, I saw him give me a look so troubled and so strange, that I could 
+not help asking--
+
+"What is it, Cornelius?"
+
+"Nothing," he replied hastily, "but don't you think you had better go to 
+bed?"
+
+"Well then, good-night, Cornelius;" I attempted to bend his face to mine; 
+he looked annoyed, and averted it impatiently.
+
+"I knew you were vexed with me for having waited for you outside," I 
+observed, feeling ready to cry; "I am sure of it now; that is why you 
+won't kiss me."
+
+Cornelius bit his lip, and, giving my forehead an impatient kiss, said, 
+shortly--
+
+"There, child, are you satisfied?"
+
+"Well, but am I not to kiss you?" I asked in the same tearful tone.
+
+"Please yourself," he replied, resignedly allowing me to embrace him.
+
+"I am sure you are still vexed with me," I said, lingering over the 
+caress as children will, "you speak so sharply, and look so cross." He 
+smiled; his brow smoothed; he looked from me to his sister.
+
+"Oh! Kate," he said, "she is such a mere child," and with a sudden return 
+of kindness he again made me sit down by him.
+
+"Indeed, I am not such a child!" I said, rather piqued, "and you need not 
+make me out such a little girl either, Cornelius, for you are only ten 
+years older than I am."
+
+"Only ten years! Why, my dear, the Roman Lustrum consisted of five years, 
+and the Greek Olympiad of four. So that, if I were a grave Roman, I 
+should twice have offered solemn sacrifices to the Gods, or if I were a 
+sprightly young Greek I should twice, and a little bit over, have 
+distinguished myself in the Olympic Games by chariot-driving, racing, 
+leaping, throwing, wrestling, boxing, and other gentlemanly pastimes,--
+and all this, Midge, whilst you were still in your cradle! Why, you are a 
+mere baby to me."
+
+"Papa was ten years older than Mamma," I persisted: "was she a mere baby 
+to him?"
+
+"My dear, she was grown up."
+
+"Well then, when I am grown up I shall not be a mere baby to you!" I 
+replied triumphantly.
+
+"You obstinate little thing!" observed Kate, who had listened with 
+evident impatience; "don't you see this is a very different matter? you 
+are as good as the adopted child of Cornelius."
+
+"Precisely," he hastened to observe, "and as I mean to be very paternal, 
+I expressly desire you to be very filial."
+
+"You want to make quite a little girl of me!" I said ruefully.
+
+"Did your father do so?"
+
+"Well, but he was my real father, and you are not, and could not be."
+
+Kate declared there never had been such an obstinate child in all 
+Ireland. Cornelius looked very grave, and said, as I did not value the 
+privilege of being his adopted daughter, he should not press the point. I 
+protested so warmly against this reproach, that he at length looked 
+convinced, said it was all right, and again bade me good-night. I 
+demurred, he insisted.
+
+"Ah!" I said reproachfully, "you are not as fond of me as Papa was?"
+
+"Why so, child?"
+
+"If I had asked him to stay up awhile, he would not have said 'No:' he 
+would have said, 'Yes, Margaret, my dear, it is only ten; you may stay up 
+another quarter of an hour.'"
+
+"Well then, stay," replied Cornelius, unable to repress a smile, "but you 
+will make a nice exacting daughter."
+
+"A spoiled one," said Kate.
+
+"Let her," he replied; then laying his hand on my head, he kindly added, 
+"Kate, this child is the only boast and good deed of my life. She makes 
+me feel venerable and paternal, and, like a good Papa, I'll work hard to 
+give her a marriage portion some day."
+
+"I don't want to marry," I observed pettishly; "I don't want to leave 
+you, Cornelius."
+
+"Nonsense!" drily said Kate, "you'd do like your Mamma, run away, if one 
+attempted to keep you."
+
+I denied it indignantly; she insisted. I was beginning to utter a most 
+vehement protest against the mere idea of ever forsaking Cornelius, when 
+he interfered, and informed me that his paternal pride and feelings would 
+be wounded to the quick at the idea of my remaining an old maid. He 
+appealed to my sense of filial duty; I generously sacrificed myself, but 
+not without making some preliminary conditions.
+
+"He must be an Irishman," I said.
+
+"Ah!" observed Cornelius, stroking his chin, "he must be an Irishman!"
+
+"Yes, and an artist."
+
+Cornelius looked uncomfortable, but he merely echoed--
+
+"An artist!"
+
+"Yes, and his name must be Cornelius."
+
+Cornelius looked disconcerted.
+
+"Nonsense!" sharply said Kate, "what are you talking of? an Irishman--an 
+artist--name Cornelius? nonsense!"
+
+"Then I won't have him at all," I replied, rather provoked: "I did not 
+want him, Kate, and you know it too. I want to stay with Cornelius."
+
+"Mrs. O'Reilly may have a word or two to say to that," very quietly 
+observed Kate.
+
+I felt Cornelius start like one who receives the sting of a sudden pain, 
+but he did not contradict his sister. Mrs. O'Reilly! the mere name was 
+hateful to me. I did not reply; Kate continued--
+
+"You look quite charmed at the idea of your Papa marrying."
+
+"No girl ever liked a stepmother yet," I answered, reddening.
+
+"Then you will be an exception, I am sure," very gravely said Cornelius.
+
+I was not at all sure of that; but I did not dare to say so. He saw very 
+well that I was anything but cured of my old jealousy; and though I 
+believe nothing was then further from his thoughts than marriage, he 
+insisted on this point, to warn me, I suppose, of the necessity of self-
+subjection.
+
+"You must be the governess of the children," he said.
+
+"Yes, of course she must," decisively said Kate. 
+
+I turned on her triumphantly:
+
+"Then don't you see," I said, "that if I am the governess I shall always 
+stay with him?"
+
+Cornelius looked both annoyed and amused.
+
+"There is a wonderful degree of obstinacy in that child," he observed; 
+"she always comes back to her idea of staying with me."
+
+"Because there is nothing she likes half so well," I said, looking up 
+into his face.
+
+"Ah! Mignon! Mignon!" sighed Kate.
+
+"Who is Mignon?" I asked, struck with the name which I heard for the 
+second time.
+
+"It is more than a quarter past ten," was the reply Miss O'Reilly gave 
+me.
+
+I looked at Cornelius, but he showed no wish to detain me; so I submitted 
+and left them. 
+
+From that day there was a very marked change in his manner towards me. He 
+was as kind, but by no means so familiar, as he once had been. He was 
+always calling me his little daughter, yet I no sooner availed myself of 
+this imaginary relationship to claim more freedom and tenderness, than he 
+seemed bent on repelling me by the most pertinacious coldness. He 
+received my caresses with chilling indifference, often with an annoyance 
+he could not conceal; he seldom returned them, and when he did so, it was 
+not with the friendliness and warmth to which he had accustomed me for 
+years. When I felt this, and became dispirited and unhappy, Cornelius 
+looked distressed, and, in his anxiety to restore me to cheerfulness, 
+returned to his free and kind manner, in which he persevered until some 
+remark of his sister, or some action of mine too fond and endearing, 
+again rendered him cool and guarded.
+
+I could not imagine then the reason of all this. I could not imagine why, 
+when I showed Cornelius how much I loved him, he looked so wretched; I 
+could not understand why, when Kate once said to him, in her most ominous 
+tones, "Cornelius, that child won't always be a child," he started up and 
+began to walk up and down the room like one distracted. Still less could 
+I make out how, when he seemed more attached to me than ever he had been, 
+more anxious for my welfare, more bent on improving me by every means in 
+his power, he was so provokingly cool and reserved.
+
+At length I could stand it no longer.
+
+"You don't like me," I once said to him, a little angrily,--"you know you 
+don't; you never kiss me now--you know you never do." And I began to cry.
+
+Cornelius looked almost ludicrously perplexed. He hit his lip; his 
+upraised eyes sought the ceiling; he tapped his foot; he sighed 
+profoundly, then hung down his head, and looked melancholy.
+
+"I wish you would always remain a little girl of thirteen or so," he said 
+ruefully, "it would be a great deal more convenient and comfortable."
+
+I was piqued with the wish, and checked my tears to inform Cornelius I 
+hoped I should not remain a little girl; indeed I was sure of it, and 
+that though he did not care about me at all, he should not prevent me 
+from caring about him. He smiled, but not cheerfully; then he made an 
+effort, and said,--
+
+"Never mind, Daisy, you shall be happy, let it cost what it may; only 
+don't tell Kate."
+
+"What must I not tell her, Cornelius?"
+
+"Never mind; but don't tell her."
+
+"But, Cornelius, I must know in order not to tell."
+
+"You are very inquisitive," was his short answer.
+
+I did not know what to make of him. He looked as oddly as he spoke, and I 
+had not the faintest idea of the generous sacrifice he resolutely 
+contemplated, at an age when most men are dead to all, save the 
+gratification of their own vehement passions.
+
+Since then I have understood both what Cornelius feared and what he 
+intended to do. I have admired his generosity and wondered at his 
+rashness in forgetting what was not merely likely to happen, but what 
+really did happen; namely, that he was to love again.
+
+This imprudent resolve had however the result of giving him momentary 
+peace, and, perhaps because its realization was still so distant, of 
+banishing from his mind all thought of the future.
+
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER II.
+ 
+
+Of course Cornelius had gone on painting all this time. He finished his 
+Stolen Child, painted two other smaller and more simple pictures, and he 
+sent in the three to the Academy.
+
+"1 don't see why you should always send your pictures to the Academy," 
+said Kate; "I don't think it is fair to the other Exhibitions."
+
+Cornelius confessed that the argument had its weight.
+
+"But then you see, Kitty," he added, "I cannot do less; they behaved so 
+well to me last year about that trashy Happy Time: it really was a poor 
+thing, and yet see how well they hung it--they did not think much of it, 
+but they saw that it promised something for the future. Yes, they really 
+behaved very well--so well that though I am certain they will reject the 
+two minor pictures and only take in the Stolen Child, I feel I cannot do 
+less than give them the chance of the three."
+
+"You are too generous," sighed Kate; "you will never get on in the world 
+with those disinterested notions, my poor brother--never; besides, I put 
+it to your sense of justice, now, is it fair to the other Exhibitions?"
+
+Cornelius said perhaps it was not, but added that he really could not do 
+less, and persisted in his original intention. I remember, when the 
+pictures were sent off, that he said to me,--
+ 
+"My little girl, let this be a lesson to you! Always do that which you 
+feel to be right, even though you should be a loser by it: depend upon 
+it, it is much better to feel generous than mean."
+ 
+But when was generosity appreciated in this world? The Hanging Committee 
+accepted the two inferior pictures and rejected the Stolen Child. 
+Cornelius was stung to the quick.
+ 
+"If they had rejected the three pictures," he said, "I really could have 
+borne it; I should have attributed it to want of room, or found some 
+excuse for them. But to go and take the two inferior paintings, and 
+reject the good one; to let it be thought--as it will be thought--by 
+public and critics, that this is all the progress I have made since last 
+year, it really is not fair."
+ 
+"Not fair!" sarcastically replied Miss O'Reilly; "not fair, Cornelius! It 
+is all of a piece with their behaviour to you from the beginning. I 
+always thought you had an enemy there, Cornelius."
+ 
+"But the Happy Time was accepted, Kate." 
+
+"Of course it was, just as the two little things have been accepted, to 
+delude you and the public also with a show of impartiality of which you 
+at least, Cornelius, are not the dupe, I trust. It is all jealousy, mean 
+jealousy."
+
+"It at least looks like it," replied Cornelius, sighing profoundly.
+ 
+"Hanging Committee, indeed!" pursued Kate, whom never before had I seen 
+so bitter and so ironical, "they deserve their name! Oh yes, hanging! Are 
+their own pictures well hung? Oh dear no!--not at all--so impartial--
+very! Suppose they were hung instead of their pictures--in a row--not to 
+hurt them, they are not worth it--but just to let us have a look at 
+them!"
+ 
+In short, Miss O'Reilly was in a great rage; and if ever this unfortunate 
+and much-abused body got it, it was on this day, for having rejected "The 
+Stolen Child" of Cornelius O'Reilly, Esq. 
+ 
+The two accepted pictures fetched ten pounds a-piece; the Stolen Child 
+was sold to a picture-dealer for forty pounds.
+ 
+"Go," indignantly said Cornelius to his favourite picture as they 
+parted,--"go, you are nothing now, but he who painted you will give you a 
+name yet!"
+ 
+Four years had now elapsed since Cornelius had set forth on the conquest 
+of Art with all the ardent courage of youth; and Art, alas! was still 
+unconquered, and the triumph of victory was still a thing to come. He had 
+anticipated difficulties, sharp and brief contests, but not this 
+disheartening slowness, this powerlessness to emerge from the long night 
+of obscurity. It irritated his impatient temper even more than the 
+rejection of his picture. He did not complain, for there was nothing 
+resembling querulousness in his nature; but he brooded over his 
+disappointment, and resentfully too, as appeared from what he once said 
+to me--
+ 
+"If they think they'll prevent me from painting pictures, they'll find 
+themselves wonderfully deceived!"
+ 
+I am not sure that "they" meant the Hanging Committee; I rather think it 
+represented that vague enemy at whom disappointed ambition grasps so 
+tenaciously. Whatever it signified, Cornelius kept his word: he painted, 
+and harder than ever; but fortune was ungracious. Two charming cottage 
+scenes which he sent in on the following year were accepted, it is true, 
+but did little or nothing for his fame. One critic said "they were really 
+very nicely painted;" another "advised Mr. O'Reilly not to be quite so 
+slovenly;" a third found out that as in one of the cottages there was a 
+fiddle, it was a gross plagiarism of Wilkie's "Blind Fiddler," artfully 
+disguised indeed by the fiddle not being played upon, and of course none 
+of the characters listening to its music, but not the less evident to 
+lynx-eyed criticism; a fourth declared that Mr. O'Reilly was a promising 
+young artist, who, in a dozen years or so, could not fail to hold a very 
+respectable place in Art; and a fifth--one of those venal characters who 
+disgrace every profession--sent in his card and terms. Kate wanted her 
+brother to give him a cutting reply; he said there was nothing more 
+cutting than silence, and lit his cigar with Mr. --'s edifying letter.* 
+[* A fact.]
+ 
+"He does not complain," said Kate to me, "but I can see in his face 
+there's something brewing."
+ 
+I thought so too, and resolved to find it out. It was some time before I 
+succeeded; but I did succeed, and one day, when Kate said with a sigh--
+
+"I wish I knew what's the matter with that boy!"
+ 
+I composedly replied--
+ 
+"Cornelius wants to go to Rome."
+ 
+"Nonsense!" she said, jumping in her chair, "what has put that into your 
+head? Did he tell you?"
+ 
+"No; but I am sure of it."
+ 
+I spoke confidently; she affected to doubt me; but the same evening 
+proved the truth of my conjecture. It was not in Miss O'Reilly's nature 
+to turn round a thing, so, as we were all throe walking in the garden, 
+enjoying the cool [air], she suddenly confronted her brother, and said 
+bluntly--
+ 
+"Cornelius, is it true that you want to go to Rome?"
+ 
+He reddened, looked astonished, and never answered.
+
+"Then it is true," she exclaimed with a sigh.
+
+"Yes, Kate, it is, but how do you know it?"
+ 
+"Midge told me."
+ 
+"Daisy!" he turned round and gave me a piercing look. "Why, I never 
+hinted anything of the sort to her."
+ 
+"No, but she found it out; and what do you want to go to Rome for, 
+Cornelius?"
+ 
+"To study, Kate. I have been too homely, too simple, and that is why I am 
+slighted; I should like to go, to study, to try the historic style: but 
+where is the use to talk of all this?"
+ 
+He sighed profoundly.
+ 
+"The historic style," cried Miss O'Reilly, kindling; "Cornelius, you have 
+hit the true thing at last: depend upon it you have. Of course you have 
+been too humble! give them something bold and dashing, and let us see 
+what they'll say to that! Go to Rome, Cornelius, go to Rome."
+ 
+"The means, Kate, the means!"
+ 
+"Bless the boy! As if I had not money."
+ 
+"Oh! Kate! you have done more than enough for me as it is," he replied, 
+crimsoning; "it makes my blood boil to think that I shall soon be twenty-
+five--"
+ 
+"Nonsense!" she interrupted hastily, "will you go to Rome, study the 
+great masters, see all that painting has achieved of most glorious, 
+become a great painter yourself--or stay at home and plod on?"
+
+His varying countenance told how strong was the temptation: his look lit, 
+his colour came and went like that of a girl.
+ 
+"Yes or no?" decisively said Kate.
+ 
+"Well, then,--yes," he replied desperately; "I know it is mean, but I 
+cannot help it, the thought of it has for weeks kept me awake at night, 
+and haunted me day after day."
+ 
+"And you never told me," reproachfully interrupted his sister, "and never 
+would if Midge had not found it out!"
+
+He eluded the reproach by asking me how I had found it out. I could not 
+satisfy him; instinct had guided me more than knowledge; the word Rome, 
+uttered with stifled sigh; an impatient declaration that there was 
+nothing to be done here; a long lingering over old engravings of which 
+the originals were in Italy, were the signs which, often repeated and 
+united to my intimate acquaintance with every change of his face, had 
+showed me the secret thought of his heart.
+ 
+"You must go at once," resolutely said Kate; "can you be ready next 
+week?"
+ 
+"I could be ready to-morrow," replied Cornelius, with eyes that lit.
+
+There was a pang which he saw not on his sister's face; my heart fell to 
+see how eager he was to go from us. Unconscious of this he continued--
+
+"The sooner I go the better, is it not, Kate? for then, you know, I shall 
+return the sooner, too."
+ 
+"Very true," she sighed; and his departure was fixed for the following 
+week.
+
+He was in a fever for the whole of that week. For the first time, he was 
+going to taste liberty: he was young, ardent, restless by nature, quiet 
+by force of circumstances; no wonder the prospect enchanted him. I was in 
+one sense happy to see him happy, but I felt acutely that he was going 
+away from us. He was gay and cheerful, I did not want to sadden him with 
+the sight of a grief I could not help feeling, and I shunned rather than 
+sought his company. Thus, two days before the day fixed for his 
+departure, instead of remaining with him and Kate in the back parlour 
+where they sat talking by the open window, I went out into the garden to 
+indulge in a good fit of crying. In the stillness of the evening I could 
+hear every word of their discourse. Either they did not know this or they 
+forgot it, for after dwelling enthusiastically on his prospects, 
+Cornelius added suddenly--
+ 
+"How unwell Daisy looks!"
+
+ "She is fretting about you. The poor child is fonder of you than ever, 
+Cornelius."
+
+ "Do you think so?" he earnestly replied.
+ 
+"Of course I do. She frets, tries to hide it, and cannot; and you know, 
+Cornelius, it is only beauty looks lovely in tears."
+
+ "She is not a beauty, but she has fine eyes."
+ 
+"Spite of which you cannot call her pretty, Cornelius."
+ 
+He sighed and did not contradict it.
+ 
+"I know you did not think so," continued Kate.
+ 
+"Oh! Kate!" he interrupted with another sigh, "why, any one can see the 
+poor child is only getting plainer as she grows up!"
+ 
+"Never mind," cheerfully said Kate.
+ 
+"But she may mind, and she will mind too. If the women slight and the men 
+neglect her, how can she but mind it?"
+ 
+"The plain have a happiness of their own," quietly replied Kate. "God 
+looks kindly on them and they learn to despise the rude harshness of the 
+world." With this she began talking to Cornelius of his journey.
+ 
+I was then near fifteen. I remember myself well,--a thin, slim girl, 
+awkward, miserably shy and nervous, with sunken eyes, a face more sallow 
+than ever, and hair scarcely darker in hue than when Miriam Russell had 
+aptly called it straw-coloured. I knew my own disadvantages quiet well, I 
+was accustomed to them, and though I quailed a little when I heard 
+Cornelius and Kate thus settle the delicate question of my looks, it was 
+only for awhile. It is true that the taunts of Miriam had formerly 
+exasperated me, because it was by her beauty that she had conquered and 
+replaced me in the heart of Cornelius; but with her power vanished the 
+sting of my plainness. The little emotion I felt was over when Cornelius 
+stepped out into the garden to indulge in a cigar.
+ 
+On seeing me, he looked much disconcerted. I daresay he thought I must be 
+cut to the quick by what I had heard; for though he did not allude to it, 
+he sat down on the wooden bench, made me sit by him, and was so unusually 
+kind that I could not help being a little amused. I allowed myself to be 
+petted for awhile, then I looked up at him and said, smiling--
+ 
+"As if I minded it, Cornelius! As if I did not know that though I should 
+grow ever so plain, you would still like me! As if I could think it would 
+make any difference to you!"
+ 
+He muttered, "Oh! of course not!" I continued--
+ 
+"Kate says you are handsome, and I dare say you are; but if you had lost 
+one eye, or had a great ugly scar across your face, or were disfigured in 
+some dreadful way, it would make no difference to me, Cornelius."
+ 
+He smiled, without replying: I resumed--
+ 
+"Therefore, Cornelius, that does not trouble me much, but something else 
+which Kate said does trouble me."
+ 
+I paused, and looked at him; he seemed a little disturbed.
+ 
+"What are you talking of, child?" he said; "what do you mean?"
+ 
+"Kate said I was fonder of you than ever, Cornelius; it is true, very 
+true, I love you more as I grow up, because I know your goodness better; 
+but then something which you might conclude from that, Cornelius, is not 
+true."
+ 
+I looked up at him very earnestly.
+ 
+"Child!" he said, astonished; "what are you talking and thinking of?"
+
+"I am thinking, Cornelius, of a thing I have thought of for a year and 
+more. I often wanted to tell you, but I never dared; I should like to 
+tell you now, Cornelius, only I don't know how."
+ 
+Cornelius looked perplexed.
+ 
+"I would gladly help you," he observed, "if I only knew what it was 
+about."
+ 
+I could not help reddening.
+ 
+"Suppose," he said hastily, "you write it to me when I am in Italy--eh, 
+Daisy?"
+ 
+"I would rather say it than write it, Cornelius."
+ 
+"Then say it, child."
+ 
+"Well, then, Cornelius," I replied, a little desperately, "I will never 
+be jealous of you again--there!"
+ 
+"There!" he echoed, smiling, "is that the mighty secret?"
+ 
+"Yes, Cornelius, that is it," I replied, with a beating heart.
+ 
+"My good little girl," he said kindly, "I am glad you have such good 
+resolves; but I must set you right. You talk of not being jealous any 
+more, as you would talk of taking off a dress and never putting it on 
+again."
+ 
+"And should I, Cornelius, if it were old and worn out?"
+ 
+"But is this one worn out?"
+ 
+"I hope so. I think so."
+ 
+"I hope so too."
+ 
+But I could see he did not think it. I was anxious to convince him, and 
+resumed--
+ 
+"Cornelius, do you remember how insolent I was when papa lived?--how rude 
+I showed myself to you when you came to see him?--how over-bearing to the 
+servants?"
+ 
+"You were a spoiled child, certainly; but you have got over that."
+ 
+"I think I have, Cornelius. When I came here, I was rude to Deborah, who 
+was good enough to bear with it for a long time; but one day Kate heard 
+me, and she told me she thought it very mean and ungenerous to be rude to 
+servants. She said she would not enjoin on me to apologize to Deborah; 
+but she hoped that, for my own sake, I would do so. The next day I went 
+down into the kitchen, and asked Deborah to forgive me."
+
+"How did you like that?" asked Cornelius giving me a curious look.
+ 
+"Not at all. It mortified me so much I could scarcely do it; but I was 
+never rude to Deborah again."
+ 
+"How is it I never heard of this story before?"
+ 
+"I begged of Kate not to tell you. I could not bear that you should think 
+me ungenerous and mean."
+
+"And the moral of all that, Daisy?"
+ 
+"That it is very mean to be jealous, Cornelius; very mean and ungenerous; 
+and that I hope never to be so again. Do you still think I shall?" I 
+added, glancing up at his face.
+ 
+"I think," he replied, looking down into mine, "that there is a strange 
+spark of austere ambition in you, strange in one so young: and that what 
+it will lead to is more than I can tell."
+ 
+"Cornelius, I don't feel ambitious; but I long to be good, and I hope God 
+will help me."
+ 
+"If that is not ambitious, I don't know anything about it," replied 
+Cornelius; "but it is a very fine ambition, Daisy; and I am glad you have 
+it; ay, and I respect you for it, too!"
+ 
+I looked up at him, to make sure he did not speak in jest; but he seemed 
+quite grave and in earnest. I felt much relieved; this matter had lain on 
+my heart a year and more, yet I never could have spoken to him, had he 
+not been going away. The passionate wish of making him give me a little 
+more of his regard and esteem had, alone, loosened my tongue, that wish 
+was now more than gratified by his words.
+ 
+"Oh! Cornelius," I exclaimed, "how good of you not to laugh at me!"
+ 
+"Poor child, did you expect I should?"
+ 
+"I feared it."
+ 
+He was gently reproving me for the fear, when Kate beckoned him in, and 
+held a whispered conversation with him in the passage. Some mystery 
+seemed afloat. I felt uneasy. When I bade Cornelius good-night that 
+evening, he kissed me with a lingering tenderness that troubled me. Was 
+not this, perhaps, a parting embrace? I fancied I detected unusual 
+sadness in his gaze, and heard him suppress a sigh.
+ 
+I said nothing; but I resolved not to sleep that night, sooner than run 
+the risk of losing the adieu of Cornelius. Soon after I had retired to my 
+room, I heard him and his sister come up too. It was scarcely ten; this 
+unusually early hour confirmed me in my suspicion. I sat up in the dark. 
+I heard twelve,--then one,--then two; and my power of keeping vigil 
+failed me. Sleep is a pitiless tyrant in youth. I felt my eyes 
+involuntarily closing. I took a resolve that was not without some 
+meaning. I softly stole out of my room, sat down on the mat at the door 
+of Cornelius, and, secure that he could not leave without my knowledge, I 
+soon fell fast asleep. What might have been foreseen, happened: 
+Cornelius, on leaving his room, stumbled over me. I woke; he stooped and 
+picked me up, with a mingled exclamation of wonder and dismay.
+ 
+"Daisy!" he cried, "are you hurt? What brought you here?"
+ 
+"I wanted to bid you good-bye. I guessed you were going."
+ 
+His room door stood half-open, and so did the window beyond it; the 
+morning stirred the white muslin curtains, and early dawn was blushing in 
+the grey sky. Cornelius drew me to that dim light, and gazed at me 
+silently.
+ 
+"How long have you been there?" he asked.
+ 
+"Since two; I felt too sleepy to sit up in my own room, and I was so 
+afraid you might go whilst I slept."
+ 
+"Since two--and it is four! You foolish child! If I wanted to go quietly, 
+it was only to spare your little heart some grief, and your poor eyes 
+some tears."
+ 
+"Cornelius, I shall not cry now. I shall wait until you are gone for 
+that."
+ 
+Attracted by the sound of our voices, Kate now opened her room door.
+ 
+"Daisy?" she exclaimed.
+ 
+"Yes," replied her brother, "Daisy, who has been sleeping at my door like 
+a faithful watcher. Oh! Kate, you'll take care of her whilst I am away?"
+ 
+"Yes, yes, of course; but don't stand losing your time there. Come down."
+ 
+We went downstairs. Cornelius took a hasty meal; then a cab stopped at 
+the door; his luggage was removed to it, and he stood ready to depart. 
+His sister was to go with him to the station. They thought it better for 
+me to stay behind, and I submitted. I kept my word--I did not cry--I went 
+through the parting courageously. Cornelius seemed much moved. He took me 
+in his arms, and repeatedly he embraced me, repeatedly he pressed me to 
+his heart. He exhorted me to persevere in my studies, to be good and 
+dutiful to Kate. Then he promised to write to me, called me his child, 
+his dear adopted daughter, gave me another kiss, put me away, and 
+departed. I saw him go, I heard the cab rolling down the street, not 
+without sorrow, but without bitterness. To be separated from him was 
+hard, no doubt, but to part with the consciousness of so much affection 
+on his side, with the prospect of a happy re-union, with the conviction 
+that his absence was to open to him a career of fortune and renown, was 
+not a thing that could not be borne. I wept heartily, but I was not 
+unhappy.
+ 
+In two hours Kate returned; she entered the parlour, sat down, took off 
+her bonnet, and began to cry.
+ 
+"Well," she said, "he has his wish--he is gone--and how glad, how eager 
+he was to go! Poor boy, he has had a dull, imprisoned life, and liberty 
+is sweet. Besides, it is in their nature; they like to rove, every one of 
+them; they like to rove, and once they are off, mother, sister, or wife 
+may wait."
+ 
+She cried again, but there never was a more firm, more cheerful nature. 
+She soon checked her tears, to say, with a sigh,--
+ 
+"Now Midge, you must help me, for there is a wonderful deal to do. Well, 
+child, don't open your eyes. I forgot I had not told you--we are going to 
+leave."
+ 
+"To leave!"
+ 
+"Yes, my child, we must. I had money by me, to be sure; but not enough, 
+and I was not going to let Cornelius travel otherwise than as an Irish 
+gentleman, so I borrowed at interest. He will want for nothing, that is 
+one comfort; but we must pinch, Daisy, and to begin I have let the house 
+furnished to a single gentleman, who comes in next Saturday. He has 
+agreed to keep Deborah, who is now too expensive a servant for me. That 
+is why we must leave."
+ 
+"Very well," I said, resolutely; "we shall take a little room somewhere, 
+and I'll be your housemaid, Kate."
+ 
+She smiled, and kissed me.
+ 
+"Nonsense, child, we are not driven to that yet. You know your father 
+left some property,--very little, it is true, but you will find it safe 
+when you grow up. The house in which he died was his, and is yours now; 
+it has not proved a very valuable possession, for nobody will live in it 
+on account of its being so lone and bleak. Leigh is a cheap place, and 
+you and I, Daisy, are going to Rock Cottage after to-morrow."
+ 
+"To live in it, Kate?"
+ 
+"Yes, to live in it. There is nothing to keep me here, once he is gone. I 
+did not tell him this, as you may imagine, so there is no time to lose in 
+packing up. That was what I meant by saying you should help me."
+ 
+With the courage of a true heart, she rose at once and set to work. I 
+aided her willingly; we made such good despatch, that three days after 
+the departure of Cornelius we had left the Grove and reached Leigh. Miss 
+Murray, with whom Cornelius and Kate had always kept up an occasional 
+correspondence, had, through the medium of Abby, kindly provided our 
+future home with the first necessaries of beds, chairs, and tables; the 
+rest, Kate said, would come in time.
+ 
+The village through which we passed looked the same quiet place I had 
+left it five years before. Few changes had occurred; the only strangeness 
+was that men and women whose faces I had not forgotten, stared at us, and 
+knew me not.
+ 
+"How very odd!" I said to Kate, "I am sure that was Mr. Jenning, who 
+keeps the dancing academy. He ought to know me, ought he not, Kate? I was 
+one of his pupils. Papa said I should know how to dance, for that it gave 
+a graceful carriage. I believe he used to dance himself when he was quite 
+a young man, but I never saw him. Do you feel uuwell, Kate?"
+ 
+She made a sign of denial. I continued-- 
+
+"Do you see that path, Kate? Well, it leads to my grandfather's house. I 
+wonder if he still lives in it with Mrs. Marks and my cousin Edith! I 
+will show you to-morrow the place where I felt tired, and Cornelius 
+carried me to Ryde. Why, Kate, we need not go on; this is Rock Cottage; I 
+forgot you did not know it."
+ 
+"Yes, there it stood, the same isolated white-washed, low-roofed dwelling 
+in its lone garden. My tears rushed forth as I saw again the home where I 
+had been reared, and where my father had died. Kate opened the door, but 
+as she crossed the threshold she turned deadly pale, and sank rather than 
+sat in the nearest chair.
+ 
+"Kate!" I cried, quite alarmed, "what is the matter with you?"
+ 
+I passed my arm around her neck; she gave me a most sorrowful look, then 
+laid her head on my shoulder, and cried as if her heart would break.
+ 
+"Oh, Kate!" I said, much distressed, "he has promised to be back in two 
+years, and indeed he will keep his word."
+ 
+She did not seem to heed me.
+ 
+"It was here," she murmured, "yes, it was here he died."
+ 
+This time I looked at her silent and astonished.
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" she cried, clasping her hands and looking up too, "is it 
+possible that you neither know nor guess that I was to have been your 
+father's wife, and that you ought to have been my child?"
+ 
+Her passionate tone went through my very heart. 
+ 
+"You, Kate!" I said; "you!"
+
+"Yes," she replied, weeping more slowly; "it was to have been--it was 
+not--he died here alone, I was far away."
+ 
+Miss O'Reilly made me feel very strangely. I had never known my mother. I 
+drew closer to her, and after a while I said--
+ 
+"Why did you not marry him?"
+ 
+"He was poor, and I had the child to rear; I could not bear to bring two 
+burdens upon him; it was pride, he thought it was mistrust, and married 
+another; I had no right to complain, nor did I; but it was then I took to 
+being so fond of the boy, just I suppose because he had cost me so dear."
+ 
+"But why did you not marry Papa after Mamma died?" I inquired.
+ 
+"He never asked me, child," and she bowed her head with sad and humble 
+resignation; "I thought he would, and I should have been glad to have had 
+him, but perhaps he could not quite forgive my having once preferred my 
+little brother to my grown-up lover; perhaps he thought me altered, and 
+no longer the pretty girl he had courted: whatever it was, he did not ask 
+me; and yet how good and friendly it was of him to help me as he did to 
+rear the boy for whom I had given him up! I sometimes think he liked me 
+in his heart, for Cornelius has often told me how my name was the last he 
+uttered; and I cannot help fancying he meant I was to have the care of 
+you. Oh! Midge, Midge," she added, looking me in the face very wistfully, 
+"I have loved you very dearly, because you were his child, but I have 
+often remembered that you ought also to have been mine."
+ 
+"If you had been Papa's wife, I mean his first wife," I said very 
+earnestly, "I should have been the niece of Cornelius, should I not, 
+Kate?"
+ 
+"You would have been my child."
+ 
+"And his niece too, Kate."
+ 
+"Do not be always thinking of Cornelius, Daisy."
+ 
+"Oh! Kate, Uncle Cornelius has such a pleasant sound!"
+ 
+She caressed me sadly; then we rose, went over the house together, and 
+finally surveyed the garden. All trace of man's art had vanished from the 
+spot, on which nature had bestowed a beauty and wild grace its culture 
+had never known. The hedge of gorse now enclosed but a green wilderness 
+of high waving grass, weeds, and wild flowers. Other flowers there were 
+none, and the tender shrubs uncared for, had perished, blighted by the 
+keen sea-breeze; the pine trees alone still stood and looked the same as 
+I had left them, over their changed domain. For awhile we looked down 
+from the stone steps where Cornelius had found me lying so desolate, then 
+Kate descended, and said to me--
+ 
+"Daisy, we will not change much. We will spoil as little as we can the 
+freshness of the place. I like that green grass, those weeds that hide 
+the brown earth so well, those long trailing creepers and wild flowers. 
+We will just clear the path, add a few of the plants we like, give the 
+whole a look of home, and leave what is beautiful as we found it."
+ 
+"Kate," I exclaimed, hastening down to the pine-trees, "here is the sea. 
+You have not yet had a good view of it, do come and look. Do you remember 
+how I got up on the table in the studio to get a sight of it? Oh! is it 
+not a grand thing?"
+ 
+She smiled at my enthusiasm, and sat down on the wooden bench, which 
+still stood in its old place. My heart swelled as I remembered that there 
+I had received my father's embrace, but I would not sadden her by 
+recalling it; I shaded my eyes with my hand to hide my tears, and whilst 
+they flowed I looked long and silently on that eternal ocean on which, 
+for nearly five years, I had not gazed.
+ 
+It still rolled its heavy waters with majestic calmness; they now looked 
+dark as molten lead, a white line of surf marking where they broke on the 
+beach. The day had been grey and cloudy, and the sun was setting veiled 
+and without splendour. For awhile the heavy clouds resting on the low, 
+sea-bound horizon, still wore a reddish tint, like the smouldering ashes 
+of a spent fire. Like them too they suddenly grew pale. Light mists, 
+advancing from the sea, shrouded the coast below, distinctness faded away 
+from every object, and the penetrating chillness of evening began to 
+spread upon the air. Kate rose; we went in; as we ascended the steps she 
+turned hack, she looked on the wild garden, on the pine-trees whose dark 
+and spreading branches now moved to the evening breeze with a low 
+rustling sound, at that broad sky crossed by swift clouds and hanging 
+over the sea, and with a sigh she said--
+ 
+"It was just like him, to come and live here,--he always liked wild 
+places."
+ 
+We entered the house, there to spend a quiet subdued evening, talking of 
+him who had scarcely left us, and to whose return I already looked 
+forward.
+ 
+In a week we were settled at Rock Cottage. A little black-eyed girl, 
+answering to the name of Jane, was our only servant. We led a humble, yet 
+happy, homely life, to which the thought of the absent one lent something 
+of the charm we once had found in his presence.
+ 
+Household matters occupied Kate, and the garden was her relaxation. It is 
+a spot which, ever since the days of Eve, has, in one sense, been the 
+paradise of woman. The curse of banishment that fell on both her and Adam 
+touched her more nearly. After his fall Eden itself could no more have 
+been the limit of his hopes and desires, but Eve, if allowed to do so, 
+could have lingered in the happy place for ever. Her daughters still love 
+what she loved, and wherever they dwell, in wild or in the city, there 
+too are the flowers which Eve first tended in happy Eden.
+ 
+I shared the tasks and the pleasures of Kate, but whereas the absence of 
+Cornelius, though deeply felt, had changed little or nothing in her 
+habits or external life, it opened to me a new existence. Hitherto my 
+life and my feelings had slept in the shadow of the life and feelings of 
+Cornelius. He influenced me completely, when least seeking to do so. I 
+loved his sister, but she had not that power over me, and when I was 
+parted from my friend, I seemed to have remained alone and to fall back 
+perforce on myself.
+ 
+But when one evil, one teaching fail, God sends the needful. He now gave 
+me nature in those aspects, both sublime and beautiful, which she wore 
+around the home of my childhood. From winds and waves, from aspects of 
+sea and winning shore, from green solitudes and spots of wild beauty, 1 
+learned, though all unconsciously, pure and daily lessons.
+ 
+ 
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+ 
+
+I know not whether my native air did me good, or whether, had I even 
+remained in the Grove, a crisis in my health would have taken place, but 
+I know that to Kate's great joy I grew so strong and well, that she 
+declared the change all but miraculous. I felt an altered being. My love 
+of silence and repose vanished; I now rejoiced in motion and out-door 
+exercise with all the unquiet delight of youth, and thirsted, with ever 
+new longing, for air and liberty.
+ 
+Scarce passed a day but I went down the path that led from our garden to 
+the sands, and I wandered away along the rock-bound coast. This part of 
+the country was both safe and retired; few met or noticed me in my 
+solitary haunts, and I feared harm from none. It was often dusk when I 
+returned to the white cottage, whose light burned like a solitary star on 
+the heights above. I loved these lonely wanderings. I loved that barrier 
+of steep and fantastic rock which ran along the coast, and fenced it in 
+from the outer world; that long line of winding shore, fading in faint 
+mists, until it rested, like a low cloud, on the distant horizon; that 
+sea, whose waves broke at my feet, and yet seemed to extend beyond the 
+power of mortal ken to follow, whilst the hollow sky, bent down from 
+above and enclosing all, gave a sense of limit in the very midst of 
+infinite.
+ 
+Leigh does not by any means belong to the most romantic and picturesque 
+part of the western coast; but on whatever shore the sea-waves break, 
+there always is a great and dreary beauty. To sit on a lonely rock, to 
+watch the fishing boats as they slowly sailed along the coast, or the 
+ships on their distant track, to feel the solemn vastness of all around 
+me, to note the rapid and almost infinite changes of light ever passing 
+over rock, sea, and sky, to listen to the sounds which varied from the 
+loudest roar of the swelling tide breaking at my feet, down to its lowest 
+receding murmur, but that never ceased to echo, rise, and die away 
+amongst those lonely cliffs, was to me a delight beyond all else.
+ 
+There were pleasant walks about Leigh, but I soon wearied of them, and 
+ever returned to my barren and much-loved coast. There I learned to know 
+the sea under all her aspects. I saw her in sunshine, spreading 
+peacefully beneath cloudless heavens, like them, an image of serenity and 
+repose, and idly speeding on the light crafts that pursued their way with 
+indolent and careless grace. I saw her in storm, darkness brooding over 
+her heaving waters, her vast, white-crested billows rearing like angry 
+serpents against the lowering sky, her hovering flocks of pale sea-birds 
+rising and sinking to every motion of the waves like evil spirits 
+rejoicing in the tempest, whilst some bold ship, with mainmast broken, 
+with torn sails fluttering like banners on a battle day, sped past amidst 
+the turmoil of wind and wave, riding the waters with a triumphant power 
+that banished fear, and made you feel she would yet reach the port, and 
+weather many another storm. I also found in the ocean other aspects less 
+definite, but to me not less impressive,--the desolate and the bleak, 
+when the wide waters of a dull green hue rolled sluggishly along or 
+heavily beat the sandy beach, whilst fleecy clouds slowly passed over a 
+misty sky where grey melted into paler grey, giving that sense of vague 
+and melancholy infinite which can only be felt on the wild northern 
+shores.
+ 
+I delighted in this wild and lonely life, and seldom felt the utter 
+solitude of my daily haunts. Sometimes indeed, when I chanced to meet in 
+the sand the mark of my own footprints, which no other steps had crossed 
+since I had passed there, which the wind alone would efface or the tide 
+wash away, a sense of sudden sadness came over me. It seemed as if a 
+friend, whom I never could meet or overtake, had made and left that track 
+for me to see. I felt vaguely that she who had passed there was not quite 
+the same who passed now. Only a few days perhaps had gone by: but of 
+those few days, unseen and unfelt as they speed on, is made up not only 
+the sum, but also the ceaseless change of this our earthly life.
+ 
+Dearly as I have loved solitude, I hold it no unmixed good. Woe to the 
+communion with nature that is only a brooding over self, and not a 
+mingling of the soul with the Almighty Creator of all we behold; that 
+seeks in her loveliness none save the images of voluptuous indulgence, 
+and leaves by unread her purer teaching! Rightly even in innocent things 
+have we been warned to guard our senses and our hearts. For this I hold 
+ye dangerous, ye sheltered valleys, with quiet rivers gliding through, 
+with green woods and lovely paths leading we know not where, with 
+peaceful dwellings embosomed in the shade, and looking like so many 
+abodes of love and happiness. What though we know that the golden age was 
+all a fable and pastoral bliss the dream of poets, that innocence and 
+peace dwell not here, though here passion and satiety can penetrate as 
+surely as in the crowded city? Yet who, on beholding you, has not for a 
+moment wished to live and die on your quiet bosom? Who has not felt that 
+the thoughts you waken melt and subdue the heart, and haunt it vaguely 
+for many a day, and enervate it with longing dreams and desires that 
+savour too much of earth.
+ 
+Not these the feelings which thou awakenest, thou austere sea,--austere 
+in thy very beauty, in thy calmest and most unruffled moods. More true 
+and honest are thy promises, which thou at least keepest faithfully,--the 
+long, arduous strife against wind and storm, the tardy return of 
+weatherbeaten mariners,--ay, and often too the wreck,--the wreck which 
+may appal the weak, but never yet dismayed a brave heart;--these are the 
+hopes thou holdest forth--these the promises which life, whom thou 
+imagest, will fulfil, until her waves, calm or troubled, rough or smooth, 
+lead us into that mysterious sea which man has named Eternity.
+ 
+Our home existence was as quiet and secluded as my outward life. On 
+settling at Leigh, Miss O'Reilly had come to a resolve which she thus 
+imparted to me one evening:--"Daisy, you were too young when you left 
+Leigh to know that because it is a small place it must have the 
+inconvenience of all small places, in which life is a round of back-
+biting, quarrelling, envying, scandal, and gossip. Now we can't help 
+being backbitten or talked about, but we can help doing it to others: the 
+way, child, is to keep to ourselves and to see no one. We shall be hated, 
+as a matter of course; thought proud, or still worse in England, poor. 
+Never mind, child, those are not the things one cannot endure."
+ 
+"Papa was thought proud," I said.
+ 
+"And so he was, child; he had a mind above the paltriness of such a place 
+as this,--of course he had: he never would have been a popular man 
+anywhere, never. Well, as I was saying, child, we must bear with being 
+thought proud and poor, for we shall make no acquaintances. A decent, 
+civil intercourse we must certainly keep up with Miss Murray--she won't 
+trouble us much, poor thing!--but beyond this we do not go. Now, you must 
+not misunderstand me. I do not mean to keep you locked up, and if you can 
+get acquainted with pleasant young people, I do not object. There is a 
+dancing academy, it seems, and since your father wished you to learn how 
+to dance, you must learn it, of course. If you meet there sensible girls 
+whom you would like to see, see them here in liberty; but as to visiting 
+their mammas, or being visited by them, I decline the honour."
+ 
+Thus it was settled. We lived in our retired way; we were thought proud 
+and poor; we saw Miss Murray every now and then in her own house, for to 
+come near us was an exertion not to be thought of; I went to the academy, 
+and learned how to dance, but I found all the young ladies so little to 
+my taste, that with not one of them did I form an intimate acquaintance, 
+and two years passed away in this quiet, monotonous life, varied by the 
+letters of Cornelius.
+ 
+Only a few were addressed to "his dear adopted child," but they were so 
+kind, they breathed an affection so true, an interest so heartfelt, that 
+to this day, and spite of all that has passed since then, I cannot look 
+over them without emotion. In all his letters, Cornelius spoke of course 
+of his art and his prospects. He was enchanted with Rome, and ardent with 
+hope; but he did not think it worth while to send home anything before 
+his return. He thought he might just as well wait until he was coming 
+back, and take the public by storm. Miss O'Reilly thought so too, and we 
+accordingly expected her brother in the spring of the second year 
+following his departure. A somewhat enigmatic letter, in which he 
+expressed his great wish of seeing us both again, confirmed this 
+impression.
+ 
+"Depend upon it, Daisy," said Miss O'Reilly to me, "he means to take us, 
+like the public, by surprise."
+ 
+The mere thought took away my breath.
+ 
+"Oh, Kate!" I exclaimed, laying down my work, "if he were to enter the 
+room now, what should I do?"
+ 
+"I am sure I don't know," replied Kate, looking up from her letter, "you 
+look wild enough for anything. Go and take a walk, child, and calm 
+yourself down with the fresh seabreeze. We are in March, I don't expect 
+him for a fortnight or three weeks yet. Go out, I say; he must find you 
+fresh and healthy."
+ 
+"You don't think he will come whilst I am out, Kate?"
+ 
+"Bless the child! no; I tell you not to expect him for three weeks." 
+ 
+I sighed; three weeks seemed an age, and, spite of her assurances, I had 
+a nervous apprehension that Cornelius would arrive precisely whilst I was 
+away; yet I yielded to her behest of going out. I wanted to see William 
+Murray, and tell him the happy tidings; so I just put on my bonnet and 
+cloak, and hastened down to the sands. It was a mild afternoon; the sky 
+was clear, earth was silent, the cliffs rose grey and lonely, the flat 
+beach was yet wet with the retreating tide that had left many a wide 
+shallow pool behind, the far sea lay calm and still, and over sky, earth, 
+cliffs, beach and sea, the setting sun shed a pale, golden glow. I walked 
+fast, looking out for William, whom I at length saw coming towards me. 
+And this reminds me I have neglected to mention how my acquaintance with 
+him was renewed, after so long an interruption.
+ 
+We had not parted very good friends. He had called me "a sulky little 
+monkey," and if I had not retaliated, I had nevertheless internally 
+considered him a young bear then and ever since. When, shortly after our 
+return to Leigh, I met him at his aunt's house, William, who was nearly 
+two years my senior, was in all the charming roughness of his sex in the 
+teens. He had not yet got over being left to petticoat government, as he 
+termed the rule of his gentle aunt, and accordingly vented the 
+indignation of his injured manliness on her female friends. On seeing us 
+enter the room in which Miss Murray sat in her usual shady state, her 
+amiable nephew thrust his hands into his pockets, and began whistling 
+with all his might. Miss O'Reilly took no notice of this, but in the 
+course of conversation she quietly observed to Miss Murray--
+ 
+"What a fine boy your nephew is, Ma'am?"
+ 
+"Ah! if he were only a good boy!" sighed Miss Murray.
+ 
+William was then turned seventeen; but he looked about fourteen; the 
+observation of Kate was therefore doubly insulting. I know not whether it 
+was to show his resentment, that at tea he shuffled and kicked his feet 
+under the table to such a degree, that his aunt, laying down her cup, 
+solemnly inquired, "If he intended to break her heart, as he was ruining 
+her furniture and endangering the shins of her guests?" To which delicate 
+question, the only reply William deigned to give was a scowl over his 
+tea-cup, and a sarcastic intimation at the close of the meal, that "tea 
+was the greatest slop and most womanish stuff _he_ had ever tasted."
+ 
+"Milk and water is decidedly more wholesome for children," mischievously 
+said Kate.
+ 
+William turned scarlet, stabbed her with a look, rose and left the room, 
+slamming the door after him. Miss Murray produced her handkerchief, and 
+looked pitiful.
+ 
+"I appeal to you, Ma'am, is not mine a dreadful, a lamentable case! That 
+boy, Ma'am, is the misery of my life; twice he has run away, and has had 
+to be pursued and caught; each time offering the most desperate 
+resistance."
+ 
+"He is but a boy," good-humouredly observed Kate, "he will grow out of 
+all this."
+ 
+Miss Murray however, for a reason very different from that of Rachel, 
+would not be comforted, and lamented the length of the holidays. Kate 
+herself changed her opinion when she discovered on the following morning 
+the manner in which the shoes of William had used her light grey silk. 
+She called him a little wretch; and, in her indignation, wondered what 
+could tempt his aunt to have him pursued and brought back, when by 
+absconding he had offered her so easy a method of getting rid of him 
+altogether. I almost concurred in this opinion, and altogether looked 
+upon William as a sort of young Christian savage.
+ 
+So far as I could see, the gracious youth did not trouble his aunt much 
+with his company. I seldom or ever went down to the sands without meeting 
+him with his dog 'Dash,' a shaggy-coated creature, as rough-looking as 
+his master, who went whistling past me with superb indifference. I had 
+met them thus one day, the youth climbing the cliffs, and the dog 
+bounding on before him, and now and then turning round to utter a short 
+joyous bark at his master, when, on returning homewards, I saw them again 
+under altered circumstances. William sat on a rock at the base of the 
+cliff, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and at his feet 
+Dash lay dead. He had fallen from above, and been killed at once; his 
+young master looked at him silently, and, as I approached, dashed away a 
+furtive tear. I stood, unwilling to go on without having expressed 
+sympathy or attempted consolation, and not knowing how to do either, I 
+knelt on the sands and, caressing the poor dead dog, I hesitatingly 
+observed--
+ 
+"He was a very good dog, was he not?"
+
+"There never was a better," replied William in a subdued voice.
+
+"He seemed very clever."
+
+"I could make him do anything. He'd dash in the roughest sea at a look, 
+and if I only said 'Dash!' he'd look into my face, prick his ears, and be 
+ready to fly off. Poor old Dash! he'll never do the bidding of his master 
+again."
+
+And he stooped over him to hide his tears. 
+
+"Was he old?" I asked.
+
+"Just turned five; the prime age, you know; at four they are too young, 
+and at six they are aging: five is the age for a dog. That was why he was 
+such a beauty; see what a coat he had, what a deep broad chest, and such 
+a back! I'll take a bet with any one, you can hear that dog's bark for 
+miles along the coast; that is to say, one could have heard it, for 
+Dash's barking is all ended and over now."
+
+Thus poor William sat lamenting over his lost favourite, recording his 
+virtues and some of his many exploits, when I said--
+
+"I suppose you will bury him in Miss Murray's garden?" 
+
+"No, that I shan't," he replied indignantly, "he shall be buried where he 
+fell, as they bury soldiers after battle."
+
+So saying, he drew forth his knife, and began digging a deep and narrow 
+grave at the base of the sea-washed cliff; he lined it softly with his 
+handkerchief, saying as he did so-- 
+
+"Won't Abby have a precious hunt for it?" 
+
+Then he took Dash, gave him a last caress, gently laid him in his grave, 
+covered him over with sand and earth, and marked the spot with a fragment 
+of rock, on which he carved the day of the month and year.
+
+"Won't you put his name?" I asked. 
+
+"No. Dash answered and obeyed no one but me; his name is nothing to any 
+one else, and I don't want to know it." 
+
+We walked on. As a projecting rock was going to hide the spot from our 
+view, William turned round to give it one last glance, then he looked at 
+me wishfully, and said, "I had him from a pup, and I taught him all his 
+tricks."
+
+From that day William and I were friends. We met to talk of Dash at 
+first, and afterwards of other things, for even the best of dogs must 
+expect to be forgotten. William generously forgave me my sex, and 
+confided to me his troubles. His aunt, it seems, kindly intended him as a 
+present to the Church, but William vowed no mortal power should induce 
+him to turn a parson, and boldly declared for the sea, in a midshipman's 
+berth, against which his aunt, whose ideas of nautical life were summed 
+up in grog and biscuit, entered a solemn protest.
+
+As we very seldom visited Miss Murray, and as she never visited us, I 
+only saw William when I met him out, and that was often, for we loved the 
+same solitary haunts and wild scenes. In parting we told one another what 
+places we were to visit on the morrow, and William no more knew he had 
+asked me for a meeting, than I knew I had granted him one. We followed 
+the retreating tide to gather shells and sea-weeds, or ran hand in hand 
+along the sands, laughing, because the keen breeze took away our breath, 
+and the waves came dashing to our feet, covering us with spray. We 
+climbed together the steepest cliffs for the mere love of danger, and 
+risked our necks, ten times for one, by running down the same perilous 
+path. When we felt tired, we sat down on some rock to rest, and William, 
+drawing forth from his pocket 'The Dangers of the Deep,' made me low-
+spirited with dismal stories of lost or shipwrecked mariners. Friendships 
+grow rapidly in youth, and by the close of William's holidays we were as 
+free and intimate as if we had been in familiar intercourse for years.
+
+I had told Miss O'Reilly of Dash's death and burial, and was beginning to 
+state that William Murray was not quite so bad as he had appeared on our 
+first interview, when she interrupted me with--
+
+"Nonsense, child, the boy may have liked his dog; but what about it?"
+
+Later, when I imparted to her the grievances of my friend, she treated 
+them in the same careless, slighting way.
+ 
+"Pooh! pooh!" she said, "does the little fellow think he knows his own 
+mind? A midshipman! why the first breeze would whip him off the deck. 
+He'll do a great deal better in the pulpit, so far as physical strength 
+goes, but what sort of a preacher he will make is more than I can tell."
+
+I was too much mortified by her tone and manner to renew the subject; but 
+at the same time, and with the spirit of opposition of my years, I liked 
+William all the better for being rather persecuted. Indeed, the aversion 
+Kate had taken to my friend proved somewhat unfortunate, for, without 
+intending any mystery, I forbore to mention his name to her; consequently 
+she knew little or nothing of an intimacy which I have reason to believe 
+she would have opposed from many motives, and to which her opposition 
+would in the beginning have been a sufficient bar.
+
+In spite of the ridicule with which Miss O'Reilly treated his pretensions 
+to the sea, William Murray conquered his aunt's opposition, and, in the 
+course of the ensuing spring, went forth on his first voyage. He remained 
+a year away, and came back about a week before we received the letter 
+which led us to expect the return of Cornelius. Our joy on seeing one 
+another again was great; absence had not cooled our friendship; not a day 
+passed but we met on the sands, and took long walks down the coast. I 
+thought nothing of this until Miss O'Reilly said to me--
+
+"William Murray is come back."
+
+"Yes, I know," I replied, feeling that I turned crimson. 
+
+"And how do you know?" she asked, giving me an attentive look.
+
+"I met him on the sands."
+
+She did not ask me why I had not mentioned it to her sooner, but said 
+quietly--
+
+"That boy has grown very much."
+
+The word "boy" relieved me greatly. Since William was only a boy, there 
+could be no sort of harm or indiscretion in being so much with him, nor 
+was there either any absolute necessity to mention the matter to Miss 
+O'Reilly. So when, to quiet my anticipations, she sent me out for a walk, 
+I did not inform her that one of my motives for complying with her 
+request was to impart the tidings to William Murray. As I saw him 
+advancing towards me, I eagerly ran to meet him.
+
+"Oh, William," I cried joyfully, "I am so glad, so happy." 
+
+"Then Mr. O'Reilly is come back?" he said, stopping short to look at me.
+
+"No; but he is coming soon, quite soon. Is it not delightful?"
+
+"Indeed it is," he replied cordially; "tell me all about it, Daisy."
+
+We sat down on a ledge of rock facing the sea, and I told him all there 
+was to tell. He heard me with a pleased smile on his kind, handsome face, 
+which he kept turned towards mine, as he sat there in a listening 
+attitude. William was then between eighteen and nineteen. He was slight 
+in figure, but above the middle height, and of a spirited bearing. His 
+complexion, once too fair, had become embrowned by constant exposure, and 
+spite of his light hair and blue eyes he looked sufficiently manly; his 
+midshipman's attire became him well, and the consciousness of having 
+entered active life had freed his manner from much of its ungracious 
+roughness. Of these changes I was conscious, but other change I saw not: 
+William was to me what he had been since we had become friends--frank, 
+ingenuous, and boyish in his kindness. I had often spoken to him of 
+Cornelius, and I now closed my brief recital with the remark--
+
+"Oh, William! I am so happy that I scarcely know what to do with myself."
+
+He looked at me silently, began tracing figures in the sand with a 
+slender wand which he held, then suddenly looked up again, and said, very 
+earnestly--
+
+"He is quite like a father to you, Daisy."
+
+"More than a father," I replied, ardently, "for a father is bound to do 
+for his child what, of his own free-will, Cornelius did for me. And then 
+so kind! always giving me new playthings, or books, or things I liked."
+
+"And you were quite like a daughter to him."
+
+"I was, and am. Look, here is his last letter, beginning with 'my dear 
+child,' and signed, 'your old friend, Cornelius;' but I have another at 
+home, in which he actually calls me 'his dear, adopted daughter.' I am 
+quite proud of it, for he is to be very celebrated, you know, and it is a 
+great honour."
+
+William again traced figures in the sand, but he did not speak.
+
+"Well," I said, bending down to look at him, "what are you thinking of?"
+
+"That I should like you to be proud of being my friend," he replied, with 
+an earnest look.
+
+"I am proud of it, so you have your wish."
+
+"Yes, but I should like you to have cause, and also, Daisy, I should like 
+to do something to please you. I wish I could."
+
+"And so do I," 1 answered, laughing, "for you would bring him back at 
+once."
+
+"Indeed I would: in the first place, because your heart is set upon it; 
+in the second, because I very much wish to know Mr. O'Reilly. I like him 
+for your sake, and all he has done for you; and then, from what you tell 
+me, I am sure he is a thoroughly good man."
+
+I could not help laying my hand on the arm of William, and replying 
+earnestly--
+
+"Indeed, William, he is a good man, and when you see and know him, you 
+will find that you were not mistaken, though good is not, I dare say, the 
+word most people would apply to Cornelius O'Reilly."
+
+William took this as a compliment to his penetration, and was rather 
+gratified. The sun had set, grey evening was closing in; we rose, and 
+walking together along the silent beach, we talked of Cornelius, and laid 
+down plans of pleasant excursions up the coast, and far down the inland 
+valleys, to be undertaken after his return. But, to our mutual 
+mortification, William's leave of absence expired, nay the Academy 
+opened, and Cornelius came not back to take us and the public by 
+surprise. In her indignation, Miss O'Reilly declared that there could be 
+but one interpretation given to such extraordinary conduct--"Cornelius 
+has got entangled."
+
+"How so, Kate?" I asked.
+
+"Why, he is either married or going to be married to some Italian lady; 
+that is it."
+
+"Do you think so?" I asked quietly.
+
+"Bless the child, how coolly she takes it!" exclaimed Kate, half angrily.
+
+"I have no right to take it otherwise, Kate; besides, provided Cornelius 
+comes back to us, what matter?"
+
+"What matter! suppose he has been married all this time, and has a family 
+about him!"
+
+"I don't think Cornelius would marry as if he were ashamed of himself," I 
+replied, rather indignantly; "then how can he have a family in two years? 
+and even if he had--"
+
+"Nonsense, child!" interrupted Kate, impatiently, "I don't speak of it as 
+a fact, and there you go, coolly dissecting every hasty word I utter, as 
+if I were giving evidence before judge and jury!"
+
+"Well, Kate, all I mean to say is this--if Cornelius has a wife and 
+children, where is the harm, provided he does not settle in Italy?"
+
+Miss O'Reilly was of a very different opinion, and, as she seemed 
+inclined to be vexed with me for disagreeing with her, I dropped the 
+subject and proposed a walk. She shortly replied that with an Italian 
+sister-in-law in prospect she did not feel disposed for walking; but 
+that, as the matter did not touch me, I was quite right in not taking it 
+to heart. I did not answer; I did not wish to add to her annoyance by 
+letting her see how bitter was my disappointment at the prolonged absence 
+of Cornelius, and the voluntary obscurity under which he lingered.
+
+The thought kept me awake in bed beyond my usual hour; but at length I 
+slept. I awoke with a sudden start, I myself knew not why; I thought I 
+had heard something in my sleep, what I could not tell. I sat up and 
+listened; yes, there was a sound of voices below in the parlour. I rose 
+and opened my door softly. One of the voices was that of Kate: the 
+other--unheard for two years, but not forgotten?-was that so well known 
+and so dear, of her brother. I did not give myself time for joy; I 
+dressed hurriedly and slipped down. The parlour door stood ajar; I looked 
+in; he sat by Kate, bending over her and embracing her with a fondness 
+which, as I felt, a little jealously, she had not called me down to 
+share. He sat with his back turned to me, and saw me not; the floor was 
+carpeted, my step was always light; I stood by his side ere he was 
+conscious of my presence. I wished to speak, but the words died unuttered 
+on my lips; I remained standing there, mute, motionless, and trembling 
+from head to foot.
+
+"Daisy!" he exclaimed, starting up. His arms were around me--I was 
+gathered to his heart.
+
+"Well!" he said, "what is the matter with you? You do not even give me a 
+kiss. Have I grown strange?"
+
+I did not answer; a singular feeling was coming over me; a mist fell on 
+my eyes; the room seemed, with all it contained, to swim before my sight, 
+then suddenly vanished in utter darkness. I had fainted for the first 
+time in my life.
+
+When I recovered I was lying on the sofa. Cornelius was bending over me, 
+and helping his sister, armed with a formidable bottle, to rub my face 
+and hands with vinegar.
+
+"I am so glad," I cried, starting up. 
+
+"Why, there, she is all alive again!" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly.
+
+"I am so glad," I continued, joyfully, "I thought I had dreamt it."
+
+I sat up, and twining my arms around the neck of Cornelius, I kissed him, 
+whilst my tears flowed fast. He sat down by me, and anxiously asked how I 
+felt.
+
+"Why, very well," I replied, laughing, in the gladness of my heart.
+
+"Ay, ay," said Kate, smiling, "we may cork up the bottle, and lock it up, 
+may we not, Daisy?"
+
+"Are you sure you are quite well?" urged Cornelius; "you fainted, you 
+know."
+
+"Did I?" I had scarcely heeded the remark. Seated by him, with my arm 
+locked in his, his hand clasping mine, I looked at him eagerly, 
+delighting every sense with the consciousness of his dear presence. He 
+asked me if the room did not feel too close, if I did not want air, and I 
+could give him no answer, so charmed was I to listen to his voice again.
+
+"Let her alone," said Kate, gaily; "she is well enough now; she fainted 
+because she was glad to see you, and she got well at once for the same 
+reason precisely. All she wants is to look at your face."
+
+He turned it towards me; it was as kind and handsome as ever, not in the 
+least altered. I could not take my eyes from it, and in the overflowing 
+joy of my heart I exclaimed--
+
+"Oh, Kate! Kate! I shall be too happy now, shall I not?"
+
+"You see the poor child is as mad as ever," said Kate.
+
+"I hope she has been a good girl in my absence," he observed, rather 
+gravely.
+
+"Of course she has."
+
+"Learnt her lessons well?"
+
+"Bless the boy!" exclaimed Kate, "does he think she is still a little 
+girl? Don't you find her altered?"
+
+"Oh yes, she has grown."
+
+"Grown! grown!" impatiently said his sister, "of course she has! do you 
+not think she has improved?"
+
+"She seems much stronger."
+ 
+Miss O'Reilly looked disappointed. Cornelius questioned me concerning my 
+studies; I answered to his satisfaction; he stroked my hair and called me 
+a good child.
+ 
+"It is very odd you will persist in calling Daisy a child," drily said 
+Miss O'Reilly.
+
+"Well, am I not his child?" I asked.
+
+"Nonsense!" she replied, looking provoked.
+
+"Indeed, I am his adopted daughter," I said eagerly.
+
+"I never yet heard that a man of twenty-six or so had a daughter near 
+seventeen," was her ironical reply.
+
+Cornelius smiled; but I warmly vindicated our relationship.
+
+"I am very glad he is so young," I observed. "Most girls have old 
+fathers; mine is not old; he will live the longer."
+
+Cornelius laughed; his sister said "Pish!" and Jane, by bringing in the 
+supper-tray, closed the conversation. Indeed our discourse was of the 
+most desultory kind. Although Cornelius protested that he was not in the 
+least fatigued, having rested in London before coming to us, Kate would 
+not hear of our sitting up. She made me leave him just as I was beginning 
+to talk to him of his painting. To comfort me she confidently informed me 
+as we went upstairs, that a large wooden case in the back parlour 
+contained his pictures; to this intelligence she added, with a 
+significant look--
+
+"He has not got entangled after all."
+
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+ 
+
+We were not prepared for the sudden return of Cornelius; his room was 
+neither aired nor ready; Miss O'Reilly accordingly gave him up her own 
+apartment, and slept with me. She complained of my restlessness; well she 
+might! tossed on a sea of unquiet joy, I scarcely slept. I woke and rose 
+early. The morning was bright and gay, and my little room overflowed with 
+sunshine.
+
+"Now, Daisy," said Kate, in a tone of remonstrance, "you need not be in 
+such a hurry: he is not awake yet, child!"
+
+I was opening the window as she spoke. I drew back quickly, for it looked 
+on the garden; I was but half-dressed, and, though I saw no one, the 
+fresh breeze brought me the scent of a cigar. My heart leaped with joy, 
+and something seemed to say within me, "Yes, yes, he is come back."
+
+"Not awake!" I exclaimed aloud, "why he is already in the garden! Oh! 
+Kate, do help me to fasten on my dress."
+
+"Not that dingy, everyday grey thing!" decisively said Miss O'Reilly, "he 
+hates dull colours."
+
+She went to my drawers, and drew forth a light blue muslin.
+
+"But it has short sleeves!" I observed, a little uneasily, "and it looks 
+so dressy!"
+
+"Never mind the short sleeves or the dressiness either--the chief thing 
+is, not to annoy him with an ugly colour he cannot endure."
+
+I yielded against my own wish and judgment; partly to gratify her, and 
+still more to lose no time. I gained nothing by the ready compliance. 
+Miss O'Reilly dressed me as she had never dressed me before; she 
+suggested or rejected improvements with unusual and irritating 
+fastidiousness. Now a snow-white habit-shirt "would look so nice, or if 
+my hair were braided, instead of being in plain bands, it would become me 
+so much better."
+
+I could not help crying.
+
+"Oh, Kate, if you would only let me go! What will Cornelius care about 
+all this?"
+
+"But I care," replied Miss O'Reilly. "I thought Cornelius would find you 
+so much improved; but all he noticed was that you had grown."
+
+"Because that is all!" I said, laughing.
+
+"It is not. But last night you were pale and wild-looking; besides, you 
+had that ugly grey thing on; but now, Midge, let me tell you there is a 
+difference."
+
+She was holding me out at arm's length, with a satisfied look and smile.
+
+"There!" she said, dropping my hand, and releasing me, "you may go now."
+
+I waited for no second bidding. I ran down the stairs, then up the gravel 
+path that led to the pine-trees. The scent of the cigar had not deceived 
+me: he stood leaning against the trunk of the farthest pine, looking at 
+the fresh sparkling sea that spread beneath, and went far away to meet a 
+white line of horizon arched over by a sky of brightest blue. He turned 
+round as I reached him all out of breath, and welcomed me with a smile. I 
+stood by him, looking at him with the delighted eyes with which we gaze 
+at those we love. He laid his hand on my shoulder, and looked at me too, 
+silently at first, then all at once he said--
+
+"God bless your pleasant face!" and stooping, kissed my brow.
+
+My heart beat a little; I could not help being glad. There was nothing in 
+me beyond what there is in every girl from fifteen to twenty; but then 
+this is the golden age of woman, when the youthful grace of the outlines 
+makes the gazer forget their irregularity, and seeing the cheek so fresh 
+and clear, he asks not whether it be dark or fair--when he is charmed by 
+the sense of a being who has not dwelt on earth too long, and gives 
+pleasant welcome to this late arrived guest.
+
+Our first greeting over, Cornelius and I sat down on the wooden bench. 
+The wind came from the west. It blew fresh in our faces, and bowed over 
+us the pine-trees and their rustling branches, through which the slanting 
+rays of the sun behind came warm and pleasant. Our glance rested on a 
+sweep of winding shore, half veiled in light sparkling mists; on that sea 
+which looked so serene, and yet seemed so living and so free in its very 
+repose. Our ear was greeted by the low dash of waves on the beach below, 
+by the murmurs of a breeze that died away far inland amongst low hills 
+and lonely places, and looking up at one another with a smile, we both 
+said what a lovely morning it was. I passed my arm within that of 
+Cornelius, and clasping both my hands over it, I looked up into his face 
+and began a series of questions.
+
+"Tell me all about your pictures and your painting."
+
+A light cloud passed over his brow, as he replied--
+
+"Never mind about the pictures just now, Daisy."
+
+"Well, then," I said, though a little disappointed, "tell me all about 
+Italy."
+
+"All about it--there's a modest request!"
+
+"Well, then, tell me something. Are the Italian women so handsome?"
+
+"Some are, some are not."
+
+His tone and manner were abstracted. I could not but notice that he was 
+surveying me from head to foot.
+
+"What else?" I asked, a little impatiently.
+
+"What else?" he echoed, still looking at me.
+
+"Yes, what else?"
+
+"Nothing else; save that I am thinking of something else just now."
+
+"I knew you would notice it," I exclaimed, feeling myself reddening; "I 
+told Kate so."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes; it was her doing, not mine. She said you hated grey, and made me 
+put on this blue muslin, though it looks so gay for the morning."
+
+"Well," replied Cornelius, with a smile, "blue is as charming a colour as 
+grey is cold and dull to the eye. But to tell you the truth, I was not 
+thinking about your dress."
+
+"Ah!" I said, rather abashed.
+
+"No,--I was thinking of the change two years have wrought, and wondering 
+I never noticed it last night. The other one was a pale, sickly little 
+thing, a poor wee Daisy, coming up weak and stunted on the outskirts of 
+the town; this one is fresh and fair as any wild flower that grows. Why, 
+where did she, once so wan and sallow, get that clear, rosy freshness? 
+What kind fairy has changed the pale yellow hair I still remember, into 
+those heavy tresses of rich brown, tinged with gold--a hue both exquisite 
+and rare, which I shall assuredly transfer to my next picture. As for the 
+eyes, she could not improve them,--so she left them what they still are--
+the finest I have ever seen."
+
+I opened them a little on hearing him speak so. He quietly took out my 
+comb; my hair rolled down in waves below my waist; he surveyed it 
+admiringly, with a glance in which blended the fondness of a father for 
+his pet child and the ever-observant eye of the artist.
+
+"A pretty little effect, so," he added, "especially with your startled 
+look, reminding one of Cervantes' Dorothea."
+
+"So she does!" said Miss O'Reilly, coming up from behind. 
+
+She kissed her brother, and looking at me as I rose to do up my hair, "It 
+is like her father's," she added with a subdued sigh, "but not quite so 
+bright."
+
+"Why did you never write to me that Daisy was so much improved?" asked 
+Cornelius, perhaps to divert her thoughts.
+
+"Because I knew you had eyes of your own to find it out," answered his 
+sister smiling. "And now don't sit looking at the girl, as if she were a 
+beauty; she has grown tall and has good health, that is all."
+
+"All! is not that a great deal?"
+
+"Of course it is; but I came to tell you breakfast is waiting, and not to 
+talk about Daisy's looks."
+
+We went in to breakfast; I sat opposite Cornelius and could scarcely take 
+my eyes off his face; he could not help smiling now and then, but Miss 
+O'Reilly chose to be in a pet about it.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Midge! I wish, Cornelius, you would mind what I say, 
+instead of paying so much attention to that silly girl. When do you mean 
+to have that case opened?"
+
+"In a day or two."
+
+"Nonsense! you don't think I am going to wait a day or two to see your 
+pictures? After breakfast you mean?"
+
+She carried the point as usual, and after breakfast it accordingly was. 
+As Cornelius drew back the last covering which stood between us and his 
+picture, I felt my heart beat with expectation; as for Kate, from the 
+moment it became visible, she was lost in wonder and admiration. The 
+picture, though not very large, was an elaborate historical performance; 
+it represented the death of Mary Stuart, with mourning ladies-in-waiting, 
+knights, pages, executioner and all.
+
+"How beautiful, how very beautiful!" exclaimed Kate with tears in her 
+eyes; "what a subject, and how you treated it! But what a pity, what a 
+mortal pity it was not finished in time for the academy, Cornelius!"
+
+There was a pause, he stooped and brushed away some dust from Mary 
+Stuart's face, but never answered. His sister resumed--
+
+"Who is that dark-looking fellow in front?"
+
+"The Earl of Salisbury."
+
+"Ah! I remember, I knew he could not be good; it is in his face, I assure 
+you. And who is that girl in the corner?"
+
+"A looker-on."
+
+"I knew it!" triumphantly exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, "I knew it by her 
+unconcerned air. Cornelius, there is wonderful character in it all."
+
+He did not reply: he was untying the strings of a large portfolio, and 
+looking over the sketches and drawings it contained. His sister called 
+him to her side with an air of concern. "Was he sure Mary Stuart had a 
+velvet robe on? She hoped it was not a mistake. Critics are such harpies, 
+you know," she added with a sigh, "they would pounce on a mistake 
+directly."
+
+He laid his hand on her shoulder, and, with a kind smile, looked down at 
+her upraised face.
+
+"Make your mind easy, Kate; Mary Stuart died in a velvet robe, which, 
+poor thing, she kept for solemn occasions."
+
+Miss O'Reilly's face brightened.
+
+"Indeed I am glad to hear it; the imitation is perfect; real velvet could 
+not have more depth and softness. How much pains you must have taken with 
+it!"
+
+"Yes, it gave me some trouble."
+
+"But how sorry I am, the other pictures are sold!"
+
+"It could not be helped! I wanted the money."
+
+"Yes, but it has kept you in the shade all this time. What a pity Mary 
+Stuart was not finished for this year's Academy!"
+
+She looked at him so earnestly that he reddened.
+
+"Cornelius," she continued rather seriously, "why was it not finished for 
+this year's Academy?"
+
+Jane spared him the trouble of answering, by looking in, and conveying 
+the intimation that more luggage had come, and that there was a bill of 
+one pound ten and elevenpence halfpenny to pay.
+
+"I wish they may get it!" hotly said Miss O'Reilly; "it is perfectly 
+shameful; let me manage them, Cornelius, only just come to see whether 
+they have not changed your luggage for that of some one else. My opinion 
+is," she added, raising her voice, "that people who charge one pound ten 
+shillings and elevenpence halfpenny for carriage are capable of 
+anything."
+
+He smiled; they went out together, closed the door, and left me alone 
+with Mary Stuart and my bitter disappointment. I could not understand it; 
+it was strange, incredible, and yet it was so, I looked and did not 
+admire. I could have cried with vexation to feel that this stately Mary 
+Stuart did not touch me; that her sorrowful beauty, the grief of her 
+weeping women, the insolent scorn of the English nobles, the 
+impassiveness of the headsman, the commonplace pity of the lookers-on, 
+actually left me cold and unmoved. And yet thus it was, and the longer I 
+looked, the worse it grew; so I gave it up in despair, and turned to the 
+portfolio.
+
+Sketch after sketch I turned over with a pleasure that gradually grew 
+into delight. All Italy, in her sunshine and beauty, seemed to pass 
+before me. Here a dark-eyed girl danced the Tarantella; there swarthy 
+boys with eager faces played at the morra; beggars held out their hand 
+for alms with the look and mien of princes; and village women, of a 
+beauty as calm and pure as that of the image above them, knelt and prayed 
+before the shrine of some lowly Madonna. Nor was I less charmed by the 
+glimpses of landscape and out-door life. I felt the warmth of that blue 
+sky which looked as if the very heavens were opening; the sunshine on the 
+steps of the white church dazzled me with its brightness; there were 
+depths of coolness in the dark shade of those old trees beneath which the 
+women sat reposing; there was life and dewy freshness in the waters of 
+the stone fountain by which the children played. Charmed and absorbed, I 
+never heard Cornelius enter, and knew not he was by me until he said in a 
+careless tone behind me--
+
+"Oh! you are looking at these odds and ends."
+
+"I like them so much," I replied, carefully abstaining from looking 
+towards Mary Stuart.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Indeed I do; they are beautiful, and then they remind me of our 
+Gallery--you remember our Gallery, Cornelius?"
+
+"Yes, I think I remember something of the kind,--you were an odd little 
+girl, Daisy."
+
+"I wish you would explain these sketches to me."
+
+He sat down by me; leaned one arm on the back of my chair, and, with the 
+hand that was free, turned over the sketches, giving a few words of brief 
+but graphic explanation to each. He allowed me to admire them, but made 
+no comment of his own. At length the pleasant task was ended; Cornelius 
+rose and put away the portfolio; I was thinking with inward self-
+gratulation that he had forgotten all about the picture, when to my 
+dismay he said very quietly--
+
+"Daisy, you have not told me what you think of my Mary Stuart."
+
+"Have I not?"
+
+"No, indeed. Whilst Kate was here you looked at it, but never opened your 
+lips; when I came back, I found you sitting with your back to it, intent 
+over these sketches, mere foolish trifles, Daisy, with which I relaxed my 
+mind from graver labours; so pray forget them, look at Mary Stuart, and 
+give me, without flattery of course, your candid opinion."
+
+Here was a predicament! I came out with--
+
+"A picture of yours cannot but be good, Cornelius."
+
+"Thank you, Daisy, but that is stating a fact, not giving me your 
+opinion."
+
+"I dare not give an opinion."
+
+"Very modest; but you know whether you like a thing or not; _ergo_, do 
+you or do you not like Mary Stuart?"
+
+Oh for a good genius to suggest some reply that might please him and not 
+violate truth! All I could find was a foolish "Of course not," which 
+prolonged, but did not elude the difficulty.
+
+"Do you like it or not?" he repeated.
+
+I did not reply.
+
+"A plain yes or no, Daisy."
+
+"Well, then,--no," I exclaimed, desperately.
+
+Cornelius whistled.
+
+"She is grown up," he said; "not like my picture! decidedly she is grown 
+up! Why, the other one would have admired any daub I painted!"
+
+Tears of vexation rose to my eyes; he stooped, and smiled in my face.
+
+"Why should you be annoyed when I am not?" he asked, very kindly.
+
+"I am mortified at my bad taste, Cornelius."
+
+"Then since you are conscious of bad taste, why don't you like Mary 
+Stuart?"
+
+"I can't help it; I am afraid I have no feeling, for when I look at Mary 
+Stuart I feel as if I did not care whether they put her to death or not."
+
+"How hard-hearted you must be! but go on; what else?"
+
+"Nothing else, Cornelius, save that I fear I don't care about Mary Stuart 
+at all."
+
+I looked at him rather shyly; he was laughing.
+
+"You are as odd a girl as you were an odd child," he said, with his look 
+bent on my face; "why, Daisy, that is just my case; I did not care about 
+Mary Stuart whilst I painted her, and, poor thing! I don't care much 
+about her now."
+
+"Don't you, Cornelius?" I asked, astonished.
+
+"No, history may be a fine, grand thing, but give me lowly beings and 
+quiet feelings. Oh! Daisy, I wonder now that disappointed ambition ever 
+made me bend the knee to the false goddess, success, who moreover always 
+leaves me in the lurch; but our life is made up of mistakes; we stumble 
+at every step, and the last thing we learn is to be true to ourselves."
+
+"Were your other pictures like this, Cornelius?"
+
+"Oh, Daisy, they were such charming things." he replied, sighing; "but 
+Count Morsikoff wanted them, I wanted his rubles; but, never mind, I 
+shall repeat them, and show Kate that my journey to Italy has not been 
+quite lost."
+
+"Why did you let her admire Mary Stuart?"
+
+"How could I undeceive her? I had brought the unfortunate thing as a 
+proof of my industry, not to encumber the walls of the Academy, or for 
+her to admire; but when she looked at it with tears of admiration, what 
+was I to do?"
+
+"To show her the sketches."
+
+"She won't care about them, Daisy."
+
+"Try her."
+
+I opened the door, and called her in eagerly. But the event proved the 
+correctness of her brother's conjecture. Miss O'Reilly thought the 
+sketches very pretty things, but she hoped Cornelius had not lost too 
+much time with them. It would be such a pity, considering how admirably 
+fitted he was for historical compositions. He winced, but did not 
+contradict. She proceeded--
+
+"I have been thinking of such a series of subjects: what do you say to 
+the battle of Clontarf, or to Bannockburn? something to make one feel as 
+if that grand lyric of Burns were being sung in the distance."
+
+Cornelius stroked his chin and looked puzzled. 
+
+She resumed: "Perhaps you would like a subject more pathetic,--The 
+Children in the Tower, eh, Cornelius?"
+
+"I have been thinking of something more domestic."
+
+Kate's face expressed the deepest disappointment.
+
+"History is a grand thing, Cornelius."
+
+"And Home is lovely."
+
+She said he knew best, but that he would never surpass Mary Stuart.
+
+Cornelius did not reply, and put away the portfolio with a smile at me. 
+Then we all three went out into the garden, where we lingered until the 
+noon-day heat sent us in: that is to say, Kate and I, for Cornelius, 
+accustomed to an Italian sun, remained out, walking up and down the 
+gravel path, and every now and then making long pauses of rest by the 
+back parlour window, near which we sat sewing. Once Kate, called away by 
+some domestic concern, left us; he stood on the side facing me, his elbow 
+resting on the low window; he looked long, then smiled.
+
+"Well!" I said.
+
+"Well," he replied, "it would make a pretty picture; you sitting there 
+sewing by the window, with the cool shady back-ground of the room, a 
+glimpse of the bright sunny garden beyond."
+
+"And you standing there looking in, leaning on the window-sill, and the 
+warm sunshine upon you, Cornelius."
+
+"Yes," said the pleasant voice of Kate, now coming in, "that would 
+complete the picture." Then she suddenly added, "Cornelius, are you not 
+tired?"
+
+"Not at all; I rested in London, you know."
+
+"Go and take a walk then."
+
+"What for, Kate?"
+
+"Go out sketching."
+
+"I feel very comfortable here."
+
+"Go, I tell you; Daisy will show you the way; she knows Leigh by heart, 
+and, for England, it is pretty enough."
+
+Cornelius looked at me and I looked at Kate. She smoothed my hair and 
+answered the look: "No, child, I can't go; bless you, my hands are full 
+of domestic concerns, so make haste and get ready. Stay, I shall go with 
+you."
+
+She accompanied me to my room, opened my drawers and drew forth a white 
+muslin frock.
+
+"Put that on," she said; "do not open your eyes, but do as I bid you."
+
+"If we walk in the grass--" I began.
+
+"You will soil it,--what matter?"
+
+"But why put it on? it is my best."
+
+"Bless the child! don't you see that I tell you to put it on because it 
+is your best, or rather because you look best in it? Don't be dull, 
+Midge, I want Cornelius to like you and your looks too."
+
+There was no resisting an argument so plainly stated. Still when Kate 
+went down on some mysterious errand into the kitchen, and I hastened to 
+the parlour with my scarf on my arm and my bonnet in my hand, in order 
+not to keep Cornelius waiting, I was under a nervous apprehension that he 
+would think me very vain and fond of dress. He did look at me, and very 
+fixedly too. I exclaimed, deprecatingly--
+
+"I knew you would think it odd to go and put on a white dress for a walk 
+in the country, but Kate would have it so."
+
+He laughed, and gave me an amused look.
+
+"What a strange girl you are, Daisy! I never noticed your dress. I was 
+studying the effect of that bright sunlight on your hair, and thinking 
+how it made it look more rich and deep than the hues Titian loved to 
+paint."
+
+It was my turn to laugh.
+
+"How like an artist, to be always thinking of effects!"
+
+"Now don't stand giggling and chatting there," said Miss O'Reilly, 
+appearing with an ample provision of sandwiches neatly packed up, "but go 
+out whilst the day is still pleasant. Cornelius, take these; you are to 
+stay out the whole day. Daisy, why don't you take his arm? you are tall 
+enough for that now."
+
+He held out his arm for me with a smile, and as I took it and looked up 
+into his face, I felt a proud and happy girl. The time had been when the 
+hand of Cornelius was as much as I could claim, and I longed in vain for 
+the present privilege and honour.
+
+We left Rock Cottage by the garden gate. As we walked arm in arm down the 
+path that led to the beach, I saw Miss O'Reilly stand on the door-step, 
+and, shading her eyes with her hand, look after us, until the winding of 
+the path concealed us from her sight.
+ 
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ 
+We went down to the beach. A deep line of shade still extended at the 
+foot of the cliffs; the sky had not a cloud; the sea lay calm beneath; it 
+looked one of Nature's happy days. I said so to Cornelius, adding, in the 
+fulness of my joy, "How kind of Kate to tell you to take me!"
+
+"Yes," he replied, wilfully misunderstanding me, "she always was a good 
+sister."
+
+"Now, Cornelius, you know very well she did it to please me."
+
+He smiled without looking at me.
+
+"One to please you, Daisy, and a great deal more to please me. You will 
+ascertain it thus: state that D is to C in K's estimation, what 1 is to 
+_x_ in figures: then multiply by C (that's me) and divide by D (that's 
+you), and you will know all about it."
+
+"I don't want to multiply by you and to divide by myself, to know why 
+Kate told you to take me."
+
+"She's as obstinate as the other one," said Cornelius, stopping short to 
+look at me.
+
+I replied, "Is she?" and we went on, until a promontory of steep rock 
+barred our passage.
+
+"We must cross that," I said.
+
+"Humph! Can you manage it, Daisy?"
+
+"Can you, Cornelius?"
+
+He told me I was very saucy. I laughed and ran up the rocks so fast, he 
+could scarcely overtake me. When we reached the highest peak, we stood 
+still, and thence looked down on a wild narrow spot below, shut in 
+between cliff and wave. Long ridges of sharp rocks, stretching out far 
+into the sea, and impassable when the tide was full, enclosed it on 
+either side. The cliffs at the back stood steep and perpendicular within 
+a few yards of the breaking surf, but the strata of earth that ran 
+through them in slant and undulating lines, gave them a distant and 
+receding aspect, which, like the glamour of enchantment, vanished with a 
+closer view; then they suddenly rose on the eye, near, stern, and 
+threatening. Undermined by the high spring tides, rocks had fallen from 
+above, and now lay thickly strewn about the beach, as if tossed there by 
+the sea in angry or sportive mood. From the deep gap thus made in the 
+cliff descended a narrow stream, which spread on a flat advancing ledge 
+of rock, fell again a wide and clear stream of sparkling water, into a 
+basin which itself had made, and thence glided away with a low splash and 
+faint murmur, through worn-out old stones green with slime, until it lost 
+itself for ever in the great rush of the wide waters.
+
+We descended silently; when we stood within the enclosed space, Cornelius 
+said--
+
+"Of all wild and barren spots this is the gem."
+
+"It is sterile, Cornelius, and that is its beauty."
+
+It was indeed a desolate place. Shell-fish in serried ranks, and weeds in 
+dark and slippery masses, clung to the sea-washed rocks. A few crabs and 
+shrimps had remained captive in the shallow pools of water, where they 
+waited the returning tide. Long algae, all wet and tangled, and light 
+feathery sprigs, delicate enough to be wreathed in the green hair of pale 
+mermaids, were strewn on the beach, but other tokens of life and 
+vegetation there were none. The sea breeze, which moaned along that wall 
+of rock and cliff, fanned and stirred not one blade of yellowish grass on 
+its way. Here ceased the freshness and verdure of earth; here began a 
+nature other than that of the poets, yet not without its own beauty, 
+contrasts, and harmonies.
+
+"It is grand, but wonderfully dreary," said Cornelius, "let us go back, 
+Daisy."
+
+"Not yet. Do you see that hollow nook perched up there between earth and 
+sky, close by the fountain?"
+
+"Well, what about it?"
+
+"There is a very fine prospect from it."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I often go there."
+
+"You!" he exclaimed, with an astonished look that amused me, "and pray 
+how do you get there?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+I sprang up a steep path in the rock; every step of it was familiar to 
+me; I had reached the hollow, and was laughing down at Cornelius, before 
+he recovered from his amazement. He followed me lightly, but chid me all 
+the way.
+
+"What could tempt you to do such a mad thing and to come to such an eyrie 
+as this?" he asked as he stood by me in the wide hollow and under the 
+broad shelter of an overhanging rock.
+
+"Look at that glorious prospect, Cornelius," I replied, sitting down and 
+making him sit down by me.
+
+I remember well both the day and the spot. The blue sky, the sea of a 
+blue still more deep, the yellow beach, the brown wall of rock, gave back 
+the same ardent glow; the place seemed enchanted into the quietness of 
+noon, save when some solitary raven suddenly left a cleft in the rock 
+and, descending with a swoop, hovered a black speck over the beach in 
+search of prey. We sat pleasantly within reach of the cool spray of the 
+spring; a breeze from above brought us the sweet scent of unseen fields 
+of gorse in bloom; below us the sea boiled in white and angry surf 
+amongst the rocks, and thence spread away in seemingly unbroken 
+smoothness, until it met and mingled with the distant horizon.
+
+"What do you think of my eyrie, Cornelius?" I said, after a long pause.
+
+"So you come here often?" was his reply.
+
+"Yes, very often."
+
+"What can attract you to such a wild spot?"
+
+"Its wildness."
+
+He looked me in the face and smiled. I resumed--
+
+"I was born by the sea, Cornelius, and I love it, ay, very dearly; this 
+barren spot seems pleasanter to me than any sunny landscape. I could 
+listen for hours to the wind sweeping down the coast and the dash of the 
+heaving waves. Could not you?"
+
+"No," he answered, frankly, "sea-side is to me the grand historic style 
+of nature. I like the calm, homely woodlands and quiet valleys."
+
+"Yes, but you are going to sketch that little fall of water?"
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"For what else did I bring you to see it? Let me go down first, and take 
+my hand."
+
+I held it out to him; he tossed it back to me with a laugh.
+
+"Do you imagine I want it?" he asked, looking piqued; "I have gone 
+sketching in mountain-passes where there were paths more steep than in 
+any English Leigh, let me tell you."
+
+He insisted on preceding me. It amazed me to see how he kept looking 
+back, looking to my steps. He reached the bottom first, and stood still 
+to receive me. Spite of his remonstrative "Daisy!" I ran down the rest of 
+the way. I paused on reaching the last ledge, and standing a little above 
+him, I uttered a triumphant "There!" then lightly stepped down to where 
+he stood.
+
+"Yes," he replied admiringly, "I see: your head is steady, your foot as 
+light and sure as that of any mountain maid. Ah! if I had but had you for 
+a companion, when I was sketching alone in the Alps!"
+
+"Will you have me now, and though these are not the Alps, sketch."
+
+He sat down on one of the fallen rocks, opened his sketch-book, and began 
+to draw the little fountain and the stern crags around. I sat by him to 
+watch his progress; he made little; he was ever looking round at me, and 
+breaking off into speech that had nothing to do with sketching.
+
+"How old are you?" he once asked.
+
+"Seventeen; ten years younger than you are."
+
+He resumed his task, but his pencil was soon idle again; his eyes once 
+more sought my face.
+
+"Am I too near?" said I, "shall I sit behind?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"What are you thinking of?"
+
+"I am thinking that it is getting very hot."
+
+His look sought the downs above. I said, I knew green nooks such as he 
+would like. So we wound our way up the heights, and were soon in the open 
+country. The scenery around Leigh was soft, woodland, pastoral, and no 
+more. Yet Cornelius seemed to like those green slopes, fertile fields, 
+and wide pastures; those shallow valleys, white homesteads, and fragrant 
+orchards looking down from above, with now and then, in the open space 
+between the dark outskirt of low woodland, and the golden green of sunlit 
+scope opposite, a glimpse of azure hills melting soft and indistinct on 
+the far horizon. But though he confessed it was very pretty, he found 
+nothing to sketch.
+
+"Let me take you to an old ruin further on," I said, zealously, "it is so 
+picturesque!"
+
+"How much further on, Daisy?"
+
+"Only three or four miles."
+
+"A mere trifle! but suppose we stay here?"
+
+We stood in a hollow, sheltered by a few stunted trees.
+
+"There is nothing to sketch here," I said.
+
+"So much the better; I want rest."
+
+"Then I know of a better resting-place close by."
+
+He submitted to my guidance, and I led him into an open plain, exposed to 
+all the heat of a burning sun.
+
+"Why, Daisy," said Cornelius, looking round, "what made you come here? 
+There is not a hedge: no, not so much as a poor little bush. Let us go 
+back."
+
+I pointed to a group of trees, partly hidden by a rising of the ground.
+
+"It is there," I said.
+
+He gave a look of regret to the shady hollow we were leaving behind us, 
+and followed me over the scorching plain. At length the group of trees 
+was reached. I entered it first; then, as he followed, I turned round and 
+looked to enjoy his surprise, for we now stood on the grassy banks of the 
+clear little stream which passed through Leigh; trees flung their shadow 
+above; waters flowed beneath; silence and freshness filled the whole 
+place.
+
+"Well!" I said triumphantly.
+
+"Well," he replied, "it is a pleasant place, that is true enough."
+
+And he threw himself down on the grass with evident delight. It was a 
+pleasant place. Many a day has passed since I beheld it; yet if I but 
+close my eyes with my hand over them, I seem to see it again as I saw it 
+then on that summer noon, when I went out walking with Cornelius.
+
+It had the first charm which such a spot need have--perfect solitude. You 
+might sit or linger for hours, unheeded and undisturbed in that green 
+nook, shut in between the dark mass of trees which separated it from the 
+open country, and the stream on which their heavy shadow ever fell. 
+Beyond extended a wide and ancient park, a wild-looking desert of dark 
+heath and high green fern, with sombre groups of trees that seemed the 
+vanguards of aged forests, and paths deepening down like Alpine dells and 
+ravines. I took off my bonnet and scarf, and fastening them to the 
+bending branch of an old, hoary willow, I sat down by Cornelius. The 
+sandwiches were produced, and done full justice to; but when the repast 
+was over, Cornelius exclaimed--
+
+"Kate might as well have given us a stone or osier bottle of some sort. 
+We have nothing to drink."
+
+"Nothing! why there is a whole river."
+
+"Water!" he replied with a slight grimace; "but how are we to get at even 
+that?"
+
+I did not answer, but clasping the trunk of the willow with one arm, I 
+bent over the stream to dip my other hand into it. With a start of alarm 
+Cornelius held me back.
+
+"That river, as you call it, is deep and swift, Daisy. How can you be so 
+imprudent?"
+
+"There is no danger where there is no fear. Unless that willow-tree 
+breaks I am safe."
+
+He persisted however in holding me fast with his arm passed around me, as 
+I stooped again, and brought forth my hand full of water, as clear and 
+sparkling as crystal.
+
+"Look!" I said, "and tell me if you ever saw such water, even in Italy?"
+
+"The true test lies in the taste."
+
+He raised my hand to his lips, drank the little it contained, then said 
+with a smile--
+
+"Rather a shallow cup, Daisy."
+
+"Well, but did you ever taste such water?"
+
+"Never--it is as exquisite--"
+
+"I told you so."
+
+"As exquisite as water can be, which is not saying much."
+
+Necessity however compelled him to have more of it; he brought it up 
+himself, for he positively refused to let me try again. Our meal being 
+now fairly over, I wanted him to indulge in a siesta, a habit which he 
+acknowledged having taken during the hot noons of Italy; but he would 
+not.
+
+"I do not feel in the least inclined for it, Daisy; pleasant though it 
+may be to sleep away here an hour or two, I fancy it must be more 
+pleasant still to lie awake and dream."
+
+It was indeed the very place for day-dreams. It lay in a gentle curve of 
+the stream, and far as the eye might look it could see above nothing but 
+the overhanging branches of old and majestic trees, with sudden glimpses 
+of bright blue sky, and below the same trees and sky ever imaged again in 
+glassy depths. The reflection was so distinct and vivid that the water 
+almost seemed to flow between two forest solitudes, one above the other 
+beneath the wave, but both beautiful, wild, and lonely, and yielding the 
+same delightful sense of coolness which shade and water always give.
+
+In the park beyond the sun shone with burning heat, and even the blue sky 
+had caught a golden glow; but here the breeze was pleasantly chill, the 
+trees sheltered us from its strength, and left us all its vivifying 
+freshness. It came every now and then, sending through my veins a thrill 
+of vague delight, for earth has many sounds and murmuring voices which 
+are to me a part of her beauty, and it woke them every one. The rustling 
+of leaves in the trees above blended with the faint ripple of the flowing 
+waters below; birds broke forth into snatches of song, or flew away with 
+flapping of wings; then there were strange undefined sounds of short 
+twittering, low monotonous hum, and sudden splash mingling into nothing 
+continuous, ever interrupted and ever renewed, faint, indistinct, but 
+soft and soothing as a dream.
+
+And as I sat at the foot of the old willow, half bending forward and 
+looking at the stream which flowed almost beneath me, so steep was the 
+bank, and so near the edge did I sit, I felt as if its scarcely audible 
+murmur, as if its scarcely visible flow, were slowly wrapping me in a 
+dream of bliss. I was steeped in happiness; it was sweet, it was 
+delightful to know that Cornelius was come back, that he was sitting 
+there by me. I did not look at him; there was no need. Besides, strangely 
+enough, it seemed more pleasant by far to feel his presence in my heart, 
+than to gaze on him for hours with my eyes. He had been two long years 
+away--severed by the sea, by Alps, by strange skies, strange lands, 
+strange languages, and now, if I wished, I had but to put forth my hand 
+to touch him as he sat by me beneath the same shade, gazing on the same 
+clear brook. How he felt I know not; but I know that gradually my reverie 
+deepened, until at length external objects seemed to fade away, and I 
+remained sitting there gazing at the dark water, and fully conscious but 
+of two things--the presence of Cornelius, and the low gliding of the 
+stream. Happy day!--happy moments! I felt as if I could have sat there, 
+even as the waters flowed--for ever.
+
+The sound of a tramp, swift and light, on the heath of the park, made me 
+look up; a herd of deer, with heads erect and startled looks, were 
+floating past like a vision. They vanished down a beaten track leading to 
+some favourite haunt. I looked at Cornelius, and smiled; but he had 
+heard, he had seen nothing. He sat by me on the grassy bank, half-leaning 
+on one elbow; his brow rested on the palm of his hand; his dark and heavy 
+hair partly shaded his face. I followed the direction of his glance; it 
+was fixed on the stream, not with abstracted or dreamy gaze, but as if 
+beholding something there that charmed attention irresistibly. I looked 
+down rather curiously, and saw nothing, save my own face reflected in the 
+placid wave, and seeming, Oread-like to bend forth from a background of 
+dark foliage. He detected my change of attitude, for he looked up 
+immediately. I laughed, and said--
+
+"I know what you were doing, Cornelius."
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"You were studying 'effects' again."
+
+"Precisely," he replied, smiling; "effects of light and shadow."
+
+"Are you always studying effects, Cornelius?"
+
+"Whenever I can get them. To look is the delight, ay, the very life, of 
+an artist."
+
+The words awoke within me a train of thoughts that made my heart beat and 
+my blood flow with a warmer glow. I could not keep silent. I looked up 
+and said--
+
+"Oh! Cornelius, what a great painter you will yet be! How much fame and 
+honour await you! Well, why do you smile so?" I added, somewhat annoyed: 
+"is it not true?"
+
+"Because, as you speak, your cheeks flush, and your eyes kindle. You look 
+like a young sybil just now, Daisy."
+
+"A sybil in white muslin!" I replied, laughing in his face; but 
+remembering how disrespectful this was, I became suddenly grave again. He 
+seemed anything but offended, and listened like one whose ear has caught 
+a pleasant sound.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "I think this is the first time I ever heard you 
+laugh outright. I remember your smile, but not your laugh. Oh, Daisy, are 
+you sure you are the same? When I hear your voice, I think of my pale, 
+sickly child. When I look, I am perplexed to see a tall, slender girl--
+fair as a lily, fresh as a rose, demure as a young Quakeress, yet who 
+looks kindly at me, like an old acquaintance. Speak!--say something that 
+will throw a sort of bridge from the past to the present."
+
+"The only bridge I can give you is, that you have been two years away; 
+that I am now always well, instead of being always ill; and that, as I 
+began at the wrong end, by being dull as a child, I now mean to make up 
+for the lost time by being as merry and as mad as I can."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"You have already asked me. Subtract ten years from your own age and you 
+will know."
+
+"What is ten years?"
+
+"A mere trifle, like the walk awhile ago."
+
+"Then in another year you will be eighteen."
+
+"And you twenty-eight."
+
+"You are very tenacious of that ten years' difference," he said a little 
+impatiently. "What is age--any one's age? I don't care about yours; all I 
+care about," he said smiling, "is to find you so changed from what you 
+were."
+
+"In one or two things I certainly am changed, as you will perceive, if 
+you close your eyes and promise not to look."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+I would not tell him, so he complied, looking rather curious. I rose so 
+softly that he could not hear me; the stream was neither wide nor deep; 
+besides at this spot it suddenly grew narrower; I lightly sprang over; as 
+I alighted safely I said--
+
+"You may look now."
+
+He turned pale on seeing me on the other bank.
+
+"Daisy," he cried, "how could you do such a thing!"
+
+"Could you not do it, Cornelius? it really is not so difficult. Try."
+
+He refused, and said he was very angry. I laughed.
+
+"No, Cornelius," I said, "I see in your face you are only surprised. I 
+mean to astonish you still more; you said you had never heard me laugh, I 
+am at least certain that you never heard me sing. Pray open your ears, 
+for I mean to sing you a song."
+
+I sat down in the high ferns, so high that they almost hid me, and I sang 
+him the song of her who loved the lad at the sign of the Blue Bell. He 
+heard me, his chin in his hand, his look on my face; seeing me so 
+fearless, his own uneasiness had vanished.
+
+"Well!" I said.
+
+"Well," he replied, smiling, "it is as wild and sweet a ditty and as 
+pleasant a voice as one need wish to hear on a summer noon. Sing me 
+something else."
+
+"No, it is your turn now."
+
+He lay down at the foot of the willow, and in his clear rich voice, he 
+sang me that pleasant song of Burns--it had always been a favourite of 
+his--of which the burden is 'Bonnie lassie, will ye go to the birks of 
+Aberfeldy?'
+
+I listened, thinking how delightful it was to hear that voice again. When 
+its last tones had died away, I thanked him, and said--
+
+"This is not Aberfeldy, but we have the birks."
+
+"And the bonnie lassie too."
+
+"To be sure; but will you just move a bit?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I want to get back again, and the spot where you are lying is the only 
+convenient one."
+
+"Thank you for the information. I was wondering what sort of punishment I 
+could devise for you: it is now settled; you shall stay there."
+
+"And be taken up for trespassing?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Or for poaching?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+At length he relented, but said I was to sing him another song; then 
+another, and so on, until I had sung him every song and ballad I knew. 
+The intervals of rest were filled up with talking, laughing, and jesting 
+at one another across the stream. I had never felt so merry, seldom so 
+happy; yet once I could not help observing remorsefully--
+
+"And Kate, who is alone at home, and thinks you are so busy sketching!"
+
+"Why did she make me take you with me?"
+
+"Do I prevent you from sketching, Cornelius?"
+
+"Of course you do; but for you I should have travelled for miles, and 
+come home at night groaning beneath the load of crags, lonely fountains, 
+cottages, farm-houses, snug little woods, ruins, etc. Instead of which, 
+here I am lying on my back, looking up at trees and sky, and losing all 
+my precious time in listening to 'Auld Robin Gray,' 'The Exile of Erin,' 
+'Charlie, you're my darling,' and I know not what else. Oh, Daisy, Daisy! 
+are you not ashamed of yourself?--sing me another song."
+
+"Indeed, Cornelius, I do not know another."
+
+"Then I must have mercy on you."
+
+He moved away, but kept a keen, watchful look fastened on me. There was 
+however no need to fear. In a second I was by his side. He chid me for 
+form's sake, then smiled, stroked my hair, and passing his arm around me, 
+said--
+
+"The other one could not have done as much, could she, Daisy?"
+
+"What other one, Cornelius?"
+
+"The one I carried in my arms from Leigh to Ryde."
+
+"No, Cornelius, she could not, and that was why Providence sent her so 
+kind a friend."
+
+I forget his answer, but I remember that we sat again on the grassy banks 
+and lingered there until the little brook shone red and burning in the 
+light of the broad round sun that slowly sank down behind us, filling 
+with fiery glow the space between earth and sky.
+
+Oh! surely it was a lovely thought in the worshippers of southern lands, 
+to link an act of prayer with the close of day and the setting of the 
+sun. If ever there was an hour for thanksgiving, praise, and adoration, 
+it was this. When should we, poor travellers towards the dark goal of 
+time, find fitter moment to pause, take breath after the journeying of 
+another day, and give a look back to the past, a hope to the future, an 
+aspiration to heaven? At that moment meet, to part almost as soon as met, 
+the splendour and beauty of the day and the soothing solemnity of eve. We 
+can give thanks at once for the gladness that is going, and for the 
+silent rest of coming night. It is the very time for intense and brief 
+worship; for aspiration purer than prayer; for the _Sursum corda_. I did 
+raise my heart in that hour. Was the word too earthly? I know not; God 
+who gave us hearts that love so warmly alone can tell; but as I sat there 
+by Cornelius, my head, in attitude familiar of old, resting on his 
+shoulder, I thanked Him who had given him to me, for the gift, and 
+blessed Him who had sent him back for the return.
+
+At length we rose, and left the spot where half a day had passed in 
+enjoyment so pure. We followed a green path where we met, and soon 
+outstripped a friendly couple whom we left, slowly lingering in the cool 
+shadow of the winding lane. They looked like lovers, or a newly married 
+pair--young, happy, oblivious of time, and heeding not the passing of 
+hours. Cornelius gave them a stealthy look, and repressed a half smile. I 
+smiled without disguise, for in the gladness of my heart I thought--"the 
+lady may be fair, and the lover may be devoted, but she cannot be more 
+happy than I am now--to feel within mine the arm of Cornelius; and sure 
+am I, that he whom she seems to like so well, is not half so good, ay, 
+nor half so handsome, as he who reared me."
+
+And thus, arm-in-arm, we walked on through landscape scenes that would 
+have gladdened the genial heart of Rubens. The warmth of the setting sun, 
+the rich verdure of the undulating plains, the herds of fair cattle 
+grazing by the green banks and full waters of a calm river, made one feel 
+as if gazing on a land of untroubled peace and untold abundance.
+
+But, oh! how glorious o'er the sea, was the hour thus beautiful on land. 
+We reached the extremity of the downs as the sun began to dip in the 
+broad ocean. Blue, green, purple, and burning gold glanced through every 
+wave; the receding coast slowly vanished through glittering mists; the 
+masts of distant ships rose on the golden horizon like the turreted 
+castle of some enchanted region. As we descended a winding path that 
+gently led to the beach, the sun set and the glorious pageantry suddenly 
+vanished. The first pale stars glittered from the depths of the grey sky; 
+the sea looked of a darker and colder blue, and returned to her 
+fathomless bed with a faint murmur; a chill breeze rose, swept along the 
+coast, then died away again; on all things silence set, and the high arch 
+of heaven rose deep and solemn over the plain of the receding sea. Oh! 
+brief life of ours, how beautiful is thy dwelling-place! How deeply did I 
+then feel in my heart, the presence of that Great Spirit which broods 
+over and hallows all it has given to the eye of man to scan!
+
+We silently walked homeward along the beach, now grey, quiet, and lonely. 
+A low, large moon hung over the silent downs, from which even the 
+melancholy cry of the plover had died away. Everything seemed subdued to 
+repose, and even in the low rush of the breaking waves, as they rose and 
+fell ever again on the shore, there was a murmur inexpressibly soft and 
+soothing to the ear. We did not speak until we reached the foot of the 
+cliff on which Rock Cottage rose. A light burned in one of the windows 
+and spoke of pleasant welcome. Cornelius looked up and said--
+
+"It is a wild-looking place, quite an eagle's nest, and yet there is a 
+strange sense of home about it."
+
+We went up the path, and found the little wooden gate unlocked as usual. 
+Miss O'Reilly came out to meet us, with a shawl thrown over her head. She 
+seized on her brother; I slipped away to my room. When I came down again, 
+in the grey dress after all, I found Kate presiding over a tea-table 
+covered with provisions sufficient for a whole legion of famished 
+travellers, and Cornelius laughing at the extent of her preparations. 
+When the meal was over she took up his sketch-book.
+
+"Oh, Kate!" I cried, "don't look--it is such a shame--he would not sketch 
+at all; he began the little fountain and did not even finish it. Is it 
+not too bad?"
+
+She sat with the open sketch-book on her lap, but looking at us with a 
+pleased, happy smile.
+
+"Yes," she said at length, "it is a shame--but he will do better to-
+morrow."
+
+"Must we go out again to-morrow, Kate?" I asked, a little hesitatingly.
+
+"To be sure you must--that is, if you both liked it to-day well enough to 
+wish to begin again."
+
+I sat by him--he looked down--I looked up, and we exchanged a conscious 
+smile.
+
+"Yes," he said, laying his hand on my head; "I think we both found it a 
+pleasant day."
+
+"Delightful, Cornelius, delightful!" I exclaimed, with a warmth that made 
+Kate smile, brought a transient glow to his brow, and won me a tacit and 
+quiet pressure of the hand that was free. I only spoke as I felt. 
+Pleasant days I had known before and was to know again, but none in 
+which, oblivious of the past and heedless of the future, I surrendered 
+myself so freely to the charm of the present time. I laid it all to the 
+return of Cornelius. I had yet to learn from experience that this 
+singleness of enjoyment, this simplicity in receiving happiness, belong 
+almost exclusively to the pleasant season of youth, and--pity that it 
+should be so--only to its first fresh untroubled hours, before the coming 
+of grief or the wakening of passion.
+
+ 
+
+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.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ 
+
+I awoke the next morning with a severe headache; I rose and came down as 
+usual, thinking to hide it; scarcely, however, had I entered the front 
+parlour, when Cornelius asked what ailed me. "Only a headache," I 
+replied, carelessly; but he seemed filled with concern. He made me return 
+to my room where I slept for a few hours, but without feeling any better; 
+I then again went down to the parlour and lay on the sofa. Cornelius, who 
+according to his sister had gone up to listen at my door every ten 
+minutes--sat by me holding my hand.
+
+"How feverish she is!" he said to Kate.
+
+"There is twice as much fever in your blood as in that of Daisy," 
+decisively replied Miss O'Reilly.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, Cornelius," I said quietly, "I do not feel as if I 
+should realize the prediction of Dr. Mixton just yet."
+
+"Don't talk of that madman," exclaimed Cornelius, with a troubled face, 
+"he was mad; only fit for Bedlam."
+
+"It came into my head by chance, and, as one thought leads to another, I 
+thought, if I were going to die, I should ask two things of Cornelius. 
+That if he married and had daughters, he should call one of them Daisy. 
+Thus there would ever be something in his home to remind him of me; also 
+to bury me here at Leigh--"
+
+"Daisy, Daisy!" almost angrily interrupted Cornelius, "what do you mean? 
+I am not going to marry and have daughters; and to think of you as pale 
+and inanimate with the cold earth above you, is a sickening thought."
+
+He looked quite pale. I saw there was a deep and secret fear at his 
+heart, and indeed he showed it sufficiently; for as the day advanced and 
+my headache still continued to trouble me, he insisted, spite of my 
+entreaties and those of Kate, on going himself for a physician who 
+resided several miles off. I was touched to the heart by this proof of a 
+love so vigilant.
+
+"How kind he is," I said to Kate.
+
+"Kind! why surely child, you can see that he doats on you! Is he not 
+making a fool of himself, just because your head aches? Would he not go 
+distracted if anything were to happen to you? Oh, Midge! Midge!" she 
+added, with a half-stifled sigh, "don't you see you are the apple of his 
+eye?"
+
+As the heat of the day subsided, I felt suddenly better. The fresh sea-
+breeze could only do me good, so I went and sat on the bench at the end 
+of the garden, there to watch for the return of Cornelius whose road home 
+lay along the wide sweep of beach beneath me. For a long time I watched 
+in vain; at length I perceived a man's form slowly descending the cliffs; 
+I hastened in for my bonnet and scarf, and merely saying to Kate:
+
+"I see him coming," as I passed the parlour door, I was gone before she 
+could open her lips to object. When I reached the sands, I looked in vain 
+for Cornelius. I walked on, thinking he had seen me coming and stood 
+concealed in a cleft of the rocks, but my look searched every one of 
+their dark recesses, and nowhere could discover a token of his presence. 
+It was late, though the singular clearness of the air which prevails by 
+the sea-side, gave more light than belonged to the hour. I resolved to go 
+no further, but to give one more look and return. I climbed up a heap of 
+fallen rocks, and slowly began to scan the whole coast; it looked silent 
+and lonely in the pale light of a rising moon. I was preparing to descend 
+from my post of observation, when I started to perceive a shadow near 
+mine. I looked up and saw William Murray.
+
+"William!" I exclaimed, delighted, "William Murray! Oh, how glad I am to 
+see you again."
+
+He did not speak, but he took and held both my hands in his, and pressed 
+them warmly, looking down at me with a happy, smiling face.
+
+"God bless you!" he said, "God bless you, Daisy! I thought I should never 
+see you again."
+
+"Why so, William?" I asked, sitting down on a rock and making him sit 
+down by me.
+
+He hesitated as he replied:
+
+"Don't you know?"
+
+"O, William, what is it? You make my heart beat."
+
+"Why we have been wrecked in the Mediterranean. I am sorry to tell you so 
+abruptly; I thought you knew."
+
+He was safe before me; but we feel even the past perils of those we love. 
+I felt myself turning faint and pale. William seemed much moved; he 
+assured me that the danger had not been so very great, though in the hour 
+of peril he had indeed thought of me as of one he should see no more.
+
+"Oh, William!" I said, looking up, and allowing him again to take my 
+hands in his, "will you not leave that perilous life, and that dangerous 
+sea?"
+
+"I cannot, Daisy; why I am only here for two days; I shall not see much 
+of you before I am off again."
+
+"For long?"
+
+"A year," he replied, sighing.
+
+"How long have you been back?"
+
+"Two hours."
+
+"Why did you not come to me at once?"
+
+"Why did I wander up and down here, but to get a sight of you?"
+
+"Then it was you I took for Cornelius. You know he is come back. Oh, 
+William! you must call on us and see him. How much you will like him!"
+
+"And how fond you are of him, Daisy, said William, in a low tone.
+
+"Why, of course, I am; and he deserves it."
+
+"Ay, that he does," he warmly replied. "You know, Daisy, I always said he 
+was a good man."
+
+"He is a good man, for he does good actions, and never seems to know it. 
+He is a great man--for he has genius, which is a great gift; and," I 
+added, with a smile, "he is a handsome man, too, William."
+
+"There are some very fine men amongst those Irish," gravely replied 
+William; "and they wear well too. There's our captain--Captain MacMahon--
+who is upwards of fifty, but the most splendid fellow I ever saw--six 
+foot six: then such shoulders and such lungs. He does not roar like 
+Johnstone, or scream like Philipps; but he just opens his mouth, and lets 
+his voice out as it were. Then his fists--you should see his fists, 
+Daisy!"
+
+I was much amused, and replied:
+
+"I fear Cornelius is not quite equal to Captain MacMahon, yet I think you 
+will like him, William."
+
+"This is the second time you say so."
+
+"Because I know it--just as I know that he will be delighted with you."
+
+William gave me a look, half shy, half pleased, and muttered something 
+that sounded very like:
+
+"Did _I_ care for him?"
+
+"No," I replied, amused at the question, "not at all. How can I care for 
+a friend who leaves me to go and get wrecked?"
+
+"Not at all, Daisy," he echoed; "not at all."
+
+He stooped, and looked very eagerly into my face. I drew back with a 
+laugh that was checked by a voice observing behind me:
+
+"Daisy, what are you doing here at this hour?"
+
+I turned round--it was Cornelius. The moonlight fell full on his pale and 
+angry face. I rose, without answering; 1 felt--and, no doubt, I looked--
+like a culprit. He gave me a glance in which sadness and severity 
+blended: then, as it taking pity on my confusion, he silently held out 
+his arm to me. As I took it, I attempted a justification, and said:
+
+"I took William for you, Cornelius, and came out to meet you. He is Miss 
+Murray's nephew, you know, and I had not seen him for months. Did you 
+come for me from home? I am sorry--very sorry, Cornelius."
+
+I sought his look, but vainly; it was fastened on William, who had risen, 
+and now stood before us. Cornelius eyed him from head to foot, with a 
+keen and scrutinising gaze, which the young man returned. Neither spoke--
+there was an evident want of cordiality in the silent glances they 
+exchanged. I began to feel uncomfortable; my sense of uneasiness 
+increased when Cornelius turned towards me, and said coldly:
+
+"I am sorry to hurry you away, Daisy, but Kate is very anxious."
+
+And without taking the least notice of William, or seeming to think that 
+I could have another word to say to him, he made me turn homewards. I 
+felt so disconcerted at his displeasure, that I neither opened my lips, 
+nor attempted to resist; but, when we had walked on together for a few 
+minute, I gathered courage to say:
+
+"I must go back to bid him good evening, Cornelius."
+
+I disengaged my arm from his, and lightly ran back to the spot where we 
+had left William, and where he still stood looking after us with folded 
+arms.
+
+"Good night, William," I said, holding out my hand.
+
+He did not take it, but replied in a tone overflowing with reproach:
+
+"Why did you deceive me, Daisy?"
+
+"Deceive you, William!"
+
+"Why did you pretend to care for me when you are so wrapped up in 
+another, that, from the moment he comes up, you have neither speech nor 
+look for me?"
+
+"I have left him to come and bid you good night, and by way of thanks, 
+you accuse me of deceiving you. How, and about what?"
+
+"What do you call speaking of him as if he were your grandfather, when I 
+don't believe he is a bit older than I am?"
+
+"He is twenty-seven. But what about his age?"
+
+"I don't care about his age, nor about his looks either," replied 
+William, with a scornful laugh. "You may think him handsome if you like--
+I do not."
+
+I felt offended, and replied, shortly:
+
+"I never told you Cornelius was old. It was you chose to compare an 
+elegant young man, of twenty-seven, to a coarse sea-captain of fifty, not 
+I. I might add that your remarks are very childish, but I do not want to 
+speak unkindly. Good night, William. I trust that when I come here to-
+morrow morning, I shall find you in a better temper."
+
+I turned away; he followed me.
+
+"Will you really come?" he asked, submissively.
+
+I replied, 
+
+"Yes," and hastened away to join Cornelius, who was coming to meet me 
+with a face so overcast, that I saw I was again at fault.
+
+"I am so sorry to have brought you back!" I said, forestalling 
+accusation. "I thought you would go on."
+
+Cornelius stopped short--we were once more walking homewards--to give me 
+an amazed look, and say in a half indignant tone:
+
+"Go on, and leave you alone at this hour with a strange young man!"
+
+"He is not strange," I replied, feeling the blush he could not see; "I 
+have known him since we were both children; and Kate can tell you he is 
+only a boy."
+
+"A boy scarcely younger than I am," pointedly replied Cornelius.
+
+I thought it odd that both he and William should come to conclusions so 
+similar with regard to their respective ages, but I did not venture to 
+reply. Not another word was spoken until we reached the foot of the cliff 
+on which rose our home; then, from the garden above was heard the anxious 
+voice of Kate, exclaiming:
+
+"Have you found her, Cornelius?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "she is quite safe."
+
+I was dismayed at this proof of the uneasiness I had made them feel. Kate 
+received me very sharply. "I am astonished at you," she said, "to choose 
+the very moment when you are troubled with a headache, and Cornelius is 
+gone for the physician, to run down to the sands!"
+
+"You know, Kate, I was better; besides I thought I saw him coming, and 
+went to meet him; but it proved to be William Murray."
+
+"The young bear--what brought him back?"
+
+"He has been wrecked."
+
+"Nonsense! wrecked! he has been spinning a yarn to you, Daisy."
+
+"I never yet knew William to tell an untruth," I replied, a little 
+indignantly.
+
+"Truth or not, were you to make us anxious just to listen to the stories 
+of that boy. Cornelius has come back from Italy with banditti notions; 
+and he would have it that some ill-looking fellows, whom he met as he was 
+going, had lingered on the beach until dusk to waylay you. So off he ran 
+like a madman. Look at him. See how pale he is still!"
+
+Cornelius, who had lingered behind, entered the parlour as his sister 
+spoke; my heart smote me to see that he was deadly pale. He sat down by 
+the table, leaned his elbow upon it, and rested his brow on the palm of 
+his hand, so that his face was shaded from the light.
+
+"Cornelius, what ails you?" asked Kate. 
+
+"I am tired," he answered, without looking up. 
+
+"Dr. Reeves was out, so I went for Dr. Simpson." 
+
+"Why that is three miles further off." 
+
+"Just so, that is what tired me. He too was out." 
+
+Kate gave me a reproachful look; but indeed there was no need; my 
+conscience troubled me sorely for the heedlessness which had added 
+unnecessary fatigue and alarm to that his ardent affection had already 
+caused him to undergo for my sake. I longed to make some atonement; to 
+offer some explanation; but he gave me no opportunity; he left early, and 
+it was only by his not coming down again, that we knew he had left us for 
+the evening.
+
+In appointing to meet William on the sands the following morning, I had 
+not reflected how difficult it would be for me to do so. I turned the 
+subject over and over, and at length resolved to speak to Cornelius. He 
+behaved to me at breakfast as if nothing had occurred; and when we both 
+entered the little studio as usual, his face, though more serious than in 
+the presence of Kate, expressed nothing like displeasure. In whose 
+kindness and indulgence could I confide, if not in his? I hoped he would 
+open the conversation, but, as he did not, I resolved to speak. I went up 
+to his chair, and leaning upon it, said in a low tone: 
+
+"Cornelius."
+
+"Well, Daisy," he replied, looking round. 
+
+"May I say something to you? But pray," I quickly added, "pray, do not be 
+vexed; promise that you will not."
+
+"Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius, giving me a troubled look.
+
+"Well, then, promise nothing. I will trust to your indulgence. I can bear 
+that you should reprove me, but I could not bear to deceive you."
+
+He took my hand in his, and, bending on me a look so keen that I began to 
+feel disconcerted, he said slowly: 
+
+"What do you mean?" 
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"What do you mean?" he said, his voice rising. 
+
+"Well then!" I exclaimed a little desperately, "I mean that I have made 
+an appointment with William, and that I want your permission to keep it."
+
+Cornelius dropped my hand, and looked petrified. 
+
+"You have made an appointment with that young man!" he said at length. 
+
+"Yes, Cornelius." 
+
+"And you come and tell it to me." 
+
+"Oh, Cornelius, would you have me keep it a secret?" 
+
+"But to tell it to _me_." 
+
+"To whom else should I tell it?" 
+
+"But to ask _me_ to let you keep it." 
+
+"Of whom else should I ask it?"
+
+He seemed unable to reply. He looked at me; but no words passed his 
+trembling lips. I began to feel hurt and dismayed at the manner in which 
+he received my confidence. At length, he said, with forced calmness:--
+
+"This is some mistake of mine; I have misunderstood you, Daisy. You 
+cannot have meant to say that you had appointed a meeting with the young 
+man I saw with you last night."
+
+"That was my meaning, Cornelius," I replied, firmly.
+
+"You confirm it," he replied, turning pale; "and I, who, after a night of 
+tormenting thought, came down this morning, not knowing how to question 
+you. Oh, Daisy!"
+
+There was agitation in his look and in his voice.
+
+"Cornelius," I said, with some emotion, "if I have made an appointment 
+with William, where is the harm? It is not the first time I have done 
+so."
+
+"Not the first time!"
+
+"No, nor the second, nor the third. We have been attached since Kate 
+brought me to Leigh; and before William went to sea, there scarcely 
+passed a day but we met somewhere."
+
+"And I have been away two years!" said Cornelius, in a low tone. "Not a 
+day but you met somewhere!"
+
+"Yes, on the downs, or on the beach, where you found me last night, and 
+where I had promised to meet him this morning."
+
+Cornelius turned on me with flashing eyes.
+
+"Unhappy child!" he exclaimed, "what do you mean by telling me all this? 
+What have you been doing in my absence? What sort of a watch has Kate 
+kept over the young girl I left to her care? What sense of honour has he 
+who took so shameless an advantage of your ignorance, but who shall 
+account to me for it yet?"
+
+He rose; his brow was stern; his face was pale. Half wild with terror, I 
+threw my arms around his neck, and detained him.
+
+"It was my fault!" I exclaimed, eagerly; "all my fault--resent it upon 
+me."
+
+"And what can I do to you?" answered Cornelius, looking down at me with 
+strange anger and tenderness in his gaze; "what can I do to you?"
+
+"Hear me," I entreated, weeping.
+
+He sat down again, subdued at once by the sight of my tears, and said he 
+would listen patiently.
+
+"William," I began.
+
+"Why speak of him?" he interrupted, with a clouded brow.
+
+"You have accused him; I must justify him, or bear my share of the 
+blame."
+
+"Blame!" sorrowfully echoed Cornelius; "why should I blame you? I was 
+away, and Kate was negligent, and another was there; it was natural, very 
+natural."
+
+Encouraged by the gentleness of his tone, I stooped, and pressing my lips 
+to his cheek, I said, in my most persuasive accents:--
+
+"May I keep my appointment, Cornelius?"
+
+He turned upon me a flushed and troubled face.
+
+"I have heard of strange, tormenting things," he said, between his set 
+teeth; "but I vow I never heard of anything to equal this. My God!" he 
+added, pressing me to him with strange and sudden passion, "what can you 
+want with that young man?"
+
+His look felt like fire; I bowed my face before its wrath. When I spoke, 
+it was to say, in a faltering tone:--
+
+"Cornelius, you are angry again; yet all I want is not to make William 
+wait."
+
+"But what do you want with him?--What can you want with him?" desperately 
+asked Cornelius.
+
+"He was so unreasonable; he said I did not care for him; and indeed, 
+Cornelius, that was a great mistake of his. All I want is to speak to him 
+a few minutes, and make him hear sense."
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius, with ill repressed anger, "is it 
+possible you do not understand that it is not becoming for a young girl 
+to go and meet a young man in a lonely place?"
+
+"Then forbid me to go!" I exclaimed, eagerly; "forbid me, that I may 
+assure William if I broke my word to him, it was to obey you."
+
+Cornelius turned very pale; he rose, and said, in a moved and broken 
+tone:--
+
+"I am no tyrant. I do not forbid you to go. I claim no control over your 
+feelings or actions. Go, and stay at your pleasure."
+
+Without giving me another look, he turned to his easel. I sat down in the 
+attitude of the young girl reading; but, though every now and then I 
+stole up a look from the open book on mv lap, I never could catch his 
+eye. I felt this keenly; for if there was a thing which Cornelius had of 
+late done more than another, it was to look into my face; and, oh! how 
+kindly he ever looked! At length, I could bear it no longer. I rose, and 
+went up to where he stood painting. He never even glanced around. The 
+calm expostulation with which I had thought to address him, faded from my 
+memory. With involuntary emotion, I sank down at his feet, and, seizing 
+his hand, I exclaimed, with something like passion:--
+
+"Blame me! but look at me, Cornelius; say what you will, but look at me."
+
+"Are you mad?" he cried reddening indignantly and forcibly raising me 
+from the ground. "What do you, what can you mean by kneeling to me? Oh, 
+Daisy!" he added with keen reproach, "I would rather you had struck me 
+than you had done that."
+
+I stood by him silent and ashamed.
+
+"To kneel to me!" he resumed, as if he could not get over it. "For man to 
+kneel to woman may be folly, but at least it is the voluntary submission 
+of strength; but for woman to kneel to man--what is it--save the painful 
+submission of weakness. If you have any regard for me, if you care for 
+me, never do that again."
+
+I promised I would not, then added:
+
+"Have you forgiven me, Cornelius?"
+
+"What have I to forgive?"
+
+"You know--I do not."
+
+He looked around as I still stood by him in the attitude of an unforgiven 
+child, and he sighed.
+
+"You wish for an explanation," he said in a troubled tone, "so do I, and 
+yet I dread it."
+
+"Cornelius, I will do all I can not to annoy you. Question me and I will 
+answer you in all the sincerity of my heart. If I have done wrong, it is 
+by mistake, and indeed William too. We are both very young and ignorant, 
+Cornelius?"
+
+"Both! What is that young man to you that his name cannot be severed from 
+yours?"
+
+"He is my friend, Cornelius."
+
+"Why did you never mention his name since my return?"
+
+"It must have been because I was so much more absorbed in thinking of 
+what concerned you, than of what concerned myself. I could not otherwise 
+have failed mentioning the name of William, the only companion and friend 
+I have had during your absence."
+
+"The only one, Daisy?"
+
+"Yes, Cornelius."
+
+"I suppose you were a good deal together?"
+
+"Yes, a great deal."
+
+"Here or at Miss Murray's?"
+
+"Neither at one nor at the other," I answered smiling. "We seldom went to 
+Miss Murray's, and as Kate did not like William, nor he her, he never 
+came here. I met him on the sands."
+
+"How did you spend your time?"
+
+"We played together."
+
+"Played!"
+
+"Yes, you know we were both quite young then; but as we grew older we 
+left off playing."
+
+"And what did you do then?" he asked uneasily.
+
+"We walked on the beach, climbed up the cliffs, ran down again, sat when 
+we felt tired and talked."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Of the sea; of anything."
+
+There was a pause, then Cornelius said:
+
+"He is your friend, you say."
+
+"Yes, Cornelius; and though often rude to others, he is ever kind and 
+gentle to me; he likes me, you know."
+
+"Do you like him?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+He laid his hand on my head, and bent down on me a glance that seemed as 
+if it longed to read my very heart.
+
+"You like him?" he said in a low tone.
+
+"Yes, Cornelius, I like him."
+
+More he did not ask; more I did not dare to say, much as I longed to 
+tell; I only ventured to observe:
+
+"Do you not want to ask me anything else, Cornelius?"
+
+"Nothing else," he replied with a sharp glance that made mine sink down 
+abashed; "but I have a piece of advice to give you: appoint no more 
+meetings with your friend. I do not mean that there was harm in those 
+accidental interviews, in which of course there never passed anything but 
+what you have told."
+
+"Oh no, never."
+
+"But discretion is needed by a young girl."
+
+"Have I been indiscreet?"
+
+"A little; but do not think I make much of it. It is a mere childish 
+matter."
+
+"You do not think anything else?"
+
+"Nothing else," he said, with a look that again disconcerted me, "I have 
+indeed advised--"
+
+"Oh! speak not of advice," I interrupted eagerly. "You know that my 
+pleasure is to please you, that I do my own will when I do yours, 
+Cornelius."
+
+"You believe that," he replied, "but can I, Daisy?"
+
+"Put me to the test then!"
+
+We stood side by side. He passed his arm around me, and drew me towards 
+him.
+
+"You bid me put you to the test," he said.
+
+"Yes," I replied, but my heart beat fast.
+
+"There was a time," he resumed with a look of jealous reproach, "when I 
+was, I will not say the only friend you had, but the only friend you 
+thought of or cared for."
+
+I felt a sharp and sudden pang of pain, but I said nothing.
+
+"Well!" he impatiently exclaimed.
+
+"May I not write to him?" I replied, feeling that my colour came and went 
+beneath his gaze.
+
+He did not reply. It was plain he would have an entire sacrifice or none. 
+He clasped me so close, that I was obliged to rest my head on his 
+shoulder. As he bent over me, my look met his, and from the gaze I seemed 
+to drink in all the strange and dangerous sweetness of sacrifice.
+
+"Well!" he said again.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "all--anything you like, Cornelius."
+
+I trembled--for my blood rushed to my heart with something like pain and 
+gladness blending in its rapid flow; but he only saw the tears which 
+covered my face, and he exclaimed, with reproachful tenderness:
+
+"You weep because I ask you to give up a childish past, which, childish 
+as it is, I would give anything to annihilate. Oh! Daisy, Daisy!"
+
+At once I checked my tears. He saw the effort, and, stooping, he pressed 
+a long and lingering kiss on my brow.
+
+"Oh! my darling!" he said, ardently, "do not regret it so much. If I will 
+share your friendship with none, is it not because I mean to take on 
+myself the exclusive care of your happiness? Trust in me--in that feeling 
+be a child again. Alas! I sometimes fear that the calmness and serenity 
+of childhood are not merely in your years, but also in your nature. Oh! 
+if, without adding one day to your existence--one dark page to your 
+experience--I could change this!"
+
+I tried to smile, but I could not--I felt languid and wretched. My heart 
+ached at what I had done--at William, given up so utterly, with scarcely 
+a cause assigned. I wondered if Cornelius, knowing all, would have 
+exacted the same sacrifice. Once or twice I tried to bring the discourse 
+round to the point I wished; but he shunned this so carefully, that at 
+length my eyes opened: Cornelius wished to know nothing. From that moment 
+I was silent and resigned.
+
+If endearing language, and every proof of an ardent affection, could have 
+consoled me, I need not have grieved: but even sitting by Cornelius---
+even listening to him--I was haunted by the image of William vainly 
+waiting for me at the old meeting-place. I heard his voice reproachfully 
+exclaiming--now, alas! with how much truth--"You have deceived me!"
+
+In the course of the day, we received an invitation to take tea with Miss 
+Murray, in honour of her nephew's return. I said I could not go, and 
+Kate, with a smile, replied she would sacrifice herself, and allow 
+Cornelius to remain and keep me company. We spent a quiet evening 
+together. My head again ached slightly; I was glad of the pretence to lie 
+on the sofa with closed eyes. Cornelius sat by me, holding my hand in 
+his, and thus his sister found us on her return. She looked at us with a 
+pleased face, and said it was well to be a spoiled child like me.
+
+"By the bye," she carelessly added, "William Murray is as great a bear as 
+ever. He had been out all day, and looked, when he came in, as if he 
+longed to knock me down."
+
+I think I replied, "Indeed." I know that soon after this I went up to my 
+room, there to learn what new pangs can give to grief, and what new 
+bitterness to tears--the sense of an affection betrayed.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ 
+
+I sat to Cornelius as usual on the following day, but not a word did we 
+exchange concerning what had passed. In the course of the afternoon he 
+said he no longer wanted me; I left him, glad of a little solitude and 
+liberty. He joined me in the garden as dusk was falling. He found me 
+sitting on the bench studying Tasso. He asked me if we should not read 
+together. I assented, but twice my tears fell on the page: he closed the 
+book, and said sadly:
+
+"Daisy, you need not weep; I release you from your promise."
+
+I started slightly: he continued:
+
+"I did not think your feelings were so deeply engaged, or I should never 
+have put you to such a test. Come, do not weep; your time for tears is 
+past; see your friend as much as you like, and let your pale, unhappy 
+face reproach me no more that, unable to render you happy myself, I would 
+not let another do it."
+
+I could bear no more; every word he uttered pierced mo with a sharper 
+pang. I hid my face in my hand and exclaimed:
+
+"Cornelius, you are too good; I do not deserve this; I have seen William; 
+he has but just left me."
+
+I looked up, he turned rather pale; but never spoke one word.
+
+"You are angry with me," I said.
+
+"Angry with you!" he repeated, smiling sadly, but so kindly, that, 
+impelled by the same sense of refuge which I had so often felt in my 
+childish troubles, I threw my arms around his neck, and exclaimed in a 
+voice broken by tears:
+
+"Oh, Cornelius, I am so wretched."
+
+"I am not angry, indeed I am not," he replied, sighing deeply.
+
+"Oh! it is not that, Cornelius; William is again gone away, and if you 
+knew all--Oh, what shall I do!"
+
+I cried bitterly on his shoulder. He half rose as if to put me away; but 
+he sat down again with fixed brow and compressed lips.
+
+"What shall you do?" he echoed, "what others have done--you shall bear 
+it."
+
+I looked up, amazed at the stern bitterness of his tone, at the cold and 
+inexorable meaning of his face, which had turned of a sallow paleness.
+
+"But Cornelius," I exclaimed, much hurt, "I like him--"
+
+"I don't believe it," he interrupted, biting his lip. "It is a dream--a 
+fancy--the dream of a girl, of a mere child; all girls think they are in 
+love; you have done like the rest."
+
+I felt a burning blush overspread my face; my look sank beneath his; the 
+hand which he had taken and still held, trembled in his; he dropped it 
+and said:
+
+"And is this the end of it all, Daisy? and do you really like that rough 
+sailor, a mere boy too? Oh, Daisy!"
+
+I conquered my scruples and my shame.
+
+"Cornelius." I said, looking up at him, "I must speak to you openly once 
+for all. I wanted to do so yesterday; you would not hear me then; pray 
+hear me now."
+
+"Why so?" he replied, with evident pain, "I know enough, more than 
+enough."
+
+"You do not know all."
+
+"Then I can guess."
+
+"No, I do not think you can."
+
+"Well then, speak, Daisy, and do not linger."
+
+"William, as I told you, has not long left me; he came to bid me good-
+bye, and also--but I must begin from the beginning."
+
+"What else was it that he came for?" asked Cornelius.
+
+"Let me first tell you the rest."
+
+"Never mind the rest. What else did he call for?"
+
+"I must go on my own way. I want you to judge of my conduct, as well as 
+to know the issue. Do you remember yesterday all I told you concerning my 
+acquaintance with William?"
+
+"Every word."
+
+"You are sure you have forgotten nothing?"
+
+"Daisy," he exclaimed vehemently, "will you never tell me what he came 
+for?"
+
+His look, his tone, commanded a reply.
+
+"To ask me whether I would not promise to marry him some day," I replied 
+in a low tone.
+
+There was a pause, during which I could hear the beating of my own heart.
+
+"Well," at length said Cornelius, "did you give him that promise?"
+
+"Guess!" I answered, and that he might not read the truth in my face, I 
+averted it from his gaze.
+
+"Guess!" he echoed, with a groan, "imprudent girl, I guess but too 
+easily. Oh, Daisy! how could you pledge yourself, how could you promise 
+that which may be the misery of your whole life."
+
+"Cornelius, I did not promise."
+
+"But you love him!" he exclaimed with a sort of despair, "and love is 
+surer than vows."
+
+In the reply which I then should have made, there was no cause for shame, 
+yet my eyes sought the ground, my face burned, and I hesitated and 
+paused. When I at length looked up, dreading to meet the glance of 
+Cornelius, I perceived that his eyes were riveted on William Murray, who 
+had come up the steep path unheard, and now stood leaning on the low 
+wooden gate, looking at us sadly and gravely. I was the first to break 
+the awkward pause that followed.
+
+"I thought you were gone. William," I said, rising, and taking a step 
+towards him.
+
+"I could not make up my mind to it," he replied, giving me a look of half 
+reproach. "I could not go without bidding you once more good-bye."
+
+He held out his hand to me; I gave him mine across the gate. He took it, 
+and keeping it clasped in his, he turned to Cornelius, and said with 
+repressed emotion:
+
+"I don't know why I should be ashamed of it--I am not ashamed of it--Mr. 
+O'Reilly, I love her with my whole heart. I don't think there is another 
+girl like her; at least I am very sure there is not another one for me. I 
+think she likes me; but, hard as I begged, she would promise me nothing--
+she could not she said without your knowledge or consent; I said I wanted 
+nobody's knowledge or consent, to like her. We parted rather angrily; but 
+I thought better of it, and came back to speak to you, since she wished 
+it. And look! even here in your presence, she takes her hand from me, 
+lest you should not like it."
+
+I did, indeed, withdraw my hand from his, as he spoke, partly because 
+from friendship William had gone to love, partly because I had met the 
+look of Cornelius, which disturbed me.
+
+"Mr. O'Reilly," said William, looking at him very fixedly, "do you 
+object?"
+
+"No," coldly answered Cornelius.
+
+William opened the gate, and stepped in with a triumphant look.
+
+"Do you hear that, Daisy?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Do not misunderstand me," quietly said Cornelius. "I do not object; but 
+if Daisy wishes for my advice, I certainly advise her not to enter at 
+seventeen into an engagement destined to last her whole life. The human 
+heart changes; it will often loathe the very object of its former wishes, 
+and often, too, learn to long too late for that which it once dreaded as 
+utter misery."
+
+"_I_ shall not change!" exclaimed William, giving him an impatient look: 
+"but of course if you advise Daisy against promises, there will be none. 
+I need none to bind me to her; and if she will only promise to try and 
+like me--"
+
+"And why should she?" sharply interrupted Cornelius; "what have you done 
+for her to deserve such a promise? What proof has she that you will 
+always deserve it, even as much as you do now?"
+
+"I'll tell you what, Mr. O'Reilly," said William, with sparkling eyes, 
+"my opinion is, that though you make a fair show, like most of your 
+countrymen, it is all a humbug, and that you want to keep Daisy for 
+yourself!"
+
+Cornelius laughed scornfully, as if disdaining to resent the petulant 
+jealousy of a boy; but I saw his colour rise, and his brow knit slightly. 
+I hastened to interfere; I stepped up to William; I looked up in his 
+face; I took his hands in mine, and pressed them to my heart.
+
+"William," I said sadly, "why did you come back? I wish I had spoken more 
+plainly: I love you, but not, indeed, as you mean; I love you as my 
+friend, as a brother, but not otherwise."
+
+"Not otherwise!" he said, seeking aw look; "that is hard, Daisy, not 
+otherwise." 
+
+I turned my head away. 
+
+"And yet we have been such good friends!" 
+
+"And are still, William." 
+
+"Then be my best friend." 
+
+"Gladly."
+
+"Well! what is to marry but to be best friends? Do I not like you more 
+than any other creature? Would I not know you among a thousand? Have I a 
+thought I would not tell you? Not one. And, indeed, I think you, too, 
+like me more than you think now." 
+
+"No, William, I do not."
+
+"Do not be in such a hurry to reply," he answered, with a wishful look; 
+"it may take you longer to find out, than it did me."
+
+In his earnestness he had forgotten all about the presence of Cornelius. 
+His importunity wrung the truth from me.
+
+"William," I said, "this cannot be; I might promise to try to like you as 
+you wish; but I could not keep that promise. There is a power and a charm 
+that binds me to home, a tie that links me to Cornelius and to Kate, and 
+which I cannot break even for your sake. Believe me, whilst I remain with 
+them, I can love you very dearly; but if I were with you I should be too 
+home-sick and too heart-sick to think of you, William. If we went out 
+together, I know that even with my arm within yours, or your hand in 
+mine, my eyes would ever be seeking out for them, my feet leading me to 
+their dwelling. I like you, William, I like you dearly, but I cannot give 
+you my whole heart."
+
+William gave me one look; the tears rushed in his eyes; he dropped my 
+hands.
+
+"God bless you, Daisy," he said, and turned away. The gate closed on him; 
+he slowly descended the path. I did not call him back, but sitting down 
+on the bench, I hid my face in my hands and wept bitterly. I felt and 
+felt truly that we had parted to meet no more; that my faithful companion 
+and friend was lost to me, and the pleasant tie of my childhood and youth 
+broken for ever.
+
+For awhile Cornelius let me weep; then he did his best to soothe and 
+console me. The very sound of his voice brought comfort to my heart; my 
+tears lost their bitterness, at length they ceased to flow, and I could 
+hear and speak with calmness.
+
+"And so," said Cornelius, bending over me, his right hand clasping mine, 
+his left resting on the back of the bench behind me, "and so it was only 
+friendship after all which you felt for William Murray."
+
+"You seem surprised, Cornelius."
+
+"There was every appearance and every chance against it."
+
+"I don't grant the chance."
+
+"Because you have lived an isolated life, and know not that the first 
+thing a youth and maiden, situated as you and William were, think of, is 
+to get engaged as fast as they can."
+
+"Was that what you thought yesterday, Cornelius?"
+
+"Why did you not undeceive me?"
+
+"Why did you not ask?"
+
+"I did not like to put the question."
+
+"Nor I to speak unquestioned. I had never dreamed that William, with whom 
+I was so free, so friendly, with whom I played, picked up shells, and ran 
+about, could think of such a thing. How could you, Cornelius?"
+
+"Why not? he was your friend, and a fine young man, too."
+
+"Yes," I replied, "and as good-looking as a very fair man can be. But his 
+looks have nothing to do with what I mean, Cornelius."
+
+"What is it you mean?"
+
+"That he is a mere boy; Kate always called him a boy, and I always 
+thought him one. You do not think I could have been so free with a young 
+man. Indeed, no, Cornelius. And then he is a sailor!"
+
+"Do you object to that?"
+
+"Most decidedly."
+
+"Why, what would you like, Daisy?"
+
+"I don't know; but I know what I do not like, and a Lord Admiral himself 
+would not tempt me."
+
+"I had no idea you had so many good reasons for rejecting him," said 
+Cornelius, smiling; "he is fair, a boy, and a sailor--have you anything 
+else?"
+
+"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, looking up into his face, "I have known him 
+too long--almost as long as you."
+
+"Indeed!" he said, abstractedly, "is old acquaintance so great a sin in 
+your opinion, Daisy?"
+
+"Not a sin, Cornelius; but I have liked William like a brother, and I 
+cannot like him otherwise."
+
+"Daisy, it seems to me that an old and known friend is in general much 
+preferable to the stranger."
+
+"That is a good reason, Cornelius, and I am talking of a feeling. Mine is 
+so strong that, much as I like William, I feel a sort of relief in 
+thinking we shall not meet in haste."
+
+"Oh! Daisy," sadly said Cornelius, "do you impute that poor boy's 
+affection for you, as a crime to him."
+
+"Heaven forbid; but can I help feeling that the charm of our friendship 
+is gone? He liked me one way, I liked him another; after that, what can 
+there be between us? Could I again be free with him? I could not; and to 
+be cold and constrained when I was once so trusting and so frank, would 
+be worse than utter separation. I would rather never see him more, than 
+feel my friendship for him breaking miserably away, Cornelius."
+
+I spoke as I felt, with a warmth and earnestness that again made my eyes 
+overflow. Cornelius heard me with an attentive look, then placing his 
+hand on my arm, said, quietly--
+
+"Oh, Daisy, what a lesson!"
+
+"A lesson, Cornelius?"
+
+"Yes, a lesson, which I, for one, shall not forget. If ever I find myself 
+circumstanced as was your friend, Daisy, I shall have the wisdom not to 
+cast away friendship before I am sure of love."
+
+"Cornelius," I said, earnestly, "do you blame me?"
+
+"No, no," he quickly replied.
+
+"Because if you thought I should--"
+
+"No," he interrupted; "not at all. Oh, Daisy! do you not see I am too 
+selfish to wish to make a present of you to the first boy or man who 
+chooses to take a fancy to you?"
+
+"And I hope I know better than to leave you and Kate," I replied, 
+confidently. "Oh, Cornelius!" I added, with sudden emotion, "how can 
+daughters leave their father's house for that of a stranger?"
+
+He was bending over me with the look and attitude which, even more than 
+act or speech, imply the fond and caressing mood; but, on hearing this, 
+he reddened, drew back, and said, in a short, vexed tone:--
+
+"Don't be filial, Daisy."
+
+"Don't be alarmed," I replied, smiling, "I have not forgotten that you 
+called me your friend the other day, and I am going to avail myself of 
+the privilege."
+
+"Are you?" he answered, pacified at once.
+
+"Yes, I am going to be very bold."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"To ask a great favour."
+
+He looked delighted and inquisitive.
+
+"You know," I continued, in my most persuasive accents, and passing my 
+arm within his, "you know it is settled that I am always to remain with 
+you and Kate; but--"
+
+"But," he echoed.
+
+"But is it settled that you are to remain with us?"
+
+"Why not?" he replied, looking astonished.
+
+"You spoke of Spain the other evening. What should you want to go to 
+Spain for? I think it would be a great loss of time; besides--"
+
+"Besides, Daisy?" he repeated, smoothing my hair.
+
+"Besides, I want you to remain with us."
+
+"For how long, Daisy?"
+
+"For ever."
+
+I said it, smiling, for I dreamt not he would consent.
+
+"For ever," he repeated, with quiet assent.
+
+I looked at him with breathless joy. He smiled.
+
+"Ask me for something else," he said.
+
+"I dare not," I replied, drawing in a long breath, "lest you should take 
+back the first gift to punish my presumption."
+
+"Your presumption! Oh, Daisy!"
+
+I gave him a quick look; as our eyes met, I read in his the dangerous and 
+intoxicating knowledge, that he who for seven years had been my master, 
+now voluntarily abdicated that throne of authority where two so seldom 
+sit in peace, and was calling me to something more than equality. My 
+heart beat, my face flushed; I looked at him proudly.
+
+"And so," I said, a little agitatedly, "I am really to be your friend. 
+How good!--how kind! But I am not to obey you now?" I asked, breaking 
+off.
+
+"Don't name the word," he replied, impatiently.
+
+"How odd!" I observed, both startled and amused. "How odd that I, who 
+used to feel so much afraid of you, when you used to chide, punish, turn 
+out of the room--"
+
+"I fear," interrupted Cornelius, looking uneasy, "I was rather rude 
+then."
+
+"You were not always civil. You once called me a little monkey. Another 
+time--"
+
+"Pray don't!" he hastily observed, looking annoyed and disconcerted. 
+"Tell me rather what I am to give you. Are there not shops at Ryde?"
+
+"As if I should fancy anything out of a shop."
+
+"And what is there that does not come out of a shop?"
+
+"What a question for an artist!"
+
+"Have I anything you would really fancy?" eagerly inquired Cornelius.
+
+"Would you give me your picture, if I were to ask you for it?"
+
+"Would you ask me for it?"
+
+"No, for I want you to sell it."
+
+"And will you not always want me to sell my pictures?"
+
+"And is there nothing you will not sell?"
+
+I alluded to his Italian drawings, from which Cornelius had often 
+declared nothing should induce him to part. He understood me, for he 
+smiled; but eluded the subject by asking if we should not go in. I 
+assented. We entered the house, and spent, as usual, a quiet evening.
+
+When I woke the next morning, the first object that met my eyes was the 
+portfolio of Italian drawings, lying on the table by me. Never had I been 
+so quick in dressing as I was then. I hastened downstairs to the parlour. 
+Cornelius sat reading the newspaper by the table. I went up to him, and 
+standing behind him, gently took it from his hand.
+
+"Why so?" he said, demurring.
+
+"Oh! you know. But I cannot thank you. All I can say is. I shall never 
+forget that what you would not have given for money, when you wanted 
+money, you gave to me for pure love and friendship. I shall never forget, 
+Cornelius, when you are a rich man and a great man, that when you were 
+but a poor, obscure artist, you gave me all a poor, obscure artist has to 
+give."
+
+He did not reply. I stood behind him, with my two hands leaning on the 
+back of his chair. He took them, and gently clasped them around his neck. 
+I stooped, and touching with my lips his bold and handsome brow, I could 
+not help saying:
+
+"Oh, my friend! shall I ever have another friend like you?"
+
+"Indeed, I hope not," he replied, laughing: and in the glass opposite us, 
+I saw Kate smiling, as she stood looking on in the half gloom of the open 
+door.
+
+The heart of youth is light. I liked William. I was sorry for him, but I 
+did not let my remembrance of him press on me too sadly. Had I wished it, 
+it would scarcely have been in my power to be unhappy, when I saw and 
+felt that he who was dearest to me of God's creatures, now loved me as 
+blindly and as devotedly as ever I had loved him.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ 
+
+At the end of a fortnight, Kate spoke of returning to our old home in the 
+Grove, which had been vacant for some time. She resolved to go first with 
+Jane and set all to rights, and to leave Cornelius and me to the care of 
+a deaf and half-blind old dame. It was no use, she said, to bring us in 
+the mess. When all was ready, she would write to us; and, as the 
+furniture was not particularly valuable, we could just lock up Rock 
+Cottage, and thus the labours of Cornelius need not be interrupted. He 
+was then working hard at his Young Girl Reading, and entered quite into 
+the spirit of this arrangement.
+
+When Kate had been gone above ten days, she wrote to say we might leave 
+whenever we pleased. I felt delighted, but noticed, with concern, that 
+the prospect of our return affected Cornelius very differently. For 
+several days he looked pale and unwell, yet there appeared about him no 
+sign of physical ailment. He seemed in a strange state of restlessness 
+and fever, and wandered about the house like an uneasy spirit. Two or 
+three times he took long lonely walks, from which he came in so worn and 
+languid-looking, that I once asked uneasily:
+
+"What ails you, Cornelius?"
+
+"Nothing. How flushed you look. Is anything the matter with you?"
+
+"I have been stooping packing up--that is all." 
+
+I returned to the task. He moved away, then came back several times, as 
+if to address me, but never spoke. At tea time, I noticed, with concern, 
+that he touched nothing. I said I was sure he was ill. He denied it; but 
+when our aged servant bad removed the tray, he came and sat by me, made 
+me put by my work, and, taking my two hands in his, began looking at my 
+face with a strange troubled gaze--like one who beholds things in a 
+dream--far and dim.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, a little uneasily.
+
+"How pale you look!" was his only reply. 
+
+"I feel tired. Sewing there after tea, my eyes seemed to close 
+involuntarily."
+
+"They are closing now. You need sleep, poor child. Go up to your room."
+
+"Have you nothing to say to me?"
+
+"It will do to-morrow. Go! a long night's rest will do you so much good. 
+Sleep well and long."
+
+I said it was too early yet, but even as I spoke, a heaviness not to be 
+conquered by will, pressed down my eyelids. He urged the point and I 
+yielded. How soon I slept that night; how long, deep and peaceful were my 
+slumbers! how light and happy I felt when the morning sun awoke me, and 
+opening my window, I drank in with delight the air still cool with the 
+dews of night. I came down in a happy mood, and ran out to join Cornelius 
+in the garden. He stood by the pine tree, smoking and looking at the sea 
+in a fit of abstraction so deep, that he never heard me, until I passed 
+my arm within his, and said:
+
+"How are you to-day?"
+
+"Quite well, child."
+
+"Then let us have a good, long walk," I said eagerly. "Let us visit once 
+more our old haunts, and take a few green images to smoky London. Shall 
+we?"
+
+"As you please, Daisy."
+
+"I do please. I have a pastoral longing for breezy freshness, lanes, 
+dells, and streams flowing in the shade. So let as go in to breakfast."
+
+He yielded, but with little sympathy for my impatience, he lingered at 
+the meal for an hour and more. When I sought to hurry him, he invariably 
+replied:
+
+"There is time enough."
+
+I went up to dress; when I came down again, I found him in the garden, 
+walking up and down the path. I joined him, and said "I was quite ready."
+
+"Are you?" he quietly answered and continued his walk. 
+
+I followed him, impatient at his dilatoriness; but he seemed in no haste, 
+for as he might have spoken on any other morning, he said:
+
+"I like this garden, Daisy. Spite of the sea air, flowers seem to thrive 
+here. I never saw a finer rose than this. Take it."
+
+He gathered it, and gave it to me as he spoke. I murmured a little. This 
+rose was to have been the pride of the bouquet I meant to take to Kate.
+
+"There are plenty left," he replied, gathering a few more; then, looking 
+at his watch, carelessly said:
+
+"It was time to go."
+
+I asked if we should take the path that led to the beach.
+
+"Why not go by Leigh, you were wishing for green fields!"
+
+"True; besides we can come back by the sands."
+
+He did not reply. I took his arm; we traversed the house, and went down 
+the steep path, which had seen some of our first walks in the pleasant 
+lanes and meadows of Leigh.
+
+"Only think," I observed after a while, "I have brought the flowers you 
+gave me. They will be quite withered by the time we are home again."
+
+Cornelius stopped abruptly, and held me back.
+
+"Mind that stone," he said, "you might have hurt yourself. Why did you 
+not look before you?"
+
+"Because I feel as if I trod on air," I replied gaily, "and when one 
+feels so, it seems quite ridiculous to trouble one's self with stones, 
+&c. I don't know when I have been in a mood so light and happy. I feel as 
+if this green lane need have no end or turning, and this pleasant day no 
+sunset."
+
+He did not answer. My flights of fancy won no response from his graver 
+mood; the dazzling brightness of the deep blue sky, the green freshness 
+of the fields, seemed lost upon him, lost the charm and sweetness of the 
+day. But even his unusual seriousness could not subdue the buoyancy and 
+life which I felt rising within me. My blood flowed, as it only flows in 
+youth or in spring, light, warm and rapid, making of every sensation a 
+brief delight, of every aspect and change of nature an exquisite 
+enjoyment, tempered with that under-current of subtle pain which runs 
+through over-wrought emotions, and subdues at their very highest pitch 
+the sweetest and purest joys of mortal sense. I walked on, like one in a 
+dream, scarcely heeding where we went. At length Cornelius stopped, and 
+said:
+
+"Shall we not rest here awhile?"
+
+We stood in that green and lonely nook, by the banks of the quiet stream 
+where we had once lingered through the hours of a summer noon. It so 
+chanced that though we had since then often passed by the spot, we had 
+never made it our resting-place. The thought of once more spending here 
+an hour or two was pleasant. I took off my bonnet and suspended it from 
+the branches of the willow; I sat again beneath it; Cornelius 
+unconsciously took the very attitude in which I remembered him--half 
+reclining on the bank, with his brow resting on the palm of his hand. The 
+same bending trees above, with their glimpses of blue sky; the same clear 
+stream flowing on, with its silent world below, and its green wilderness 
+beyond; the same murmur of low and broken sounds around us; the same 
+sweet sense of freshness and solitude made past weeks seem like one 
+unbroken summer day. I felt that sitting there, I could forget how 
+quickly pass on hours, how rapid is the course of time.
+
+"Daisy!" suddenly said Cornelius, looking up, "how is it you do not ask 
+me what I had to tell you last night?"
+
+"I had forgotten all about it," I answered, smiling, "What is it, 
+Cornelius?"
+
+He did not reply at once, but again taking my hands in his, he looked at 
+me so sadly, that my heart sank within me.
+
+"Cornelius," I exclaimed, "you have not news--of--Kate?"
+
+"No," he quickly replied, "I have sad news for you, my poor child; but 
+Kate is well."
+
+"What is it then? What is it, Cornelius? Has she lost her money? Is the 
+house burned down? What is it?"
+
+"Nothing like this, Daisy; you would never guess--1 must tell you. God 
+alone knows how hard I find it. Daisy, we are going to part."
+
+My arms fell down powerless; I did not speak; I did not weep; I was 
+stunned with the blow. An expression full of trouble and remorse passed 
+over his face.
+
+"What have I done?" he exclaimed in an agitated tone, "I wished to spare 
+you until the last moment. Oh! Daisy, for God's sake do not look so."
+
+I felt, and I dare say I looked, almost inanimate. He took me in his arms 
+and bending over me, eagerly begged me to forgive him.
+
+"It was to spare you, my darling," he said, "I was going to tell you last 
+night, but I thought I would let you sleep in peace, and I kept the weary 
+secret to myself, as I have done these three days."
+
+I heard him drearily. It was true then, an actual, dread reality. I 
+summoned strength to ask--
+
+"Why must we part, Cornelius?"
+
+"Why?" he echoed sadly.
+
+"You must not go, I will not let you," I exclaimed passionately, "or if 
+you go, you must take me with you. I have money of my own; I will be no 
+cost to you, but I will not leave you."
+
+He wanted to speak; I laid my hand on his lips.
+
+"I tell you that you must either stay at home or take me with you," I 
+said wilfully, "I too want to see Spain."
+
+"Daisy, I am not going to Spain."
+
+"Where then? To Italy? What for? Who have you left there that is so very 
+dear? Oh! I see! I see! Go, Cornelius, go." And I disengaged myself with 
+wounded pride from the embrace he could find it in his heart to bestow, 
+with that heart full--as I thought in the jealousy of the moment--of 
+another.
+
+"That's right, Daisy!" he replied bitterly, "that's right! Make me feel 
+to the end the fever and torment of the last two months." 
+
+"Are you or are you not going away to marry?" I said, confronting him.
+
+"Marry!" he echoed in an impatient and irritated tone, "Marry! I don't 
+think of it."
+
+A load was raised from my heart. I breathed. I again. His marriage was 
+the only evil to which I could see no remedy.
+
+By the fright it had given me, I perceived how much I had dreaded it; but 
+a vague instinct forbade me to show him this. I quickly changed the 
+subject.
+
+"Take me with you," I said entreatingly, "I will give you no trouble."
+
+"Trouble! Oh, that indeed I were going away and you with me," he half 
+groaned. "Blessed would be that trouble; too sweet, too delightful the 
+task of bearing you away, alone with me, to some far land."
+
+"Cornelius," I said, "tell me all at once. Since you are not going away--
+what is it?"
+
+"I suppose," he answered after a brief pause, "you know, though you have 
+never alluded to it, that this park before us is your grandfather's; that 
+the house of which we can discern the roof through this grove of elm and 
+beech, is Thornton House. I am taking you there now."
+
+"But I shall go back to Rock Cottage with you?" I exclaimed eagerly. "I 
+shall go to London with you, and live there in the house of Kate. Shall I 
+not?"
+
+He did not answer; but he half averted his troubled face; his gaze 
+shunned mine.
+
+"Cornelius," I said, clinging to him, "I will not go and live with Mr. 
+Thornton, I will not. I don't love him, and I love you and Kate as my 
+life. He treated me unkindly, and you took me and reared me. Unless you 
+turn me out of your home, I will not leave it for his."
+
+I spoke with passion and vehemence; holding fast to him, as if to brave 
+the power that would seek to divide us.
+
+"Do not speak so wildly," he replied in a soothing tone; "God knows I 
+wish not to compel you--you are free. Daisy." 
+
+"Then I stay with you and Kate," I cried throwing my arms around his 
+neck.
+
+"Will you?" he said with a wistful look, and pressing me to his heart for 
+a moment; but the next he put me away with a deep sigh, and added:
+
+"No, Daisy, you cannot, and would not if you could. Do not interrupt me: 
+I have much to say, and I must go far back. You know how your parents 
+married?"
+
+"Secretly, I believe."
+
+"Yes: one evening your mother, then a girl of your age, left her father's 
+house; she never came back, and died, soon after your birth, a 
+disobedient, unforgiven child."
+
+I was sitting by Cornelius with my hand in his, and my head resting on 
+his shoulder.
+
+"He is not my father," I thought, "yet never could I forsake him thus."
+
+He continued:
+
+"This you know, but I scarcely think you know how bitterly your father 
+repented this act of his youth. He often spoke of it to me. 'Cornelius, 
+never rob a man of his child,' he said, 'it is a great sin.' He was 
+right, Daisy; it is a great sin; I felt it then; I feel it far more now; 
+for though you are not my child, I have reared you, and I know that 
+affection is jealous; that to resign a daughter to a stranger, must 
+always be bitter, but that to have her actually stolen from you; to be 
+robbed of the pleasant thing which has for years been your delight and 
+pride, to feel that it is gone beyond recall, the property of another, I 
+know that this is too sharp a pang for speech, almost for thought. I have 
+thought of such a thing; I have thought that another man might step in 
+between you and me, that he might rob me, whilst I looked on powerless 
+and deserted. My God!" he suddenly added, pressing me closer to him, his 
+eyes kindling, his lips trembling, "I have also thought that if it were 
+not for your sake, there was nothing I would not have the heart to do to 
+that man."
+
+"You have thought that?" I said, reproachfully, "as if such a thing could 
+ever happen, Cornelius."
+
+"If I speak so," he replied, "it is to show you what may be the feelings 
+of the wronged father, and when he is a high-minded man like your father, 
+of him by whom he had been wronged. It was the knowledge of this that 
+made me take you to Mr. Thornton. Oh, how could I be so blind as to call 
+in a stranger to share with me the exclusive and precious privilege 
+Heaven had bestowed, but which I knew not then how to prize! You know, 
+Daisy, that when you were at Mrs. Gray's, I wrote to Mr. Thornton, to 
+obtain back again the boon my folly had forfeited; he cared little for 
+you; he knew you were fretting to return; he consented, but on a 
+condition, to the fulfilment of which I pledged my word--that word, 
+Daisy, which it is death to a man's honour to break--that, whenever he 
+wished it, you were his to claim. He was abroad then, but he returned 
+about a week ago, and his first act has been to write and remind me of my 
+promise."
+
+"You pledged yourself for me, Cornelius?" I said dismayed.
+
+"Oh! Daisy, forgive me. I acted as I thought your father would have 
+wished me to act; besides, I could not have had you otherwise."
+
+"And Mr. Thornton actually wants me!" I exclaimed desperately.
+
+"Yes," sadly replied Cornelius.
+
+"But I do not want him; I will not have him, or his wealth, Cornelius."
+
+"He offers you no wealth, my poor child. Every one knows that his 
+extravagance has made him poor; the estate is mortgaged and entailed; his 
+personal property is small; he has little to give, nothing to bequeath. 
+He is still, as when you knew him, wrapped up in his books."
+
+"Then what does he want me for, Cornelius?"
+
+"To be the charm of his home, and the delight of his heart and eyes," 
+replied Cornelius, in a voice full of love, fondness, and sorrow. "To be 
+to him all that you have been, and never more can be to me. I knew not 
+how to value you formerly; and now that you have become all I could 
+imagine, I am not allowed to possess you in peace! Scarcely have I 
+recovered from the dread of seeing you throw yourself away on a mere boy, 
+scarcely do I deem myself secure, when peril comes from the quarter 
+whence I least feared it, and I am despoiled of my heart's best 
+treasure."
+
+"If you liked me," I said, in a low tone, "you would not, because you 
+could not give me up."
+
+"If I liked you!" began Cornelius, but he said no more.
+
+"Yes, if you liked me!" I exclaimed in all the passion of my woe; "if you 
+liked me, Cornelius, you would feel what I feel--that such a separation 
+is like death. Tell me that your art requires your absence, I can bear 
+it; tell me that you are too poor to keep me, that I must go, and earn my 
+bread amongst strangers, and I shall bear that, too; for I shall look to 
+a happy future, and a blessed reunion. But this--this, Cornelius, my very 
+heart shrinks from it. I feel that you are to follow one path; and that, 
+though my very being clings to you and Kate, I must tread in another, and 
+see you both for ever receding from before my aching eyes. I am not yet 
+eighteen, Cornelius, and I am so happy! I cannot afford to waste my 
+youth, and throw away my happiness; and if you cared for me, would you 
+not feel so, too?"
+
+I spoke with involuntary reproach.
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" he exclaimed so scornfully that I immediately repented, "you 
+think me indifferent, because, not to add to your grief, I am silent on 
+mine. You speak of your sorrow; you do not ask yourself what will be to 
+me the cost of this separation. How shall I return alone to the home we 
+left together this morning? What shall I say to Kate--to Kate who reared 
+you--when she asks me for her child'? Why here am I actually giving up to 
+a total stranger, the very thing I most long to keep; here am I taking 
+you from my home, and leading you to the home of another; here am I 
+placing you in the very circumstances that are likely to make me lose you 
+for ever. You are young, Daisy, very young. You will be flattered, 
+caressed, seduced out of old affections, almost unconsciously; and I 
+shall not be there to guard my rights. I know that absence, time, the 
+world will conspire to efface me from your heart; I know it, and yet I 
+accept this."
+
+"But why so?" I asked; "why so?"
+
+"Because," he replied, with a fixed look, and compressed lips, "because 
+to keep even you, Daisy, with the sense of my own engrossing selfishness, 
+violated honour and trust betrayed upon me, would be gall and wormwood to 
+my soul."
+
+"But it is not you who keep me, Cornelius, if it is I who insist on 
+remaining; if I disobey you, brave your authority, say you had no right 
+to pledge yourself for me, and that, whether you like it or not, I will 
+stay with Kate, what can you do then?"
+
+His colour came and went; he turned upon me a strange, troubled look; his 
+lip quivered; he took my hand in his, and almost crushed it, then dropped 
+it as if it were fire.
+
+"Tempt me not," he said, in a low tone, turning away his look as he 
+spoke. "Tempt me not, for God's sake. I am but flesh and blood--I cannot 
+always answer for myself. There are bounds to self-denial, and limits to 
+self-subjection."
+
+I did not answer, but I passed my arm around his neck, and I laid my head 
+on his shoulder.
+
+"Daisy, Daisy, my child!" he exclaimed, "do you know what you are doing? 
+Do you know what it is you want to make me do?"
+
+I did not reply; but I wept and sobbed freely. He looked at me one 
+moment, turned away, looked again, and turned away no more. He pressed me 
+to his heart--he bent over me--he hushed my grief--he kissed away my 
+tears.
+
+"Be it so," he said, desperately. "I have resisted your dangerous 
+tenderness, I cannot resist your grief. Yes, I will break my word to the 
+living, my duty to the dead. I will let it be said of Cornelius O'Reilly, 
+to gratify his own desires he betrayed his trust--he meanly deceived the 
+ignorant affection of the child he had reared. Let those alone dare judge 
+me who, like me, have been tempted."
+
+"Then you do keep me!" I exclaimed, laughing and crying for joy.
+
+"Oh! yes, I do keep you," he replied, bending on me a look that seemed as 
+if he would attract and gather my whole being into his--a look that, 
+through all my blindness, startled me: but, as it lasted--for a moment 
+only. "Yes, I keep you, Daisy Burns. You have asked to remain with me, 
+and you shall. I will bind you to my home and to me by bonds neither you 
+nor others shall dare to break. Again I say, let those alone who have 
+passed through this fiery trial, and conquered, dare to judge me."
+
+I wondered at the repressed vehemence of his tone--at the defiance of his 
+look--at the mingled trouble and scorn which I read in his countenance, 
+usually so pleasant and good-humoured. I wondered, for I felt not thus, 
+as if striving against my own wishes, and arguing with some hidden enemy. 
+With my head still reclining on his shoulder, my hand in his, my mind, 
+heart, and whole being conscious that we were not to be severed--I felt 
+steeped in peace and serene happiness. My eyelids, heavy with recent 
+tears, could almost have closed in slumber, so deep were now the calm and 
+repose that had followed this storm of grief.
+
+Therefore I wondered--I could not but wonder--that if he, too, felt 
+happy, there should be in his look and mien so few of the tokens of joy--
+for, surely, joy never wore that flushed aspect and troubled glance. It 
+shocked me to see that the meaning of his face was both guilty and 
+resolute--that he looked like one who does a wrong thing, who knows it, 
+but who will do that thing, come what will. He detected my uneasy look, 
+and said, quickly:
+
+"Never mind, Daisy; I take on myself the deed and the sin. I care not for 
+the world's opinion--I care not for its esteem."
+
+"The world, Cornelius! Why what can it say?"
+
+"Accuse me of selfishness. But I say it again: I care not."
+
+I laughed. He gave me a look of pain.
+
+"Do not laugh so," he said; "do not. I never yet heard that light, 
+girlish laugh of yours, but it presaged some new irritating torment. What 
+are you going to say now?"
+
+I saw his temper was chafed. I answered, soothingly:
+
+"What can I say, Cornelius, save that only your sensitive conscience 
+could imagine the accusation of selfishness? Those who think you selfish 
+must be crazed. Why here am I to keep, a girl of seventeen, with little 
+or no money, and you not a rich man yet! Why any other man would think me 
+a bore--a burden--and be glad enough to get rid of me. But you are so 
+disinterested, so generous, that you cannot see that."
+
+I felt more than I saw the change which these words wrought on Cornelius. 
+It was not that his look turned away; it was not that the arm which 
+encircled me, released its hold; but it was as if a cold shadow suddenly 
+stepped in between us: the life and warmth departed from his clasp; the 
+light and meaning of his look retreated inwardly, to depths where mine 
+could not follow.
+
+"You think me disinterested and generous," he said at length. "Do you 
+mean that I do not care about you?"
+
+"No, Cornelius, I know better; but your affection is disinterested. Oh! 
+my friend, my more than father, though you could not be my father, how 
+often have I felt that other girls might well be jealous of me, if they 
+but knew, as I know, what it is to have a friend, who is not bound to you 
+by the ties of blood, yet in whom you can trust utterly; on whom you can 
+rely without fear--as I do with you, Cornelius."
+
+"Do not," he replied, half pushing me away, and averting his face, "do 
+not, Daisy. I dare not trust myself more than I would trust any other 
+man; and, if I were you, I would not trust the man who could break his 
+word--even for my sake."
+
+The words startled me; they woke a chord which, do what I would, I could 
+not lull to sleep or silence. His look and tone as he said, "if I were 
+you, I would not trust the man who could break his word--even for my 
+sake," told me that the sting of his broken word and tarnished honour had 
+already entered, and would never again leave his soul. Then I saw and 
+felt my selfishness in not redeeming his pledge, in dragging him down 
+from that just pride which he took in his unblemished life. I saw, I felt 
+it all, and there rose within me one of those agonizing struggles without 
+which we should not know the power of life; which are the new and bitter 
+birth of our being.
+
+Kate and Cornelius O'Reilly had the deep religious feeling of their race. 
+They made not religion the subject of frequent speech, but they bore its 
+love in their hearts; above all, dear and sacred in their home, was held 
+the name of their Redeemer and their God. His spirit, the spirit of self-
+denial and sacrifice, appeared in their lives, obscured by human weakness 
+no doubt, but a living spirit still. How much had Kate done for her 
+brother! How much had that brother done for me! What had I ever done for 
+either? Nothing, nothing. And now that the hour was come, the hour of 
+self-renonciation, I refused to bear my burden: I cast it on Cornelius. I 
+knew how sacred he held a promise; how galling it would be for him to 
+feel within himself the consciousness of violated truth. I knew it, and 
+with this knowledge came the dread conviction that I was not free; that 
+duty, honour, love, all enjoined the same fatal sacrifice.
+
+I said nothing; but Cornelius could feel me, for I felt myself, trembling 
+from head to foot; there were dews on my brow, and a death-like chill had 
+seized my heart; for a moment the inward struggle, "I cannot leave
+him,"--"thou must," seemed like what we imagine of the spirit torn from  
+the flesh; as bitter and as brief. I submitted silently; but Cornelius 
+required not speech to know it. For a moment he turned pale; for a moment 
+his lips parted, as if to detain me; but he checked the impulse, and said 
+not a word.
+
+I could not weep now; my grief was too bitter. I knew I was turning away 
+from the warmth of my life, to enter a barren, sunless region; and I 
+already felt upon me its desolateness and its gloom. The sacrifice was 
+made; but in no humble, no resigned spirit. My whole being revolted 
+against it with mute and powerless resentment. A captive in the subtle 
+net of fate, I felt as if I could have struggled, even unto death, 
+against those slender bonds which I did not dare to break. Cornelius 
+watched me silently, and read on my face what was passing within me.
+
+"Daisy," he said, in a low, sad tone, "remember we are not men or women 
+until our hearts are mastered, until our passions--ay, the best and 
+purest--lie subdued."
+
+The words subdued my resentful mood to a sorrow more tender and holy. My 
+burden was heavy, but was it more than I could bear? Daughter of the 
+cross, should I dare to repine? I yielded; I tasted the bitter joy which 
+those who bravely drain the cup of sacrifice find in its dregs--a strange 
+sort of sweetness, to be felt, not described, and, alas! not to be 
+envied.
+
+"Cornelius!" I replied, and my faltering voice grew more firm as I 
+uttered his name--"Cornelius, I am willing. Your word shall be redeemed!"
+
+I was going to rise, but lightly resting his hand on my shoulder, he 
+detained me. He stooped, and laid his lips on my brow. He did not say so, 
+but I knew that this was his farewell kiss--the seal set on the love, 
+care, and tenderness of years. The embrace lasted a moment only; the next 
+he had risen. I rose too; I tied my bonnet-strings; he helped me to wrap 
+my scarf around me: mechanically I picked up the flowers he had given me; 
+then silently took his arm, and left the spot where I had decided my 
+destiny.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ 
+
+To reach Thornton House, we had to follow the windings of the stream for 
+some time; cross a one-arched bridge that spanned it, then enter the 
+solitary path that led to the old lodge and iron gate. We had not far to 
+go, but my heart seemed to sink with every step I took; as I perceived 
+the dark trees of the park rising before us, a sudden faintness seized 
+me. I stopped short, and laying my head on the shoulder of Cornelius, I 
+said:
+
+"Let me cry before you give me up, Cornelius; let me cry--or my heart 
+will break."
+
+"I give you up!" he echoed, his eyes kindling, "no mortal man shall make 
+me do that, Daisy. I shall redeem my word by taking you to your 
+grandfather; but from the moment I leave Thornton House, my mind shall 
+have but one thought, my will but one aim: to get you back."
+
+Struck with his defiant tone, I raised my head, and checking my tears, 
+drew back to see him better. He met my look firmly.
+
+"It is fair play," he said, "so long as you are mine, I will not break my 
+pledge by breathing a word to keep or secure you--even with you for the 
+stakes, I would scorn to cheat--but once he fancies you his, I say you 
+are mine, to win if I can. He may guard you as jealously as ever a Turk 
+his Sultana--I shall still outwit and defy him--cost me what it will--
+come what may--I will have you back again."
+
+A slight frown knit his brow; his brown eyes were bent on me, with a look 
+both ardent and resolute; there was will and confidence in the smile 
+which curled his lip, and power and daring in his mien.
+
+"Cornelius," I said a little startled, "how will you do it?"
+
+"Leave that to me, Daisy."
+
+"Then, if this is no parting after all," I observed rather perplexed, 
+"why were you so grieved, and why have you let me grieve, Cornelius?"
+
+His face fell. He sighed profoundly.
+
+"Why?" he said, "why? because, alas! my own will cannot do all. Oh, 
+Daisy! I dread you. I dread you deeply! What avails it to me that I may 
+prevail against others, when with a word you can render me powerless?"
+
+He gave me a look of mingled anxiety and doubt. I wanted him to explain 
+himself; but he would not go beyond saying that on me it all depended; an 
+assertion which he repeated with a sigh. I believed him, and passed from 
+grief to sudden gladness.
+
+"Then consider it settled," I said laughing joyously. "I am not leaving 
+you, Cornelius. I am going on a week's visit or so to my good grandpapa. 
+Tell Johnstone to send me only the little black trunk, but to put my work 
+in it. I want to have it ready for Kate."
+
+We were standing in the path. Cornelius looked down, with a fond yet 
+troubled smile, into my upraised face.
+
+"Go on!" he observed, "it sounds too delightful to be true. It is but a 
+dream which the first rude touch of reality will dispel; and yet I like 
+to delude myself and listen; go on!"
+
+I did go on, laughing at his credulity.
+
+"You must write to Kate," I observed, "and tell her that you are waiting 
+for me. I shall not keep you long; just a week for form's sake."
+
+"God grant it," he replied fervently; and we resumed our walk.
+
+We found Thornton House as gloomy and neglected as ever. The court was 
+overgrown with grass and weeds; the fountain was still a ruin; the ivy 
+grew thick and dark on the walls, and the yews and cypresses behind only 
+looked more sombre and melancholy for rising, as they did now, in the gay 
+sunlight.
+
+When Cornelius knocked at the door, I seemed to expect that the little 
+servant would again open and attempt to oppose our entrance; but, in her 
+stead, a tall, straight housemaid appeared in the gloomy aperture; and, 
+on hearing the name of Cornelius, showed us at once into the same room 
+where, seven years before, we had been ushered by her predecessor. And 
+there, too, surrounded by his books, his papers, maps, globes, stuffed 
+animals, insects, geological specimens, shells, and scientific 
+instruments, we found my grandfather, seated in his arm-chair and 
+unchanged, save for a few more wrinkles.
+
+Mr. Thornton received us with abrupt courtesy. When the preliminary 
+greetings had been exchanged, he gave me a sharp look, and startled me 
+with the remark addressed to Cornelius--
+
+"They are not at all alike."
+
+Implying, I supposed, that my former and my present self were two 
+individuals.
+
+"Not at all," replied Cornelius, who had the faculty of entering at once 
+into the peculiarities of those with whom he conversed.
+
+"Of course you are sure it is the right one," suggested Mr. Thornton.
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"She has grown," was the next observation of my grandfather; as if the 
+fact astonished him.
+
+Cornelius did not answer. My heart sank to see him rise; he laid his hand 
+on my arm, and said gravely--
+
+"Sir, four years ago, I pledged my word that whenever you wished for this 
+young girl, you should have her. Here she is. I have kept my word."
+
+"And mean to keep it still?" hinted Mr. Thornton, darting a quick and 
+piercing look from me to him.
+
+Cornelius reddened, and replied shortly--
+
+"It is kept, Sir."
+
+"And the future may shift for itself. Humph! Well, I suppose you are glad 
+enough to be rid of her! I remember you found her in the way four years 
+ago. So, fancying she would still be more inconvenient as she grew up, I 
+thought I would relieve you from her altogether."
+
+He spoke with ironical politeness. Cornelius gave him a defiant look--
+which Mr. Thornton received with evident amusement--then he turned to me, 
+glanced at me significantly, pressed my hand, bade me a quiet adieu, 
+bowed haughtily to my grandfather, and was gone. I felt confident that 
+this parting was but to lead to a pleasanter reunion, and yet life is so 
+uncertain--its unhappy chances so often outweigh the more fortunate, that 
+I grew sad, spite of all my confident hopes.
+
+"Humph!" said Mr. Thornton, looking at me from under his shaggy eyebrows. 
+"Don't you want to go up to your room?" he added, abruptly.
+
+"I should like it," I replied, not much pleased with his manner.
+
+He rang. A tall, straight housemaid appeared.
+
+"Marks!" said Mr. Thornton, briefly.
+
+"Please, Sir!"
+
+"Mrs. Marks, you fool! Well, why do you stare?"
+
+"I want to know what about Mrs. Marks, Sir."
+
+"Tell her to come, of course."
+
+The girl never moved. He asked, impatiently:
+
+"What are you waiting for, creature?"
+
+"Please, Sir, Mrs. Marks will not come."
+
+"She will not come!"
+
+"No, Sir; she has just had her luncheon. Mrs. Marks never stirs after her 
+luncheon."
+
+She spoke confidently. Mr. Thornton reclined back in his chair, uttered 
+an amazed "Ah!" but, recovering himself, he said, with great suavity:
+
+"Charlotte, be so good as to give my compliments to Mrs. Marks, and say 
+that I shall feel indebted to her if she will favour me with her company 
+for a few minutes, now," he added, with some stress.
+
+Charlotte shook her head sceptically; but she obeyed, and proved more 
+successful than she had anticipated, for, ere long, the door again 
+opened, and admitted Mrs. Marks. In dress and appearance, she looked 
+exactly the same as seven years before.
+
+"Mrs. Marks," said Mr. Thornton, with great politeness, "will you have 
+the kindness to show Miss Burns, my grand-daughter, to her room?"
+
+Mrs. Marks gave me a look of her cold, fishy eye, and said, "Yes, Sir," 
+in a tone of ice.
+
+I saw she remembered me with no pleasant feelings. I followed her out of 
+the study, determined that both she and my grandfather should learn I was 
+no longer a child. She took me to a room on the first floor, large, but 
+plainly furnished, and informed me "this was my apartment."
+
+"Thank you," I replied, quietly; "but it is too gloomy. I prefer the room 
+I had formerly."
+
+Mrs. Marks did not understand. Mrs. Marks was in a state of obliviousness 
+concerning all that had passed before this day. Mrs. Marks knew Miss 
+Burns, the grand-daughter of Mr. Thornton; of the obstinate little girl 
+whom she had called Burns, Mrs. Marks had no recollection, nor of 
+anything concerning her. Without heeding this, I described to her so 
+minutely the locality of my old apartment, that she could not feign 
+ignorance; but when, in answer to her objection that it was "quite 
+empty," I civilly requested her to cause the furniture around me to be 
+removed to it as soon as possible, Mrs. Marks looked figuratively knocked 
+down. I left her in that prostrate condition, to go down and speak to my 
+grandfather.
+
+I could not understand why he had so suddenly claimed me, and what he 
+wanted with me. He did not look as if he liked me a bit better than 
+formerly; certainly not as if inclined to make me "the charm of his home, 
+and the delight of his heart and eyes." "There is something in it," I 
+thought. "Cornelius may fancy that every body is as fond of me as he is, 
+and look for no other motive; but I am sure there is, and I must find it 
+out, if it were only to help him in his mysterious design."
+
+I knocked at the door of the study, and, receiving no answer, opened it 
+and looked in. My grandfather never raised his eyes from his book. 
+Unwilling to disturb him, I entered quietly, and, without speaking, sat 
+down by the window. It was a broad, arched casement, partly veiled with 
+ivy hanging down from above, and facing a magnificent avenue of beech 
+trees that stretched far on into the park. They communicated some of 
+their solemn gloom to the apartment; and the contrast of that green 
+woodland aspect with the dusty tomes and air of venerable learning 
+within; of that solitary look out, and of the quiet, white-headed figure 
+bending so intently over its open volume, struck me. "There is a pretty 
+picture for Cornelius," I thought. "I must bear every detail of it in my 
+mind's eye to tell him when we meet." The contrast recalled me to the 
+object of my presence in my grandfather's apartment. I coughed gently; 
+Mr. Thornton started, looked up, and said, "Ah!" with evident 
+astonishment. I looked at him quietly.
+
+"Well!" he ejaculated.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"Yes what?" he asked, impatiently.
+
+I thought I might have asked, "Well what?" with as much reason; but I 
+merely said:
+
+"Yes, Sir, I am here."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To speak to you, if you please."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Is there any lady in the house besides myself?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is there to be?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Am I to keep house?"
+
+"Mrs. Marks is my housekeeper."
+
+"Then what am I to do?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+This was not encouraging; but I persisted.
+
+"Then there is nothing for me to do?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Are you quite sure?" I asked, earnestly.
+
+He gave me a surprised look. I continued:
+
+"Are you quite sure I cannot be of any use to you, Sir?"
+
+"Of none," was his somewhat contemptuous reply.
+
+"Well then," I rejoined, with great alacrity, "as I am not to keep house, 
+not to do anything, don't you think, Sir, you had better send me back to 
+Mr. and Miss O'Reilly? You know," I added, impressively, "that I must be 
+of some expense to you here, whereas with them, I should cost you nothing 
+at all; and, though it was very kind of you to think of me, I assure you 
+they did not find me in the way."
+
+My grandfather drew in a long breath, and, folding his arms, looked at me 
+from head to foot.
+
+"So you are not an hour here, and you already want to be off," he said.
+
+"But since you don't want me--" I remonstrated.
+
+"I beg your pardon--I do want you," he replied, with ironical politeness; 
+"and the proof I do want you, is, that I have taken the trouble of 
+procuring you, and that I mean to keep you."
+
+He spoke as if I were a piece of furniture. I felt very indignant, and 
+reddening, asked:
+
+"May I know, Sir, what you want me for?"
+
+"No," was the laconic and decisive reply.
+
+"Am I to stay here whether I like or not?" 
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"I shall appeal to Mr. O'Reilly," I exclaimed indignantly.
+
+"The law does not recognise Mr. O'Reilly," composedly answered Mr. 
+Thornton; "he is nothing to you, not even your guardian. I am your 
+grandfather; and the law," he added, giving me an emphatic look, 
+"recognizes me and my power until you are of age."
+
+He seemed to think this sufficient, and again bent over his book. His 
+last words had sunk on my heart like lead. Was it true? could it be true? 
+Did the law give so much power to Mr. Thornton? and, provided he did not 
+ill-use me, would it make me for four years the captive of his pleasure? 
+Could Cornelius really deliver me from this bondage, or, as I began to 
+fear, had he deceived himself, and deceived me? I repented having spoken 
+so openly to Mr. Thornton: and hoping to repair this error, and 
+conciliate him by a more submissive behaviour, I lingered in the study, 
+and took up one of the dusty old volumes scattered everywhere around me. 
+It was a Latin work, but an English treatise on mineralogy had been bound 
+up with it; and this I began reading, or rather I attempted to read. My 
+eyes ever kept wandering from the page down the avenue before me. From 
+its direction, I was sure it led to that quiet stream by which Cornelius 
+and I had sat that same day. In thought I leave the room, hurry down the 
+avenue; the stream is crossed. I follow silent lanes, and traverse lonely 
+fields; a quiet path brings me to Rock Cottage; the garden gate is open; 
+the door stands ajar; I look in; Cornelius is sitting with his back 
+turned to me; I utter his name; he looks round.
+
+The sound of the key turning in the lock, woke me from my happy dream. I 
+looked up; Mr. Thornton's chair was vacant; I ran to the door; it 
+resisted my efforts; my grandfather, forgetting, I suppose, my presence, 
+had locked me in. I looked for means of egress, and saw none but the 
+window. I remained patient for about a quarter of an hour; but perceiving 
+that Mr. Thornton did not return, and, from the fact of being shut in, 
+feeling of course the most eager desire to get out, I opened the window, 
+and stepping on the sill, prepared to jump down; it was higher from the 
+ground than I had expected; I looked and hesitated a little.
+
+"Allow me to assist you," said a very pleasant voice.
+
+I looked round, and saw standing by the window a handsome, gentlemanly 
+man of thirty-five or thereabouts. He had light brown hair, a delicate 
+moustache of the same hue, very fine blue eyes, and a classical profile. 
+As he stood before me, politely offering me his hand to assist my 
+descent, yet scarcely able to repress a smile at my predicament, I 
+fancied I recognized in him the "young Mr. Thornton" I had formerly 
+mistaken for Cornelius. I could not retreat; it would have looked foolish 
+to refuse; so I accepted his assistance, and, as I alighted, said 
+explanatorily:
+
+"My grandfather, I mean Mr. Thornton, had forgotten I was there, and 
+locked me in."
+
+"Miss Burns!" he said smiling, "I guessed as much."
+
+I gave him a look implying, "Who are you?"
+
+"Your cousin Edward Thornton," he answered bowing.
+
+"I thought so;" I replied gravely, "I remember letting you in by the 
+side-door."
+
+"And I have been so fortunate as to help to let you out through the 
+window."
+
+I laughed at the turn our discourse was taking. There was a well-bred 
+ease in his manner, sufficient of itself to banish all shyness.
+
+"My dilemma," he said quietly, "is very different from yours, Miss Burns; 
+I am in the same unfortunate position, in which you found me seven years 
+ago: I cannot get in. I have tried three doors--in vain."
+
+"Here is a fourth," I replied pointing to a low side-door. He knocked 
+against it with his cane, but received no reply.
+
+"Decidedly," gravely observed Edward Thornton, "the place is enchanted. 
+As old Spenser would say:
+
+   'There reigns a solemn silence over all; 
+   Nor voice is heard--'"
+ 
+
+Here he broke down in the quotation; I ventured to suggest the rest:
+
+   "--nor wight is seen in bower or hall."
+ 
+
+"Thank you," he said, with a gracious inclination of his handsome head. 
+"You like Spenser?" he added, resuming the task of tapping against the 
+door with the end of his elegant cane.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "and you?"
+
+He turned round to give me a surprised look of his fine blue eyes, but he 
+quietly replied:
+
+"Yes, I admire Spenser very much."
+
+He was at the door again, and this time he condescended to apply to it 
+the heel of a very handsome, aristocratic foot, when a thin, high voice 
+behind us observed:
+
+"This way, Edward; I have found means of entering, but I never saw a more 
+barbarous place, never."
+
+We both looked round; a lady of middle age, very slender, and attired in 
+pale blue bar?ge, a white lace cloak and a tulle bonnet, over which she 
+balanced a delicate white parasol, was advancing towards us with mincing 
+steps. I fancied I recognised Mrs. Brand, and I was not mistaken.
+
+"Have you found no one?" asked her brother.
+
+"I have found an idiotic house-maid, and an old goblin housekeeper, from 
+neither of whom could I extract anything, save that Mr. Thornton never so 
+much as hinted we were coming; but that, as our carriage entered the 
+avenue, he was seen to rush from the study, and vanish down the park. 
+Gracious, very!"
+
+"Characteristic," said Edward Thornton, smiling with languid grace.
+
+"My dear Edward," solemnly observed his sister, "are you aware that there 
+are no beds ready, or indeed, in existence, and that Marks--I believe 
+that is her name--declares there is not a pound of meat in the house."
+
+Edward Thornton's handsome face lengthened visibly.
+
+"Really," he said, "really!"
+
+"I do not mind it," continued Mrs. Brand; "but I am ashamed at the slur 
+cast on our national hospitality. It is one of those things which, if 
+related to me, I should have dismissed with the reply: 'Absurd--not 
+English--absurd!' I am now compelled to acknowledge it as a melancholy 
+fact, from which I cannot help drawing certain conclusions."
+
+"Perhaps Miss Burns can enlighten us concerning the domestic arrangements 
+of our eccentric relative," observed Mr. Thornton, turning to me.
+
+"I have not been two hours in the house," I replied, smiling.
+
+"Miss Burns!" exclaimed Mrs. Brand, with a start. "Really, Edward, I am 
+surprised you did not mention it sooner. You know how I have longed to 
+see our dear young cousin."
+
+She tripped up to me as she spoke, and gave my hand a fervent squeeze. 
+Then looking at me through a gold eye-glass:
+
+"My dear child," she said, "how well you look--not at all altered. Were I 
+not so short-sighted, I should have known you anywhere--would not you, 
+Edward?"
+
+"No," he replied, quietly; "I find Miss Burns much altered; and if I 
+recognised her, it was in spite of the change seven years have worked."
+
+"Ah! very true," sighed Mrs. Brand. "Years pass, and the world goes on 
+with all its vanities. My dear girl, have you really no idea of what we 
+are to do for beds and a dinner?"
+
+The moral sentiment had been uttered with slow abstraction, but the 
+question relating to the things of the flesh, came out quite briskly.
+
+I regretted that I could give Mrs. Brand no information, but repeated my 
+previous statement.
+
+"It is a _guet-apens_," she feelingly observed; "a most un-English, 
+uncivilised mode of proceeding--worse than primitive--quite savage. 
+Edward, what do you advise?"
+
+"Eggs."
+
+"Eggs!"
+
+"Yes, I have always laboured under the impression that eggs were the 
+resource of travellers in distress."
+
+"When they could get them, I suppose," rather sharply replied his sister.
+
+"Yes," he observed, gently tapping his foot with the extremity of his 
+cane. "I should say this was an indispensable condition."
+
+"I have sent Brooks to a place called Leigh," resumed Mrs. Brand, "but I 
+have no hopes; for Marks says that this not being market-day, there is no 
+chance of our getting anything."
+
+"Excepting visitors," said Mr. Thornton as a sound of carriage wheels was 
+heard in the neighbouring avenue.
+
+We stood near the wicket-door, which had so often been my post of 
+observation. A travelling-carriage was coming up the broad avenue. It 
+stopped before the house, and a lady alighted. Affection rendered Mrs. 
+Brand sharp-sighted, for without even using her eye-glass, she exclaimed:
+
+"Edith!" and biting her lip, looked uneasily at her brother.
+
+"Mrs. Langton!" he said raising his eye-brow, and smoothing his delicate 
+moustache, "why I think it is at least five years since I saw her 
+climbing the Jung-Frau with her gouty old husband. Is he not dead, 
+Bertha?"
+
+Bertha did not answer; she had hastened away to her friend. They met most 
+affectionately, and entered the house kissing.
+
+"This is quite a gathering of cousins," observed Edward Thornton smiling 
+with some irony, "I suppose you know Mrs. Langton?"
+
+"I remember her as Miss Grainger."
+
+He silently offered me his arm, I accepted it, and we entered Thornton 
+House. In an old wainscotted parlour, we found the two ladies in close 
+proximity and conversation. The beautiful Edith seemed to me more 
+beautiful than ever; her weeds became her charmingly, and when she rose, 
+and greeted me with a pleasant smile, I still thought her the loveliest 
+creature I had ever looked at. A faint blush mantled her cheek, as she 
+saw Mr. Thornton; he was polite and unmoved.
+
+The cloth was laid; Mrs. Brand mournfully observed that the dinner not 
+being more remarkable for quantity than for quality--it was the servants' 
+dinner, she said, but did not say how they were to manage--it would be as 
+prudent not to delay the meal. It consisted of cold beef, hot potatoes, 
+home-brewed ale and musty cheese. Mr. Edward Thornton had the good 
+breeding to look as unconscious of the sorry fare before him, as if he 
+had venison on his plate and claret in his glass. Mrs. Brand sighed and 
+lamented the whole time. Mrs. Langton would have been a woman after 
+Byron's own heart, for she scarcely touched a morsel, and indeed looked 
+much too lovely to eat or do anything but be beautiful, which she 
+certainly did to perfection. As soon as politeness permitted, she retired 
+to a deep bow-window that looked forth into the park; Mr. Thornton soon 
+made his way to her chair, and from where I sat by Mrs. Brand, I could 
+hear fragments of their conversation. He believed he had had the pleasure 
+of seeing her in Switzerland. Had he really seen her? she asked 
+carelessly; she thought one could see nothing but the mountains and 
+precipices in that picturesque country. Did she not like it? inquired Mr. 
+Thornton. Oh, yes; that was to say no; and yet she thought she rather 
+liked it, as much as one could like anything of course. Of course, 
+assented Mr. Thornton with some emphasis. She reddened, rose and came and 
+sat by Mrs. Brand, who immediately began kissing her; whilst her brother, 
+addressing me in his easy polite way, alluded to the beauty of the 
+evening, and proposed a walk over the grounds. My lips parted to decline, 
+but on second thought I consented.
+
+"As I was telling you, dear," said Mrs. Langton, but on seeing me take 
+the arm of my cousin, she hesitated slightly.
+
+"As you were telling me, dear," echoed Mrs. Brand, giving the hand of her 
+friend a gentle squeeze, and watching her brother and me with the corner 
+of her eye.
+
+"Yes, I was telling you," resumed Mrs. Langton.
+
+What she was telling her dear Bertha. I know not, for at that precise 
+moment, Mr. Thornton and I left the room. He was my cousin and old enough 
+to be my father; I did not think there could he any impropriety in 
+walking out with him, and, secure on this head, I allowed myself to be 
+entertained by his pleasant discourse, and watched for an opportunity of 
+introducing the questions I wished him to answer. That opportunity not 
+coming, I was obliged to enter on the subject somewhat abruptly.
+
+"What a beautiful, rosy cloud," thoughtfully observed my companion.
+
+"Mr. Thornton," I said very earnestly, "I am afraid you are going to 
+think me very impertinent."
+
+Mr. Thornton thus summoned from his cloud, looked as astonished as a man 
+of the world can look, but he promptly recovered, and of course protested 
+against anything of the sort. 
+
+"Oh! but I mean it," I resumed; "and yet I cannot help it, you know; that 
+is what makes it so provoking."
+
+Mr. Thornton smiled, and felt convinced that I alarmed myself 
+unnecessarily.
+
+"No, I assure you I do not; and, to prove it, here it is. What sort of a 
+man is Mr. Thornton?"
+
+"A very learned man." 
+
+"Ah! but I mean in temper." 
+
+"Eccentric."
+
+"And wilful," I suggested.
+
+"He is very firm."
+
+"I remember hearing formerly that he was very litigious; is it true!"
+
+"Why yes," carelessly replied my cousin; "he generally has one or two 
+little law matters going on. He is tenacious of his rights, and never 
+allows them to be infringed. He would spend hundreds sooner than be 
+wronged of a shilling. How do you like this place?"
+
+I had not heeded where he was taking me; looking up I perceived that we 
+had reached a wild-looking part of the grounds, and stood by a quiet and 
+solitary well. Between the sombre and massive trees that shed their 
+solemn gloom over it, I caught a distant glimpse of the narrow stream by 
+which Cornelius and I had sat that same day, and of which the glancing 
+waters were now reddened by the setting sun. The well was built against a 
+rise of ground; it was rude, ancient, defaced by time, and partly veiled 
+by moss, and dark creeping plants; the water came out clear and bright 
+from beneath the gloom of its low arch, to fall into a stone basin, then 
+flow away hidden among the high ferns that grew around, and betrayed in 
+its course, only by its low murmur.
+
+"It is a wishing-well; will you try its virtues?" said my cousin, 
+pointing with a smile to the iron bowl, hanging from a rusty chain by the 
+low arch.
+
+"Did you ever put them to the test, Sir?" I asked, wishfully.
+
+"As a boy I did; and found the legend--a legend."
+
+"Then I fear it is useless for me to try," I replied, sighing.
+
+We turned away from the spot, walked a little longer, then went in. What 
+sort of an evening my three cousins spent together, I know not. I retired 
+early, and went up, sad and disheartened, to that room whence I now 
+feared it passed the power of Cornelius to deliver me. I sat down, and 
+looked around me; vivid images of the past rose with every glance. I went 
+to the window by which I had so often watched for his coming; and looking 
+down on the dark park below, I thought, with an aching heart, of the 
+lonely evening he was spending at Rock Cottage. My own heart was full. I 
+could not bear not to be with him; but every time, even in thought, I 
+imagined our reunion, the dread spectre of the law seemed to rise between 
+us. Cornelius, exposed to trouble, persecution, and loss on my account--
+it was not to be thought of.
+
+"I must try conciliation," I thought; "rough as he is, Mr. Thornton may 
+be smoothed down. If that will not do, I shall make myself so 
+disagreeable that he will be glad to get rid of me." And with a thought 
+and prayer for the absent one, I fell asleep at a late hour.
+
+Our breakfast was a great improvement on the dinner of the preceding day; 
+but this fact failed to conciliate Mrs. Brand, whom I found alone in the 
+parlour. Scarcely giving herself time to return my good-morning, she 
+said, eagerly:
+
+"My dear, would you believe it! They actually had ducks! yes, ducks!" she 
+repeated with indignant emphasis; "whilst _we_ dined on cold beef, _they_ 
+had ducks! Now, it is a mere trifle--a matter of no consequence; but it 
+nevertheless happens that _I_ am particularly fond of ducks."
+
+"Ducks!" I echoed, not exactly understanding her meaning.
+
+"Yes, my dear, _they_, Marks, the servants in short, had ducks for 
+_their_ dinner; I found it out this morning by the merest chance."
+
+Mrs. Langton here entered the room, looking as fresh and lovely as the 
+morning. She gave her dear Bertha a kiss, which the other returned, 
+saying breathlessly:
+
+"Edith, they had ducks, the cold beef was good enough for us; they had 
+ducks."
+
+Edith looked surprised, and, on hearing the story, smiled and said: "Ah!" 
+with charming grace, "and that she fancied she rather liked ducks, but 
+was not quite sure." She sat down in the deep embrasure of the window, 
+and looked out at the park with an abstraction that was not disturbed by 
+the sound of the opening door, and the appearance of Edward Thornton. He 
+informed us that Mr. Thornton was laid up with a rheumatic attack.
+
+"Distressing!" abstractedly said Mrs. Brand. "I suppose you know they had 
+ducks?"
+
+And as we sat down to breakfast, she recapitulated her wrongs. Mr. 
+Thornton heard her with perfect unconcern, and said "really," then spoke 
+to me of the beauty of the morning, and of Mr. Thornton's rheumatism.
+
+"You will be sorry to learn," he said, gently breaking the shell of an 
+egg, "that our excellent relative is completely laid up; I found him in 
+his study lying on a couch, unable to stir, and in acute pain."
+
+I was sorry in one sense, and glad in another; I had a vague hope that 
+pain might subdue my obdurate grandpapa, and as soon as breakfast was 
+over, I hastened to his study; wishing to take him by surprise, I 
+ventured to enter without knocking. The surprise was mine. Mr. Thornton, 
+whom I had expected to find groaning on his couch, was standing on the 
+top of a high flight of steps, reaching down heavy quartos. On hearing 
+the door open, he turned round sharply, and looked at me scowling. I 
+rather enjoyed his predicament and said quietly:
+
+"I am glad you are better, Sir."
+
+He growled an inaudible reply, and came down, hobbling and groaning with 
+every step he took, and darting mistrustful looks at me. I offered him 
+the aid of my shoulder, which he accepted, leaning on me as heavily as he 
+could. I helped him to return to his couch, then quietly sat down facing 
+him. He knew he was at my mercy, and did not tell me to go; but he 
+surlily rejected my proffered services; but I persisted.
+
+"I can look for any book for you, Sir," I said. 
+
+"Look, then," was his ungracious reply. 
+
+"What book is it, Sir?"
+
+"Begin with the first volume on the second shelf."
+
+I obeyed, and brought him a heavy tome, which he just looked at, then 
+threw away, briefly saying:
+
+"Another."
+
+Another I brought him, with the same result; a third, a fourth, and so on 
+throughout the whole shelf.
+
+"Are you not tired?" he asked with smooth irony.
+
+"Oh, no," I replied, smiling, "shall I begin another shelf?"
+
+"No, you need not," he answered, giving it up, "it is an old treatise on 
+mineralogy that has long been lost."
+
+I turned to the window; the book I had been reading on the preceding day 
+still lay there open; I silently handed it to my grandfather, who gave it 
+and then me a look of profound surprise, followed by a remarkable 
+smoothing down of mien and accent.
+
+"How did you find it?" he asked, looking at it with evident satisfaction.
+
+"By chance, Sir."
+
+"By chance! Oh! I have another thing missing. Ray's 'Chaos and Creation,' 
+perhaps you could find that too, eh?"
+
+He looked at me thoughtfully. Anxious to conciliate him, I replied, 
+eagerly:
+
+"Perhaps I might, Sir."
+
+"Humph! Can you write? I mean write a round hand, not the abominable 
+slant of most school-girls?"
+
+"Yes, Sir: my handwriting is remarkably round."
+
+"Transcribe this."
+
+He pushed towards me a sheet of hieroglyphics, which I turned over with a 
+dismay that made him chuckle. Unwilling to give him an advantage over me, 
+I sat down and at once entered on my task; the decyphering was the worst 
+part of the business; but after working hard for several hours, I 
+accomplished it to his satisfaction and to mine. 1 thought to rest; but 
+Mr. Thornton was differently inclined.
+
+"Can you read?" he asked, "I mean read as you talk, without drawl or 
+singing?"
+
+I replied I hoped I could. He said we should see, and handed me the 
+mineralogical treatise. For two hours I read without stopping. At length 
+he said that was enough. I felt quite faint and exhausted, and asked if I 
+could leave him. He assented, adding--
+
+"Mind you keep a look-out for 'Chaos and Creation!'"
+
+I promised to do so, and left him much relieved. The day was hot; the air 
+of the close, dusty, old study felt stifling. I went out into the garden 
+at the back of the house, and sat down in the arbour. I had not been 
+there five minutes before I was joined by my cousin, Edward Thornton. He 
+was beginning to make himself very pleasant and agreeable, when Mrs. 
+Langton appeared stepping down daintily from beneath the porch, like a 
+lady in a picture. She had discarded her widow's cap; the warm sunlight 
+gave a brown tint to her jet black hair, and she looked fresh and fair as 
+the rose which she held in one hand, whilst the other slightly raised her 
+sweeping skirt. Mr. Thornton rose and resigned to her his place by me, 
+which she accepted with a gracious smile. He stood before us, talking in 
+his easy, agreeable way; I looked and listened, remembering that in this 
+very spot, seven years before, they had met and parted. They, too, 
+remembered it; for ere long I had the pleasure of finding that I was made 
+the medium of their well-bred sneers.
+
+Edward Thornton addressed the chief portion of his discourse to me, and 
+put several unimportant questions, each, more or less, arrows that 
+glanced at Mrs. Langton.
+
+"Is it not about seven years ago, that I saw you here?" he observed 
+carelessly.
+
+"Yes, Sir, exactly seven years."
+
+"It seems a long time, does it not?" he added, addressing Mrs. Langton, 
+as if to remind her that seven years had passed over her beauty.
+
+"Very!" she replied, smelling her rose, and looking like one for whom 
+time does not exist.
+
+"I remember you quite well," Edward continued, addressing me, "a small 
+fair child, with bright golden hair, which has now deepened into brown."
+
+"Do you?" I replied, amused by this little bit of fiction, to which Mrs. 
+Langton listened, smiling at the slight put on her glossy tresses, dark 
+as the raven's wing.
+
+"Oh! yes," he continued, "Bertha and I used to call you the little white 
+rose. Your name is Rose, is it not?"
+
+"No, my name is Daisy; that is to say, Margaret, but at home I am always 
+called Daisy."
+
+"The name of the sweetest wild flower," he replied, smiling; "there may 
+be less beauty about it," he continued, "than about the rose, but then it 
+has a grace and a freshness quite its own."
+
+The Rose looked scornful. Not relishing being thus made the instrument of 
+Mr. Edward Thornton's pique, I rose, and spite of his entreaties, left 
+the arbour. Common politeness would not allow him to desert Mrs. Langton; 
+how they got on together is more than I know. They were studiously polite 
+at dinner.
+
+When I went up to my room that same evening, I perceived that the little 
+black trunk had arrived. I opened it eagerly, but searched in vain for a 
+letter. A fact, however, struck me. It contained the portfolio of Italian 
+drawings placed there by another hand than mine. I turned them over with 
+a vague hope. I found nothing but a stray scrap of paper, which I took to 
+the light. It was one of those rude and hasty sketches with which artists 
+write down passing ideas: yet, imperfect as it was, I recognised at a 
+glance the well I had so recently seen and visited. A female figure, in 
+which I knew myself, sat by it with her hand shading her eyes, as if 
+watching for something or some one; the disk of the sun, half sunk behind 
+the far horizon and sending forth low spreading rays, indicated the close 
+of day. Evidently Cornelius knew this place and wished me to meet him 
+there at sunset. When? Most probably on the following day. My heart 
+leaped with joy at the thought of seeing him so soon, and with trust and 
+hope on perceiving how faithfully he kept his promise.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ 
+
+My first act the next morning was to go and see my grandfather. He 
+received me with a sufficiently cordial growl, and confident, I suppose, 
+of the good understanding between us, no longer kept up the pretence of 
+rheumatic pains in my presence. I again read and transcribed for several 
+hours, at the end of which Mr. Thornton was pleased to say--"I might be 
+off if I liked;" and reminded me not to forget "that Chaos and 
+Creation--" Wishing to sound him still further, I replied--
+
+"Oh! no. I hope to find it before I go."
+
+"Eh?" he sharply said.
+
+"Before I go with Mr. O'Reilly," I resumed, "he means to stay another 
+week or ten days here."
+
+"Who said you were to go with him?" asked Mr. Thornton.
+
+"No one. But surely, Sir, you will not care to keep an insignificant girl 
+like me?"
+
+He did not answer; I continued.
+
+"It would be a great deal better to go with him, than to make him come 
+back and fetch me."
+
+"I'll tell you what," interrupted Mr. Thornton, knitting his black brows 
+and looking irate: "if that Irishman, who sent the little girl to school, 
+and who gives the young girl such queer looks, attempts to carry you off, 
+he'll rue it as long as he lives. I'll teach him," he added, 
+impressively, "the meaning of the word 'abduction.' See 9th of George 
+IV."
+
+"Abduction. Sir," I said, reddening, "means carrying off by force."
+
+"And the law construes fraud into force," coolly answered Mr. Thornton. 
+"See 9th of George IV."
+
+I was much perturbed by this threat. Mr. Thornton did not appear to see 
+or notice it, and dismissed me with another hint about "Chaos and 
+Creation."
+
+After dinner--our housekeeping was now much improved and, indeed, quite 
+stylish--Mr. Edward Thornton and Mrs. Langton vanished, and I remained 
+with Mrs. Brand, who entertained me, for some time, with the many virtues 
+of her brother. "A most excellent brother he had ever been to her; and 
+since he had come into the Wyndham property, she could say that Poplar 
+Lodge had been as much her home as his--a fact which proved there was 
+nothing like the ties of blood, for Mr. Brand, she was very sorry to say, 
+had not behaved at all delicately; and, satisfied with leaving her a few 
+paltry hundreds a-year, had actually bequeathed to his daughter that 
+delightful Holywell Lodge--a most exquisite place--to which he well knew 
+that she had a particular fancy, not because it was beautiful--she was 
+essentially a person of simple, unsophisticated tastes--but her heart was 
+bound to Holywell. She had spent her honeymoon there, and she was 
+astonished that had not proved a consideration with Mr. Brand." We sat by 
+the window. The trunks of the trees in the park shone warm and red with 
+the light of the setting sun. I wanted to be off, and said carelessly:
+
+"What a delightful walk Mrs. Langton and Mr. Thornton are now having!"
+
+Mrs. Brand started.
+
+"My dear," she said, quickly, "you do not mean--Edith is in her own room 
+surely."
+
+"I saw her and Mr. Thornton disappearing behind that clamp of trees."
+
+"Imprudent!" exclaimed Mrs. Brand, looking fidgetty. "She takes cold so 
+easy. I must really go after her."
+
+She rose, left the room, and hurried off, at once, in the direction I had 
+pointed out. I waited awhile, then slipped out. My way lay exactly 
+opposite to hers. I kept within the shelter of the trees. In a few 
+minutes, I had reached the well; but, to my dismay, I perceived standing 
+by it, and talking quietly together, the objects of Mrs. Brand's search. 
+They stood with their backs turned to me. I sank down, at once, in the 
+high ferns, which closed over me. I knelt stooping, and every now and 
+then cautiously raised my head to look. They lingered awhile longer, then 
+left. When they were out of sight, I sat up, shaking from my loosened 
+hair the dried fern and withered leaves with which it had got entangled.
+
+Startled by a low sound near me, I looked round quickly. A few paces from 
+me, the ferns began to move, then a man's arm divided them, and, in the 
+opening appeared the handsome and laughing face of Cornelius. He half sat 
+up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at me, smiling.
+
+"Are they gone?" he whispered.
+
+I gave a hasty glance around. The sun had nearly set. In its warm and 
+mellow glow, the park looked silent and lonely. Over all things already 
+brooded the stillness of evening.
+
+"It's all right," I said, jumping up. "Cornelius, you are tall, and could 
+be seen a good distance, so please to be quiet."
+
+"You don't mean to say that I am to remain here on my back?" he asked, 
+indignantly.
+
+"I mean that, if you get up, I shall take flight."
+
+He fumed and fretted, but I was obdurate. On his back I made him lie, and 
+there I kept him. When he became restless, I threatened to leave him. He 
+submitted, muttering, "Absurd--ridiculous!" and, turning away his flushed 
+and vexed face, he would not speak. I knelt down by him, and, smoothing 
+his hair, asked if he did not feel comfortable, and what more he wanted. 
+At first, I got no answer, but I stroked him into good humour, for, all 
+at once, he snatched my hand, and pressing it tenderly to his lips, 
+informed me he was a savage, and I an angel. I laughed, and said:
+
+"That explains what Mr. Thornton meant by your queer looks. I have always 
+heard that the eye of a savage has something quite peculiar."
+
+"Queer looks!" echoed Cornelius, reddening; "the queerness is in his 
+eyes, Daisy. But let him have his say. I have taken no vow; but I am 
+determined--"
+
+"Cornelius, if you will toss in that extraordinary fashion, I must go."
+
+He groaned, but became once more quiet.
+
+"Since you are so fidgetty," I said, "why did you not come to see me at 
+Thornton House?"
+
+"Why, Daisy," he replied, rolling a stray lock of my hair round his 
+finger, "because I am a burglar, and not a swindler. I may rob a man of 
+his jewel, but I will not cheat him out of it."
+
+"Abduction and 9th George IV," rushed into my head; but I carelessly 
+said:--
+
+"So I am to be stolen property."
+
+He laughed, and did not contradict it.
+
+"But how will you manage?" I asked.
+
+"It is not settled yet?" he replied evasively; "but you shall know all 
+the next time we meet here."
+
+"Then why this meeting of to-day, Cornelius?--why this useless danger?"
+
+"Danger!--there is none for me; and if there were, I would meet and brave 
+it willingly for this sight of your face. Now do not look so like a shy 
+fawn, though it becomes you charmingly. It was quite pretty to watch you 
+hidden in the ferns. Every now and then you raised your fair head like a 
+young Nereid, then dipped it again into that green sea, where I now lie 
+flat like a dead fish; and yet, Daisy, how pleasant it is to be here with 
+you!"
+
+"How do you know this place?"
+
+"I sketched it years ago on one of my visits to your father; little 
+thinking then that the sulky little girl, who would not kiss me, would 
+one day break every tie for my sake."
+
+All doubt that I might not enter into his plans, or that I could refuse 
+to accompany him when the moment came, seemed as if by magic to have left 
+Cornelius. No longer did he, or perhaps could he, anticipate the chance 
+of a refusal. Yet, now, that I saw more clearly to what consequences his 
+scheme might lead, I felt I loved him far too much to consent. But he 
+spoke with so much confidence and hope, that I dreaded undeceiving him. I 
+could rule him in little things; but when his passions were roused--I had 
+tested it in the case of William Murray--he was my master. His vehement 
+feelings swayed me, as a strong wind bows weak reeds before its breath. 
+If, in the burst of anger and grief that would assuredly follow the 
+announcement of my resolve not to agree to his plans, Cornelius insisted 
+on making me accompany him at once, I knew my own weakness well enough to 
+guess that I could not remain behind. So kneeling by him, and looking 
+down somewhat sadly at his triumphant face, I said nothing, but indulged 
+him in his flights of fancy.
+
+The warm glow of day had not yet left earth; the moon had risen, but her 
+light was pale and indistinct, as it is in the first hours of evening; it 
+shone with a mild and grey radiance over that quiet spot, fell softly on 
+the trees that sheltered it, and just touched the stone arch of the well, 
+whose waters flowed with a low ripple, then spread away vaguely over the 
+wide park, dotted with dark clumps of trees. The evening was unusually 
+mild and balmy. I felt it both soothing and delightful to be alone with 
+Cornelius at this lonely hour, and in this solitary spot; but most 
+saddening to think we no longer owned the shelter of the same roof, and 
+were no longer to live within the holy circle of the same home.
+
+At length, I spoke of going. He detained me as long as he could, and 
+released me with a promise of meeting him there again two days hence. If 
+I could not come, a letter hidden under a stone that lay half buried in 
+the grass, was to tell him so. As we parted, he said, fondly:--
+
+"A few days more, Daisy, and there shall be no more meetings, nor 
+partings either."
+
+I did not dare to reply, but turning abruptly from him, I ran away 
+through the high grass, without once looking behind.
+
+I had not to read or transcribe on the following day, the best part of 
+which I spent with Mrs. Brand. She spoke a good deal of Mr. Thornton, and 
+dropped mysterious hints, wholly lost on my ignorance; but she assured me 
+she was not at all offended with my reserve, which was quite _de bon 
+go?t_, and decidedly English.
+
+I was amused at the idea that I should be accused of reserve for not 
+understanding her sphinx-like mode of speech; I also thought that, for a 
+lady who seemed fond of everything English, a less frequent use of French 
+words, to which her own language offered equivalents, would have been 
+more consistent. But this was one of the little contradictions in which, 
+as I afterwards found, Mrs. Brand indulged. She was very national, but an 
+English dressmaker would have thrown her into fits; English manufactures 
+were irritating to her nerves, and English cooking would have been the 
+death of her. She also once informed me, that but for her dear Edward, 
+her health would compel her to reside on the Continent, in which case, 
+England would, I fear, have been deprived of Mrs. Brand altogether, and 
+the intercourse between them would have been limited to the transmission 
+and receipt of the English "paltry hundreds" which Mr. Brand had 
+bequeathed to his affectionate spouse.
+
+That Mrs. Brand was quite a martyr to sisterly affection, was indeed an 
+indubitable fact, for in the course of the morning, she observed to me: 
+"My dear, people may talk about plantations and negro slavery, and 
+factory girls; but I assure you, that the fashionable world is a wide 
+plantation, and that we, the slaves who work it, are worked to death. I 
+came here for a little peace, and behold, I received I know not how many 
+invitations yesterday, and I must pay I know not how many visits to-day. 
+Oh! my dear; if it were not for Edward, I would break my chains and fly."
+
+Borne up, however, by the thought of Edward, the slave of the world 
+managed to drag her chain pretty well, and that same afternoon was even 
+equal to the exertion of stepping into her carriage for the purpose of 
+going to work her plantation. Mrs. Langton accompanied her; Edward 
+Thornton remained at home. He had stretched his elegant person in an old-
+fashioned arm-chair, where he read the newspaper, and looked as politely 
+_ennuy?_ as possible. I sat by the window, looking at the Italian 
+drawings of Cornelius. I had brought them down on the express wish of 
+Mrs. Brand, who, giving them a careless look, had said "how pretty," and 
+thought no more about them. When she left, however, she envied me with a 
+sigh my privilege of being able to stay at home, and congratulated me on 
+my indifference to worldly pleasures. As the door closed on her, Mr. 
+Edward Thornton laid down his newspaper, to say negligently:
+
+"And so, Miss Burns, you really don't care for the world! What a little 
+hermitess!"
+
+"Do you care about it, Sir?"
+
+"I? no; but I'm tired of it."
+
+I smiled and shook my head incredulously. I rather liked my cousin; but I 
+could not help thinking that his character of an old man of the world was 
+more put on than real.
+
+"You don't believe it?" he said.
+
+"No," was my frank reply.
+
+"Now, Miss Burns, what should I care for?"
+
+"Politics?"
+
+"I am sick of them. Standing for a certain borough, and being pelted with 
+eggs and apples, gave me a surfeit."
+
+"Pleasure?"
+
+"It is too hard work for me."
+
+"Money?"
+
+"I have got it, and therefore do not care for it."
+
+"Horses?"
+
+"Over years ago."
+
+"Years ago!" I thought, "and you have not come into the Wyndham property 
+more than a year, cousin. Travelling?" I suggested aloud.
+
+"Over too. Do you confess yourself mistaken, and acknowledge that I am 
+tired of the world?"
+
+"No, Sir!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"No; you read the newspaper."
+
+My cousin opened his fine blue eyes, and looked amused, and seemed to 
+expect more; but I looked at my drawings, and remained mute; he raised 
+his head from the back of the high arm-chair on which it was cushioned. I 
+took no notice of this; he coughed; I never looked up. He took his paper, 
+laid it down, took it up again, and at length feeling either piqued or 
+inquisitive, rose and came round to the back of my chair. I allowed him 
+to stand there, and look over my shoulder, as long as he pleased.
+
+"I wonder where Bertha got these!" he said at length in a tone of 
+surprise.
+
+"They are mine," I replied quietly, "Mr. O'Reilly gave them to me."
+
+"Are they by him?" 
+
+I assented with some pride. My cousin looked astonished, and pronounced 
+the sketches masterly. He sat down by my side, and looked over the 
+contents of the portfolio; his remarks showed me that he was an excellent 
+judge. We looked slowly; and had not done, when Mrs. Brand and Mrs. 
+Langton returned from their laborious duties.
+
+"Have you seen these, Bertha?" said Edward Thornton to his sister.
+
+"Yes, lovely things," she replied, carelessly.
+
+"Have you?" he asked of Edith, who sat apart, gathered up in her own 
+loveliness, like a self-admiring rose.
+
+She answered in the negative, and taking up the portfolio, he seemed 
+inclined to show them to her; but his sister playfully interfered, told 
+him that as he had already seen them, it was not fair; that she was 
+passionately fond of drawings, and would look over these with her dear 
+Edith by whom she accordingly sat most pertinaciously until dinner-time. 
+Her brother remained by me, and talked of Cornelius, whom he emphatically 
+pronounced a man of genius. My ear opened to hear him speak so.
+
+"He is more than a man of genius," I replied with some emotion; "he is so 
+good. At least he has always been so to me; he adopted and reared me 
+quite as if I had been his own child, and that was very kind."
+
+Mr. Thornton smiled, and spoke of good deeds that brought their own 
+reward. I hinted that if I was a reward, it seemed hard he should be 
+deprived of me. He evidently thought this hard, too; and though he did 
+not say so, I saw he intended influencing Mr. Thornton in my favour. A 
+fact on which I did not place much hope, for I knew enough of my 
+grandfather to guess he was not easily governed.
+
+He kept me with him transcribing for several hours the next day; but he 
+never spoke until I was leaving the room, then he said very coolly:
+
+"You can do the rest after dinner, whilst I go on with that little 
+business to the wishing-well."
+
+My hand was on the door; I turned round to give him a terrified look. He 
+laughed as if he enjoyed my fright. I dare say I looked dismayed enough, 
+for as I left the study, I met my cousin entering, and he gave me an 
+astonished glance. I passed by him swiftly, and ran up to my room, there 
+to write a few words, with which I hastened down again. Not suspecting 
+that my grandfather would see me, or seeing me guess my intention, I went 
+down the beech-tree avenue; but I had not gone ten steps, when the arched 
+casement was thrown open, and Mr. Thornton appeared in the aperture, grim 
+and forbidding.
+
+"Miss Burns," he said, sternly, "will you come back, if you please. I 
+want you. Sir, I shall thank you not to interfere."
+
+The latter remark was addressed to my cousin, who, standing by him, 
+seemed to plead or urge something. He bowed stiffly and drew back, 
+looking offended. I obeyed the summons I had received, and returned to 
+the study, my eyes overflowing with indignant tears which pride could 
+scarcely restrain. Edward Thornton gave me a look of sympathy, and left 
+as I entered. Mr. Thornton eyed me severely.
+
+"You may as well give it up," he said, "for I won't allow it."
+
+I sank down on a chair without replying. He continued:
+
+"If you ever saw a moth singe its wings at a candle, you know the fate of 
+your friend. Every one knows that though I don't care a farthing for 
+game, I allow no poaching. We were three of us at the wishing-well the 
+other evening. Since he would brave me, why I shall just show him that I 
+have him so," he added expressively uniting his forefinger and thumb, 
+"and that no later than this evening."
+
+I gave him a beseeching look; he laughed; I began a supplication; he 
+interrupted with a stern: "I never retract."
+
+I steeled my heart, and took a desperate resolve.
+
+"Mr. Thornton," I said rising and going up to him, "I will submit to 
+anything, if you will but let Mr. O'Reilly alone. It is because he knows 
+I am so fond of him that he does all this."
+
+"That's not true, and you know it," roundly interrupted Mr. Thornton. 
+"It's because he is so fond of you that he can't take his eyes off of 
+you."
+
+"Well then, yes," I exclaimed, feeling that perfect sincerity was after 
+all the best policy. "It is because ho likes me. Has he not a right to be 
+fond of me, just as I of him and his sister? I love them both with my 
+whole heart; I long to be with them back again, and I hate being here--
+and yet I yield--I submit to anything you may exact; but, to the grief of 
+my loss, I entreat you do not add the torment of a persecution endured 
+for my sake. If you will but disregard this and any other attempt he may 
+make to see me, I will pass my word not to see him without your 
+permission. He has taught me that one's word is a sacred thing; if I give 
+mine I will keep it, though Grod alone knows how much it will cost me."
+
+My voice faltered and sank, for, as I thought of the pledge I was 
+offering, I felt scarcely able to speak, and yet I dreaded lest Mr. 
+Thornton should say no, and persist in seeking out Cornelius. He 
+cogitated for a while, then said abruptly:
+
+"To spare the time I cannot afford to lose, and for no other reason--I 
+consent; but mind: as you keep your word, I keep mine."
+
+I made no answer to this remark, but asked if I might not write to 
+Cornelius to tell him what had passed, and bid him the farewell I was not 
+to utter. He said yes. I wrote at once, and gave him the letter which he 
+promised to forward without delay.
+
+Until then, I had not felt my parting from Cornelius. His promise, my own 
+hopes, the light spirit of youth, had sustained me. But now that I was 
+pledged beyond recall, hope forsook me like a faithless friend in the 
+hour of need, and left me to taste in all its bitterness the misery of 
+absence and separation.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ 
+
+Years give us strength to suffer. I was no longer a weak and sickly 
+child. I grieved, but my sorrow was not more than I could bear. I was 
+young, and hope soon returned to me, and whispered that, after all, this 
+trial, though bitter, could not last for ever; that I might succeed in 
+conciliating my grandfather; and, should I fail in the attempt, that a 
+few more years would make me my own mistress.
+
+My cousin Edward sympathised with me, wondered what could be Mr. 
+Thornton's motives for such strange severity, and what sort of a heart he 
+had thus rudely to break the tender and filial tie which bound me to my 
+adopted father. I thought him very kind; and my only comfort was to look 
+with him over the sketches of Cornelius.
+
+Next to seeing him, it was pleasant to hear him spoken of. I seldom 
+uttered his name myself, but I could sit for hours, listening patiently, 
+just for the chance of its being mentioned now and then. This was the 
+charm which lay for me, in the presence of Edward Thornton, which made me 
+regret his absence and welcome his return. He seemed flattered by my 
+evident preference, his sister looked on approvingly, and Mrs. Langton 
+brushed past me haughty and disdainful.
+
+At the end of a week, Mr. Edward Thornton announced to me, one evening 
+that we chanced to be alone, his intention of leaving Thornton House 
+early the next day. He was going to London; he promised to call on 
+Cornelius and Kate, tell them he had seen me, and write to me how he had 
+found them. Then he rose, and bade me farewell.
+
+"When do you come back?" I asked, with a sigh.
+
+"I do not come back," he said, gently.
+
+"Oh! but what shall I do?" I exclaimed, dismayed at the prospect of 
+having no one to talk to me of Cornelius, and my eyes filled with 
+involuntary tears.
+
+Mr. Edward Thornton looked embarrassed and hinted that his sister 
+remained behind. I did not answer--a pause followed. Then my cousin hoped 
+that, if my grandfather permitted it, I would accompany Mrs. Brand when 
+she left Thornton House for Poplar Lodge. I knew the place well: it stood 
+within a comparatively short distance of the Grove. My heart beat, and my 
+face flushed, at the thought of catching a stray glimpse of Cornelius and 
+Kate.
+
+"Oh, I shall be so glad--so happy!" I exclaimed, eagerly.
+
+My cousin protested that the joy and happiness would be his; and, 
+respectfully kissing my hand, he bade me a tender adieu. On the very day 
+of his arrival in town, he called at the Grove, and, with a promptitude 
+that touched me, wrote to me, by the same day's post, that he had seen 
+Miss O'Reilly, who seemed quite well, and sent her love to me; but that 
+he had missed her brother. More he did not say, and with this much, I 
+had, perforce, to content myself.
+
+His absence made me feel very lonely. We were a strange household, and 
+led a strange life. My grandfather did not think it necessary to trouble 
+himself about his uninvited guests. He never sought our society, or 
+appeared at our table. Mrs. Marks tacitly resented our intrusion by 
+retiring to the stronghold of her high room, whence she occasionally 
+amused herself with ringing her alarum-bell, and now and then emerged to 
+make a descent upon Charlotte below. She saw that Mr. Thornton wanted for 
+nothing, and allowed us to shift as we liked. We went on very well. Mrs. 
+Brand's servant daily foraged for our support, and Mrs. Langton's French 
+maid, with Charlotte as a subordinate, condescended to cook us the 
+exquisite soups and ragouts of her country. Thus we lived most 
+luxuriously in that old wainscotted parlour, where there were scarcely 
+three chairs fit to sit upon.
+
+Mrs. Brand and Mrs. Langton did not feel the inconvenience; both before 
+and after the departure of Edward Thornton, they lived in a round of 
+visits and country gaieties. People, I believe, must not have known that 
+I existed, for I was never included in the invitations they received; and 
+the peculiar life my grandfather led, had so thoroughly estranged him 
+from his neighbours, that not one of them ever crossed the threshold of 
+his dwelling. What kept two such gay ladies in so gloomy an abode, was, 
+for some time, more than I could tell, or find out, spite of the 
+mysterious hints which Mrs. Brand dropped now and then.
+
+My cousin had been gone a week, when Mr. Thornton was suddenly called 
+away on business. He placed his study under my care, with the strict, 
+but, as it seemed to me, unnecessary prohibition of allowing any one to 
+enter this sacred place. He still employed me as reader and amanuensis, 
+and had left me plenty of manuscripts to transcribe. I sat writing by the 
+open window, when the sound of the opening door made me look up. I saw 
+Mrs. Brand. She came in with a mysterious air, and locked the door after 
+her. I rose, and with some embarrassment, informed her of my 
+grandfather's orders. 
+
+"I am not at all astonished," she replied, calmly. 
+
+"I am sorry to be the bearer of such a message," I said, with some 
+emphasis.
+
+"True," she sighed, sitting down as she spoke, and her eye wandering 
+keenly over the whole room. I reminded her that Mr. Thornton's orders 
+admitted of no exception. She shook her head, raised her handkerchief to 
+her eyes, withdrew it after a decent pause, and observed, mournfully:--
+
+"Bound as I am to Mr. Thornton by the ties of blood--bound, I may say, by 
+the ties of affection--it is melancholy--My dear, is he to be long out?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am; but he said--" 
+
+"Yes, dear, I know. Bound by the ties of affection, it is melancholy even 
+to allude to the mysterious calamity which has befallen him. I have with 
+pleasure noticed your reserve." 
+
+"Indeed, Ma'am, I am ignorant--" 
+
+"Quite right, dear, quite proper. Of course you have noticed 
+peculiarities of thought, speech, and conduct. No one, indeed, has had so 
+good an opportunity as you have possessed; but you have discreetly 
+abstained from comment. You had heard of dungeons, chains, whips, strait-
+waistcoats, and keepers; you did not know that there are places where the 
+afflicted are happier far than when allowed the indulgence of their own 
+wayward wills; indeed, where they are only restricted in one or two 
+trifling matters, for their own good of course."
+
+She sighed as she concluded.
+
+"Excuse me, Ma'am," I said, much astonished, "you mistake; I never 
+thought anything of the sort, and never for a moment connected the places 
+you mention with Mr. Thornton."
+
+"I see; you thought of keeping it quiet in the family; very amiable, but 
+impracticable."
+
+"No, Ma'am, I did not think of that either." 
+
+"But, my dear, you must have noticed so many things; indeed you have had 
+rare opportunities, for instance, the change from amiability to 
+moroseness."
+
+"I don't think Mr. Thornton ever was amiable, Ma'am." 
+
+"My dear! the most amiable of men." 
+
+"Then not in my time, Ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Brand gave me a perplexed look, then observed-- 
+
+"Do you really think, my dear, Mr. Thornton is of sound mind?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"My dear, you take a weight from my mind. Edith would have it that he did 
+such strange things when she was here--write such oddities. I wonder what 
+there is in those papers."
+
+She stretched forth her hand; I drew away the papers from her reach, and 
+said, quietly--
+
+"There is nothing odd in these papers, Ma'am. They are merely about 
+mineralogy."
+
+"Mineralogy!" she exclaimed, eagerly, "my dear, if a lawyer were to see 
+them he might detect what you cannot of course perceive--the scientific 
+madness." 
+
+"The what, Ma'am?"
+
+"'The scientific madness,' you deaf little fool," said the sarcastic 
+voice of my grandfather.
+
+Mrs. Brand jumped and I started. We looked round, he was nowhere in the 
+room. He laughed ironically; we turned round and saw his head rising 
+above the window-sill, on which his chin just rested.
+
+"So," he said, addressing his cousin, "you are kind enough to trouble 
+yourself about me in my absence. Eh!"
+
+Mrs. Brand, the first moment over, was too thorough a woman of the world 
+to allow herself to be disconcerted.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Thornton," she said, rising with sorrowful dignity, "your ill-
+used relatives think of schemes for your benefit; they know their duty to 
+you, and though they should be misunderstood, they will persist in that 
+duty. Good-bye, my dear child, I leave you with regret to the fatal 
+consequences of your blindness."
+
+She walked out of the room as she spoke. The head of my grandfather sank 
+down and vanished, and in a few minutes his whole person appeared at the 
+door of the study; he stood there eyeing me from head to foot.
+
+"Why did you let her in?" he asked sternly.
+
+"I could not help it, Sir."
+
+"You should have turned her out."
+
+"Sir."
+
+"Turned her out. Are you getting deaf?"
+
+He seemed in a very bad temper, sat down with his hat on, and hunted for 
+something amongst the books and papers on his table, grumbling all the 
+time. A knock at the door disturbed him; he opened it himself.
+
+"Miss Burns is engaged," he said sharply, in reply to something, then re-
+entered the room, slamming the door and muttering to himself.
+
+In a few minutes, there was a sound of carriage wheels rolling down the 
+avenue.
+
+"A happy riddance!" grumbled Mr. Thornton. "Will you soon have done that 
+transcribing?"
+
+"By dinner-time, Sir."
+
+He glanced over my shoulder at what I had done, signified his 
+approbation, and told me, as the others had taken themselves off, I might 
+stay and dine with him. Accordingly, in an hour's time, we had a frugal 
+and silent meal on an end of the table cleared away for that purpose. 
+When the repast was over, Mr. Thornton went to a cupboard, opened it, and 
+brought forth a bottle of old-looking wine, then laid it down and glanced 
+at me significantly. I shook my head, and said I never took wine.
+
+"Then you are a little fool," he replied good-humouredly, "for there is 
+nothing better; and this is glorious old port, too."
+
+He sat down, poured himself out a tumbler full, and, reclining back in 
+his deep arm-chair, began enjoying slowly the only indulgence he granted 
+to his solitary life. The genial influence of the generous vintage soon 
+became apparent. The sternness of his mouth relaxed; his brow smoothed 
+down; his piercing eyes softened into a sort of careless and jovial good-
+humour; and when he laid down his glass, it was to thrust his hands in 
+his pockets, and chuckle to himself at the discomfiture of Mrs. Brand.
+
+"Scientific madness, eh--and wanted to hook you into it, and that little 
+bit of mineralogy, too--much the lawyers would have made of it! I am a 
+lucky man; every creature I have to do with tries to cheat or outwit me; 
+that Irish friend of yours, you--"
+
+"Excuse me, Sir," I interrupted, reddening; "cheating implies trust, and 
+you did not trust us. Mr. O'Reilly is the slave to his word. He kept his 
+to you; I had none to keep. You never asked him if he liked to give me 
+up; you never asked me if I liked being here. Do not wonder he did his 
+best to get me back, and I to get away."
+
+I spoke warmly; Mr. Thornton projected his nether lip, and shrugged his 
+shoulders impassionately.
+
+"You ridiculous little creature," he said, "why should I ask you if you 
+liked the medicine which I your physician knew to be good for you? Don't 
+you see that Irishman would have got tired of the young girl, as he once 
+did of the little girl, and sent her off somewhere? I spared him the 
+trouble."
+
+"Indeed," I replied indignantly, "he would not have got tired of me! If I 
+were his own child, Cornelius could not be fonder of me than he is."
+
+Mr. Thornton looked deep into me, and at first said nothing.
+
+"If you were his own child--eh!" he at length echoed. "Fudge!"
+
+"Fudge, Sir! And why should he not like me? He reared me, he taught me, 
+he watched by me when I was ill; he did everything for me. Why then 
+should he not like me?"
+
+I sat within a few paces of my grandfather; he stretched out bis arm, 
+placed his hand under my chin, raised my face so as to meet his bended 
+gaze, and again seemed to read me through.
+
+"Silly thing!" he said, a little contemptuously, and dropped his hand, 
+which I immediately caught, and imprisoned in both mine.
+
+"Oh, Sir!" I exclaimed, "I have kept my word; I will keep it still; but 
+pray let me go and see them--pray do. Where can the harm be in that? Oh! 
+pray, do let me!"
+
+In my eagerness, I could scarcely speak, and the words trembled on my 
+lips.
+
+"So," he said, "that is what you have been getting pale about, is it?--
+and fretting, eh?"
+
+I could not deny the imputation. He took his hand from me, frowned, and 
+looked displeased.
+
+"Margaret Burns," he observed, sharply, "you are a fool, and I am a still 
+greater fool not to let you rush on your fate. However, I am not going to 
+do it; so just make up your mind to stay here."
+
+With that he rose, took the paper for which he had come back, and left 
+me, bidding me not to forget that "Chaos and Creation."
+
+He did not come back for three days, which I spent alone in Thornton 
+House. It rained from morning until night, and I felt dull and miserable. 
+I passed the best part of my time in the study, reading; and there my 
+grandfather found me on his return.
+
+The afternoon was not far gone, and the weather seemed inclined to 
+improve. The rain had ceased; yellow streaks of sunlight pierced the gray 
+sky, and lit up the wet park. I sat by the window, through which streamed 
+in a doubtful light; a book lay on my lap unread, and with my two hands 
+clasped upon it, and my head low bent, I was absorbed in a waking dream, 
+when the sound of the opening door roused me. I looked up, and saw Mr. 
+Thornton, in his travelling dress, standing on the threshold, his two 
+hands resting on the head of his cane, his eyes attentively fixed upon 
+me. I said something about his return, and rose. He did not answer, but 
+came in slowly, and began taking off his great coat; then suddenly 
+pausing in the operation, he turned to me, and said abruptly:
+
+"What is it about?"
+
+"What, Sir?" I asked, astonished.
+
+"That you are crying for?"
+
+I hung down my head, and did not reply.
+
+"Has anything or any one annoyed you, whilst I was away?" he asked, in 
+the same short way.
+
+"No. Sir."
+
+"Then what are you crying for?"
+
+"Oh, Sir, you know!" 1 said, with involuntary emotion.
+
+"The old story, eh?" He walked up and down the room with his coat hanging 
+half off from one arm; then suddenly stopping before me, he said: "Since 
+you will be a fool, why be one and have your way. That friend of yours 
+has not yet left Leigh; if he will come here, and comply with a condition 
+that I shall exact, he may take you with him when and for as long as he 
+likes."
+
+I could scarcely believe my senses. I gazed incredulously at Mr. 
+Thornton, who told me not to be bewildered, but see about it. I needed no 
+second bidding, and ran out of the room at once. I met Charlotte on the 
+staircase.
+
+"Charlotte," I said, breathlessly, "can you take a letter for me to Leigh 
+immediately?"
+
+Before the girl could answer, Mrs. Marks, standing on the landing where I 
+had first seen her, chose to interfere.
+
+"Charlotte must get Mr Thornton's dinner ready," she said, majestically.
+
+"Very well," I replied more quietly; "Richard can do it."
+
+"Richard is out," she observed with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Then I can do it myself," I said impatiently.
+
+I ran up-stairs, got ready, and went off at once. It was only when I had 
+passed the lodge, that it occurred to me Mr. Thornton had not perhaps 
+intended me to be my own messenger; but it was too late to retreat; 
+besides I could not resist the temptation of seeing Cornelius again, so I 
+cast thought behind me, and went on.
+
+My heart beat fast as I reached Rock Cottage. The garden-gate stood ajar; 
+the door was open too; I entered and looked into both the parlours, then 
+passed on to the garden, hurried along the gravel path, and caught a 
+glimpse of him going down to the beach. I thought to call him back, but 
+changed my mind, and followed him silently. The path wound away to the 
+sands, sunk between sharp and rugged rocks. Down these, the gate and 
+garden left behind me, I ran lightly. I soon outstripped him, and stood 
+awaiting his approach on a point of rock that projected over the path. He 
+walked with folded arms and eyes bent on the earth. When he was within a 
+few paces of me, I dropped lightly down before him. If I had fallen from 
+the sky, he could scarcely have looked more astonished. He did not speak, 
+but took my hands in his, as if to make sure of my identity.
+
+"I am no spirit," I said, "but real flesh and blood."
+
+The blood rushed up to his brow.
+
+"You are come--come back to me after all!" he exclaimed ardently. "I knew 
+you would." And stooping, he pressed me to his heart with a passionate 
+fondness that made me forget all save the joy of seeing him again. I know 
+not what we said in that first moment. I felt one with him then, and his 
+words of endearment and gladness are irrevocably blended with mine in 
+memory. All I distinctly remember, is finding myself sitting with him in 
+the back-parlour of Rock Cottage, my two bands clasped on his shoulder, 
+my eyes raised up to his, and my ears drinking in with delight every word 
+that fell from his lips. He called me by every fond name he could think 
+of; blessed me over and over, and ended by saying eagerly: "Had we not 
+better go at once, my darling?" 
+
+I started and woke from my dream.
+
+"Cornelius," I replied, hesitatingly, "I have not run away--I am come to 
+see you." 
+
+He looked transfixed.
+
+"To see me!" he said at length; "and do you think I will let you leave 
+me? No, Daisy, you have placed in my way a temptation mortal man could 
+not resist. I tell you that I have you, and that I will keep you."
+
+He took my two hands in his. I tried to disengage them; but though his 
+grasp was so gentle I scarcely felt it, it held me completely captive. He 
+smiled at my useless efforts; then said with some reproach:
+
+"Oh, Daisy! the little girl whom I carried in my arms seven years ago, 
+was willing enough. I had not, even in jest, to hold her hands. She 
+clasped them around my neck lovingly and trustingly, laid her hand on my 
+shoulder, and had but one fear--lest I should leave her behind."
+
+He released me, and added, in his most fervent and beseeching accents:
+
+"Come with me, Daisy; come with me. If you ever cared for me, show it 
+now--come with me. Don't drive me to do something desperate--I tell you 
+that I will never leave Leigh without you. Come with me!"
+
+He had again clasped his arms around me, and held me within a circle more 
+potent than that of any magic spell. I laid my two hands on his 
+shoulders, and smiled up at him, as I replied:
+
+"I should have told you at once, but I was so glad, that I forgot it; and 
+you are so impatient that you won't hear me out. Mr. Thornton has changed 
+his mind--he says I may be with you and Kate again--all on a condition." 
+
+"What condition?" he promptly asked. 
+
+"I don't know--he will tell it to you himself, and you will agree to it--
+won't you, Cornelius?"
+
+"No," he replied, impatiently; "this is a snare. Besides, why submit to a 
+condition when I have you here without one? Oh, Daisy! now is the moment. 
+Fate, or rather Providence, has made us meet--we must not have the 
+madness to part again. I have missed one opportunity--I will not miss 
+another. Trust to me. Cast by all thought, all fear--look not behind or 
+before you. Come, Daisy, not to-morrow--not to-night--but now! Come with 
+me--come!"
+
+He rose, as if to lead me away that very moment; but he still held me 
+fast, and that clasp which the passion of the moment only rendered more 
+secure, his flushed face, eager looks, and feverish accents, all breathed 
+the most vehement and ardent entreaty.
+
+Subdued by his resolute tenderness, I yielded, but for a moment only; the 
+next, I rallied and resisted. I made a desperate effort, and, both bodily 
+and mentally, asserted my freedom.
+
+"No, no, Cornelius," I cried, agitatedly, "I cannot go with you. I, too, 
+have passed my word, and I must keep it--I must keep it; and you must not 
+ask or tempt me to break it--indeed, Cornelius, you must not."
+
+I spoke as I felt, with much distress. Cornelius calmed down at once, and 
+entreated me to be pacified.
+
+"I had forgotten your promise;" he said, "seeing you here, I had but one 
+thought [] to possess and secure that which I had lost. I will submit to 
+Mr. Thornton's conditions, and take you back to him this moment. What 
+more would you have?"
+
+In his earnestness, he again took my hand. My lips parted to thank him, 
+but the entrance of our old servant checked the words. She muttered 
+indistinctly, as was her wont, then kept the door open, and admitted--Mr. 
+Thornton.
+
+For a moment, he stood still on the threshold, and looked confounded. 
+Neither Cornelius nor I spoke.
+
+"So," he said at length, "I fancy I leave you safe at home writing a 
+letter, and give myself the trouble of coming here to have some private 
+talk with Mr. O'Reilly; and you are actually here before-hand with me."
+
+"I could find no one to send the letter by, Sir," I replied, quite 
+dismayed. "I am sorry if I have done wrong."
+
+"Wrong!" echoed Cornelius, looking displeased, and drawing me towards him 
+as he spoke.
+
+I saw his proud and hasty temper would ruin all; I hastened to interfere.
+
+"I have been speaking to Mr. O'Reilly," I said, quickly, "and he has 
+promised to abide by the conditions. You know, Cornelius, you have 
+promised," I added, turning towards him.
+
+He could not deny it, but reddened, and bit his lip. Mr. Thornton said 
+nothing, but sat down, and looked at us with a keen and attentive gaze, 
+which Cornelius did not seem to relish.
+
+"You wished to speak to me, Sir," he said, at length.
+
+"Yes, Sir," composedly answered my grandfather, "I came here for that 
+purpose, just as you came to me on the same errand seven years ago. Sir, 
+I am a plain man, and I shall speak plainly. I think it is a strange 
+thing that since you in some manner forced this young girl upon me, you 
+are ever doing all you can to get her back--ay, and a very strange 
+thing."
+
+He looked at him fixedly. Cornelius returned the gaze, and the question:
+
+"Is it a stranger thing, Sir, than that you, who accepted this young girl 
+so reluctantly, should since always show yourself so anxious to keep 
+her?"
+
+"Perhaps not," drily replied Mr. Thornton; "but I meant to be brief. What 
+I have to say is this: When I placed her with Mrs. Gray, I never 
+intended, Sir, that you should see her face again. I had my motives. The 
+physician having, however, pronounced her consumptive, I thought, if she 
+was to die, she might as well be humoured. But when I returned, a few 
+weeks ago, I learned that the little thing was alive and well; that you, 
+too, had returned from your travels, and had turned out a most vigilant 
+and attentive guardian; and it occurred to me that I might as well remind 
+you of your promise. For this, too, I had my motives. You redeemed your 
+word honourably, without taking advantage of your position or influence; 
+but it was the old story all over--no sooner was she out of your hands, 
+than you were half mad to have her back again. She, too, wanted to be 
+off; and, to show me what a tyrant I was, and what a victim I made of 
+her, she got thin and sallow with all her might. Sir, I give in; on the 
+condition I shall name presently--she may dispose of herself as she 
+thinks fit. But this time, as well as before, you owe me no thanks. It is 
+to gratify her I do it."
+
+"And this time, as before, it is to please her I submit to a condition," 
+haughtily replied Cornelius.
+
+I still stood by him and gave his arm a warning and entreating pressure. 
+My grandfather calmly resumed:
+
+"She is young, and much under your influence. I wish her to remain quite 
+free, and shall be satisfied if you will promise not to make a present of 
+her to any bosom friend of yours that might take a fancy to her, you 
+understand."
+
+"Yes, Sir, I understand." replied Cornelius, with subdued irritation, 
+"but I decline pledging myself for her."
+
+"I do not require it," said Mr. Thornton, a little ironically, "I care 
+not a rush on whom the silly thing bestows herself, but I like fair play, 
+and want her to give herself, and not to be given--or taken either. If 
+she runs away without your knowledge, depend upon it I shall not accuse 
+you. I ask you to pledge yourself for yourself--do you object?"
+
+"No, no," I replied eagerly for him, "Cornelius does not object. Bless 
+you, Mr. Thornton, _he_ does not want to give me away. Of course he does 
+not. You don't, Cornelius, do you?" I added, looking up in his face, and 
+passing my arm within his.
+
+My grandfather laughed sarcastically. Cornelius looked exasperated. He 
+seemed to be undergoing a sharp, inward struggle; at length he yielded.
+
+"For her sake, Sir," he said, addressing Mr. Thornton, "and hers alone, I 
+yield; I give you the promise you require. Allow me to add that you 
+either trust me a great deal too much, or far too little."
+
+He spoke with such defiant pride, that I looked half frightened at my 
+grandfather; but he only smiled and rose. I saw he was going, and left 
+Cornelius to bid him adieu.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said, roughly; yet when I passed my arm around his neck, 
+and, for the first time touched his cheek with my lips, he looked more 
+astonished than displeased; but he had so long broken with the charities 
+of life, that to return the embrace probably did not occur to him. All he 
+did was to look from me to Cornelius, and say, with a careless nod:
+
+"She's a pretty little thing," having delivered which opinion, he turned 
+away and left us.
+
+Scarcely had the door closed on him, when Cornelius broke out.
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what have you made me do! And why must I, who 
+hate the mere thought of interference and subjection, thus hold you on 
+the good-will and pleasure of another."
+
+He paced the room with agitated steps. I saw his pride suffered, and 
+following him, I did my best to soothe him; at length I succeeded; he 
+stopped short before me, looked down at me with a smile, and said:
+
+"I almost forgive your perverse old grandfather everything, for the sake 
+of his last words. You are a pretty little thing--and better than you are 
+pretty," he added fondly.
+
+"Then mind you appreciate me," I replied.
+
+He said there was no fear that he should not.
+
+We left Leigh the next day, and Cornelius, according to the philosophic 
+injunction of Kate, locked up the house and brought the key in his 
+pocket.
+
+ 
+
+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."
+
+ 
+
+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.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ 
+
+There is a way of leaning back in an open carriage which only those 
+accustomed to its use can attain--a sort of well-bred indolence--of 
+riding over the world--of indifference to its concerns, which requires 
+long and constant practice. Mrs. Brand possessed that art in the highest 
+degree. Walking in the street, she would have seemed a thin, faded, 
+insignificant woman; but, reclining in her carriage, with her _ennuy?_ 
+air, her carelessness, and her impertinence, she was stamped with 
+aristocracy.
+
+We had soon reached Poplar Lodge. It stood about a mile from the Grove, 
+by the lanes, and twice that distance by the high road. I knew the place 
+well--it was small, but the most beautiful residence in the 
+neighbourhood. It stood in the centre of lovely pleasure-grounds--a white 
+and elegant abode, filled with all that could charm the fancy and attract 
+the eye. Pictures, statues, books, furniture, simple yet costly, were 
+there, without that profusion which mars the effect of the most beautiful 
+things. Mrs. Brand perceived my admiration, and led me from room to room 
+with careless ostentation. At length, we came to a small gallery, filled 
+with exquisite pictures.
+
+"There are not many," she said, negligently, "but they are good. All 
+modern, and almost all English. The blank spaces which you see will, I 
+dare say, be filled up from this year's Academy."
+
+My heart beat fast. I thought at once of Cornelius, and I saw his three 
+pictures already hung up in my cousin's gallery.
+
+"And so you like Poplar Lodge," observed Mrs. Brand, taking me back to 
+the drawing-room. "Well, it is a pretty place. And don't you think," she 
+added, sighing as she glanced around her, "that Edward's wife will be a 
+happy woman?"
+
+"I don't know, Ma'am; but I know she will have a lovely house, and 
+delightful chairs, too," I added, sinking down, as I spoke, into a most 
+luxurious arm-chair.
+
+"My dear, she will have what one who speaks from experience can assure 
+you is far above such worldly comforts--a devoted husband."
+
+Mrs. Brand's cambric handkerchief was drawn forth, unfolded, and raised 
+to her eyes in memory of the departed.
+
+"And Mrs. Langton and this place will suit one another so well," I said, 
+looking round the luxurious drawing-room. "I can fancy her wandering 
+about those grounds as lovely as a lady in a fairy tale, or passing from 
+one beautiful room to another, like a princess in her palace. She will be 
+the crowning piece of perfection of Mr. Thornton's dwelling."
+
+Mrs. Brand hastily removed her handkerchief, and assured me:
+
+"That was over--quite over; a most unfortunate affair. It had once been 
+her darling wish to see her friend and her brother united; but even she 
+had felt it was impossible. They had felt it themselves, and had agreed 
+to forget the past."
+
+I smiled at the idea of this hollow truce.
+
+"Besides," pensively continued Mrs. Brand, "I have strong reasons to 
+believe his affections are engaged elsewhere. I hear him coming in; you 
+will notice at once how pale and low-spirited Edward looks."
+
+The entrance of Edward prevented my reply. He started with astonishment 
+on seeing me, and greeted me with a mixture of embarrassment and tender 
+courtesy that surprised me a little. He asked after Mr. Thornton's 
+health.
+
+"I hope he is well," I replied, smiling; "but I am your neighbour now. Is 
+it not delightful?"
+
+I meant delightful to be again with my friends; to my amusement he smiled 
+and bowed.
+
+"Miss Burns has been admiring your pictures," said Mrs. Brand.
+
+Mr. Thornton was happy if anything at Poplar Lodge had afforded me 
+pleasure.
+
+"Anything!" I echoed, "why it is everything. From his appearance I could 
+not have believed the late Mr. Wyndham had such exquisite taste."
+
+Mrs. Brand laughed, and informed me the place was bare in Mr. Wyndham's 
+time. Mr. Thornton's modesty, alarmed at the indirect compliment he had 
+received, induced him to change the subject of discourse by showing me a 
+handsome collection of drawings. We were engaged in looking over them, 
+when Mrs. Langton, who was also on a visit to her dear Bertha, entered.
+
+"Those two are always so fond of drawings!" said Mrs. Brand, rising to 
+receive her.
+
+I looked up, and saw the beautiful Edith glancing at us across the table. 
+She had left by her weeds, and looked wonderfully lovely in a robe of 
+changing silk. She stood with her hand clasped in that of her friend, and 
+her beautiful arm partly left bare by her falling sleeve. Her face was 
+turned towards us; her dark hair, braided back from her fair brow, wound 
+in a diadem above it; her cheeks were flushed like roses; her blue eyes 
+were full of light and softness. "Mrs. Brand," I thought, "you may do 
+what you like, your Edith shall reign here yet."
+
+She graciously expressed her pleasure at seeing me again; and gently 
+sinking down on a divan, looked lovely, until we went down to dinner.
+
+I spent the next day, Saturday, shopping in town with Mrs. Brand, and 
+thought it rather hard work. Sunday I claimed and obtained to pass at the 
+Grove. I came upon Cornelius suddenly, as he sat in the back-parlour by 
+the open window; his elbow on the sill, his brow resting on the palm of 
+his hand. Before he knew of my presence, my arms were around his neck, 
+and my lips had touched his cheek. He started, then returned the embrace 
+with lingering tenderness; and Kate, who came in, laughed at us both, and 
+said one might think we had been years apart.
+
+It was foolish to be glad to see him again after so short a separation; I 
+knew it, but could not help it. He, too, seemed glad; I had never seen 
+him in better spirits; and seldom had I spent even with him, a pleasanter 
+day. With regret, I saw approach the hour that should take me back to 
+Poplar Lodge. Cornelius said he would accompany me by the lanes. They 
+looked very lovely on that mild spring evening, and we talked pleasantly 
+and happily as we walked along. At length we reached the end of a long 
+lane that brought us to a grated iron door--the back entrance of Poplar 
+Lodge.
+
+We stopped short; the place and the moment stand before me like a picture 
+still.
+
+The lane was lonely, and hushed rather than silent. The heavy clouds of 
+night were gathering slowly in the lower sky. In its serener heights, the 
+full moon had risen, and now looked down at us between two of the large 
+poplar trees that had given its name to my cousin's abode. I stood by 
+Cornelius, one arm passed in his, his other hand clasping mine.
+
+"When will you come back?" he asked, bending over me.
+
+"Next Saturday, I hope."
+
+"Not before?"
+
+"No, Cornelius, I could not, you know."
+
+"Can't you try?"
+
+"Indeed, Cornelius. I am afraid I cannot. You know I long to be back with 
+you and Kate."
+
+"Very well, then; Saturday let it be. And yet, Daisy, why not Friday?"
+
+"Cornelius, I assure you I think it would be taken amiss if I were to 
+leave on Friday."
+
+He submitted, gave me a quiet kiss, and rang the bell. A white figure 
+emerged from a neighbouring avenue, and Mrs. Langton, recognising me 
+through the iron grating, took down the key that always hung by the door, 
+and admitted me, smiling. I introduced Cornelius somewhat awkwardly. He 
+stood with the light of the moon full on his face and figure. I caught 
+Mrs. Langton giving him two or three rapid and curious looks, but she 
+only made a few civil and commonplace remarks. He answered in the same 
+strain, bowed, and left us.
+
+"And so, Miss Burns," softly observed Mrs. Langton, as she closed and 
+locked the gate, "that is your adopted father--as Mr. Edward Thornton 
+calls him, I believe."
+
+"Yes," I said, quietly, "Cornelius is, indeed, my adopted father; but he 
+does not like me to consider him so."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Oh, no: he does me the honour to hold me as his friend."
+
+Mrs. Langton suppressed a rosy smile, and talked of the beauty of the 
+evening as we walked through the grounds to the Lodge.
+
+Mr. Thornton was out, and Mrs. Brand whispered confidentially that my 
+absence might be the cause. He came in, however, sufficiently early, and 
+as I sat apart rather silent, his sister felt sure I suffered from low 
+spirits, and gave him the duty of enlivening me. He smiled, bowed, and 
+settling himself in a comfortable arm-chair by me, entered on the task. 
+But I remained obstinately grave, until, from topic to topic, he came to 
+the Academy.
+
+My cousin gave me the tidings that it was to open in two days. He hoped I 
+would accompany Mrs. Brand. He knew my judgment was excellent, and felt 
+anxious to have my opinion of several pictures he had already secured, 
+and of others he intended purchasing.
+
+"Oh, I shall be so glad!" I exclaimed, with an eagerness that made him 
+smile.
+
+I reddened at the thought that my motive had been detected, and tried to 
+repair my blunder; but do what I would, I could not help betraying my 
+pleasure. I laughed, I talked, I was not the same.
+
+"Have I really succeeded so well?" whispered my cousin.
+
+The spirit of mischief is not easily repressed at seventeen. I looked up 
+at him, and answered saucily--
+
+"Better than you think."
+
+Mr. Thornton laughed, and declared I was the most delightfully original 
+and _naive_ girl he had ever met with.
+
+It rained the whole of the following day, which we spent at Poplar Lodge, 
+to the great disgust of the slave of the world. But the next morning rose 
+lovely and serene. At an early hour we were at the doors of the Royal 
+Academy. I knew that the pictures of Cornelius were accepted; on that 
+head I therefore felt no uneasiness, yet my heart beat as we ascended the 
+steps of the National Gallery. A glance at the catalogue dispelled all 
+lingering fear. As my cousin placed it in my hands, he accompanied it 
+with a pencil case, and a whispered entreaty to mark the pictures I 
+approved. I looked up at him, smiling to think he had chosen a judge so 
+partial. We had no sooner entered the first room than Mrs. Brand was 
+overpowered with the heat. When she recovered, she thought she should go 
+and look at the miniatures with her dear Edith. She knew we did not like 
+the miniatures, and requested that we should go our own way. She and her 
+dear Edith would go their own way. We resisted this a little, but Mrs. 
+Brand was peremptory, and at length we yielded and parted from them. 
+Absorbed in the engrossing thought "Are they well hung?" I performed my 
+critical office very inaccurately; but having been so fortunate as to 
+single out two of the pictures Mr. Thornton had purchased, I escaped 
+detection, and received several warm compliments on my good taste. He was 
+informing me how much he relied upon it, when we suddenly came to the two 
+Italian pieces of Cornelius.
+
+"What do you think of these?" I said carelessly. 
+
+"Poor, very poor," he replied, and passed on. 
+
+I heard him mortified and mute; all my hopes dispelled at once by all 
+this sweeping censure. The pictures of Cornelius poor! Those two 
+beautiful Italian things, which would have filled so well the blank 
+spaces in the gallery! I was astonished and indignant at Mr. Thornton's 
+bad taste. He might mark his own pictures now, I would have nothing more 
+to do with him; he was evidently conceited, impertinent, insolent, and he 
+had neither heart nor soul, for he could not appreciate the beautiful.
+
+Unconscious of my feelings, my cousin went on criticising.
+
+"What are they all looking at?" he said, drawing near to where a crowd 
+had gathered around one of the lower paintings.
+
+"At some stupid picture or other," I replied, impatiently. "It is always 
+the stupid pictures that the people look at."
+
+He smiled at the petulant speech, and, spite of my evident indifference 
+made way for me through the crowd of gazers; but I turned away, I would 
+not look. With an ill-repressed smile of contempt, I listened to the 
+"exquisite," "beautiful," "a wonderful thing," which I heard around me.
+
+"Yes," I thought, scornfully, "much you know about it, I dare say."
+
+"I really think we must mark this one," whispered my cousin. "What do you 
+say?"
+
+I looked up ungraciously, but the book and pencil-case nearly dropped 
+from my hands as I recognized "The Young Girl Reading."
+
+"Don't you like it?" asked Mr. Thornton, smiling. 
+
+Oh! yes, I liked it! and him whose genius had created it, and whose 
+master-hand had fashioned it; ay! and for his sake I liked even those who 
+gazed on it, in a fast increasing crowd; and as if I had never seen it 
+before, I looked with delighted eyes at the work of Cornelius. There was 
+something in the admiration it excited I could not mistake. It was 
+genuine and true. He was at length, after seven years of toil, known and 
+famous. Sudden repute must have something of a breathless joy, but it 
+cannot possess the sweetness of a slow-earned and long-coming fame. I 
+felt as if I could have looked for ever; but the crowd was pressing 
+eagerly behind us: my cousin led me away.
+
+"I see you will not mark it," he gaily said, taking the catalogue from 
+me.
+
+"Do you really like it?" I asked, stammering.
+
+"Do I like it? Why it is a wonderful picture! the most perfect union I 
+have ever seen of the real and ideal. It is not sold, is it?"
+
+I replied I thought not. He said he hoped not; that he should be quite 
+concerned to miss it; and he proceeded to pay the genius of Cornelius 
+very high and handsome compliments. I heard him with beating heart and 
+swimming eyes; I felt too happy; it was not more than I had expected ever 
+since the return of Cornelius from Italy; but for being anticipated, his 
+triumph was not to me less glorious and delightful. I could think of 
+nothing else; my eyes saw, but my mind could receive no impressions. 
+Whatever picture I looked at became "The Young Girl Reading" with the 
+crowd around her.
+
+Mr. Thornton thought the heat affected me, and proposed joining his 
+sister. We soon found her with Mrs. Langton. They looked dull and tired. 
+As we entered the carriage, Mrs. Brand asked, with her air of _ennui_, 
+how I liked the pictures, and if I had been amused.
+
+"More than amused," I replied, warmly.
+
+Mr. Thornton half smiled, and looked into the street; Mrs. Brand shut her 
+eyes, and reclined back with an air of satisfaction, and Mrs. Langton 
+flushed up like a rose. I looked at the three, and thought them odd 
+people.
+
+On the following evening, the slave of the world was to receive and 
+entertain her master; in other words, to give a party. I had virtuously 
+resolved not to be amused, and not to enjoy the pleasure I could not 
+share with Cornelius; but when the time came, I forgot all about it. It 
+was my first party, and what a party! The rooms were always beautiful, 
+and when lit up, looked splendid. Then this constant rolling of coming 
+and departing carriages; this pouring in of fashionable, well-dressed 
+people; their flow of easy speech, greetings and smiles, gave the whole 
+something so luxurious and seducing, that I felt enchanted.
+
+Mrs. Langton, who looked exquisitely lovely in white silk--I wore my blue 
+dress--kindly took me under her patronage. She was a world-known beauty, 
+and whenever she went out, drew crowds around her. We were soon 
+surrounded with adorers. All could not reach the divinity, and a few 
+condescended to offer up incense at my humbler shrine. Two young 
+Englishmen, rosy and bashful; a Dane as pale as Hamlet, and a Spaniard, 
+fell to my stare. We also had an occasional dropping of grave gentlemen 
+in spectacles, or dashing, military-looking men, whiskered and 
+mustachioed, with an apparition of fair ladies, duly attended, who smiled 
+and nodded at Mrs. Langton as they passed smelling bouquets or fanning 
+themselves, but who took care not to linger in such dangerous vicinity.
+
+I felt amused and entertained; but my real pleasure began with the 
+daucing. I was fond of it, and I had plenty of pleasant partners. As I 
+once came back to my seat, flushed as much with enjoyment as with the 
+exercise, Mrs. Langton, who would not discompose her beauty by dancing, 
+stooped over me, and gently whispered:--
+
+"You little flirt, one would think you had received world incense all 
+your life. Look opposite," she added, in a still lower tone. I followed 
+the direction of her gaze, and saw in the embrasure of a door, standing 
+and looking at me, with sorrowful attention, Cornelius.
+
+"He has been there these two hours," said Mrs. Langton, smiling, "and you 
+never even saw him, which I hold very unkind to me; for, thinking you 
+would like to meet your friend, I asked a card from Bertha, and did not 
+mention the name to her, lest you should not enjoy the surprise. And here 
+am I actually obliged to tell you all about it."
+
+I know not what I said to her, I felt so disturbed. I knew that I had 
+surrendered myself rather freely to the pleasures of the evening, and he 
+had seen it all, I had never even perceived him. I looked at him across 
+the crowd that divided us. He caught my eye, and turned away abruptly. I 
+rose, and gliding swiftly through the guests, I tried to join him; but he 
+eluded me. I went from room to room, without being able to reach him. At 
+length, I lost sight of him altogether, and gave up my useless search. I 
+had reached the last room, a pretty little French sort of boudoir, 
+adorned with exquisite Dresden ornaments, and thence called "Dresden" by 
+Mrs. Brand. It was now quite solitary. I sat down, sad and dispirited, on 
+a low couch, and was immediately joined by Mr. Thornton, who had been 
+following me all the time, and gently rallied me on the chase I had led 
+him. He sat down by me, and informed me that he had been wanting to speak 
+to me the whole evening; but I had been so surrounded, that he had found 
+it quite impossible to get at me. I coloured violently: if he had noticed 
+it, what would Cornelius think?
+
+"I wanted to tell you," confidentially observed Edward Thornton, drawing 
+closer to me, "that I have secured 'The Young Girl Reading.' She is 
+mine," he added, with rather a long look of his fine blue eyes.
+
+"You have bought it," I exclaimed joyfully.
+
+"And paid for it," he answered smiling.
+
+"How delightful!" I said, "I mean that you have bought it," I added, 
+fearing I had exposed the poverty of Cornelius by the hasty remark.
+
+He smiled again, and passed his slender fingers in his brown hair.
+
+"Where will you hang it?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"In the long vacant place of honour, between my Wilkie and my Mulready."
+
+For these two great artists, Cornelius felt a warm and enthusiastic 
+admiration. I thought of his pride and triumph when I should tell him 
+this, and I glowed with a pleasure I cared not to conceal.
+
+"Mr. Thornton!" I exclaimed, turning on him flushed and joyous, "you have 
+made me as happy as any crowned queen."
+
+"Why have I not a crown to lay it at your feet?" he very gallantly 
+replied, taking my hand, and pressing it gently as he spoke.
+
+At that moment, through the door which Edward Thornton had left partly 
+open, I thought I caught sight of Cornelius for an instant; the next he 
+had disappeared in the crowd. I snatched my hand from my cousin, started 
+up, ran to the door, opened it wide, and looked eagerly; but Cornelius 
+had again vanished. I returned much disappointed to Mr. Thornton, who 
+seemed amazed at my precipitate flight.
+
+"I had seen Mr. O'Reilly," I said, apologetically.
+
+"Mr. O'Reilly! Ah, indeed." 
+
+"Yes; and I wanted to speak to him. It was for that I came here, you 
+know."
+
+My cousin gave me a puzzled look, then suddenly recovering, said hastily:
+
+"Of course, it was. Mr. O'Reilly, as you say."
+
+"I am sure, you think it odd," I observed uneasily.
+
+He denied it with a guarded look. I thought it worse than odd, and my 
+eyes filled with involuntary tears. Mr. Thornton rose and sympathised 
+respectfully.
+
+"My dear Miss Burns," he whispered drawing nearer to me, "I am truly 
+grieved; but your kindness, your frank condescension, made me presume--
+indeed, I am grieved."
+
+I heard him with surprise. "Decidedly," I thought, "we are all wrong," 
+and aloud I observed gravely:
+
+"Mr. Thornton, is there not some mistake? I am talking of Mr. O'Reilly."
+
+"And so am I," he answered promptly.
+
+"And I should like to see if I could not find him."
+
+He offered me his arm with a polite start, and an air of tenderness and 
+homage that perplexed me; but though we went all over the rooms, 
+Cornelius was not to be found. As the guests began to thin and depart I 
+lost all hope, and releasing my cousin from duty, sat down in one of the 
+nearly deserted rooms. Mrs. Langton at once came up to me, and asked if I 
+had seen my friend. I replied that I had caught sight of him from the 
+little Dresden room, when I was there with Mr. Thornton.
+
+"In the Dresden room," she said, looking astonished; "and do you really, 
+a fair maiden of eighteen, venture to remain alone in a Dresden room? 
+alone with so gay and gallant a gentleman as Edward Thornton? Don't you 
+know, dear?" she added, edging her chair to mine, and lowering her voice; 
+"he is quite a naughty man! Did you never hear of him and Madame 
+Polidori, the singer--no?--nor of Mademoiselle Rosalie, nor of Madame?--"
+
+I stopped the list by gravely hoping she was mistaken. She assured me she 
+was not, and wanted to resume the subject, but it was one in which I took 
+neither pleasure nor interest; and I listened so coldly, that she 
+reddened, bit her lip, and left me.
+
+The guests were all gone. As she bade the last adieu, Mrs. Brand sank 
+down in a chair by the open window, and sighed to her brother:
+
+"Ah! Edward, as our own English Wordsworth so finely says:
+
+   'The world is too much with us--'"
+
+The rest of the sonnet was lost, I suppose, in the whisper that followed. 
+Mr. Thornton seemed to pay it but faint attention; his look was fixed 
+with intent admiration on Mrs. Langton, who stood by a table turning over 
+the leaves of an album with careless grace.
+
+"What a night!" resumed Mrs. Brand; "with that moon and that starry sky, 
+one might forget the world, the vain world for ever, Edward."
+
+Edward still looked at the beautiful Edith, and seemed inclined to make a 
+move in her direction, out of the reach of the moon and the starry sky. 
+But his sister looked at me, and whispered something. He bowed his head 
+in assent, and came up to me. He seemed for some mysterious reason to 
+think it incumbent on himself to be very kind and sympathetic, and to 
+speak to me in a tender and soothing tone. Wrapped up in thinking of 
+Cornelius, I paid his words but faint attention; but as my cousin stood 
+with his hand on the back of my chair, I saw Mrs. Langton look at us over 
+her shoulder in silent scorn. I looked at her, too, and as she stood 
+there in all her wonderful beauty, I marvelled jealousy could make her so 
+blind, as to lead her to fear for a moment a plain, humble girl like me.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+ 
+
+Although I had not thought it necessary to mention to Mrs. Brand how soon 
+I meant to return to the Grove, she took complete possession of me for 
+the whole of the next day; but, the following morning, I prevented the 
+possibility of her doing so again, by starting out of Poplar Lodge before 
+she had opened her aristocratic eyes. I wanted to see Cornelius, and make 
+him explain his strange conduct.
+
+I went by the lane where we had parted. It was a very beautiful lane--
+green, secluded, and overshadowed by dark trees. It looked fresh and 
+pleasant on this May morning. The dew glittered on grass, tree and wild 
+flower; the thrush carolled gaily on the young boughs, and the robin red-
+breast looked at me fearlessly with his bright black eye, as he stood 
+perched on the budding hawthorn hedge. A grievous disappointment waited 
+me at the end of my journey. The blinds were down--the house was closed 
+and silent. I rang, and received no reply. I went to the front, with the 
+same result. For an hour and more I wandered about the lanes; but every 
+time I came back, I found the house in the same state. At length, I 
+returned to Poplar Lodge, where my absence had not been perceived.
+
+Mrs. Brand's party had given her a headache. She lay on the drawing-room 
+sofa the whole day long, and would evidently consider it very barbarous 
+to be forsaken. I remained sitting by her until dusk, which brought Mrs. 
+Langton, and relieved me from my duty. I went out on the verandah for a 
+little fresh air. I had not been there long, when a rustling robe passed 
+through the open window. It was the beautiful Edith.
+
+"Are you not afraid of taking cold?" she asked aloud; then whispered, 
+"Say no."
+
+As "no" chanced to be the truth, I complied with Mrs. Langton's wish.
+
+"Oh! that exquisite old thorn!" she sighed; then added, in a low rapid 
+key: "I have been so angry. I heard such strange things about you and Mr. 
+Thornton. All the Dresden room."
+
+I laughed.
+
+"What are you two chatting about?" asked the voice of Mrs. Brand from 
+within.
+
+"I am only telling Miss Burns to mind Captain Craik," coolly replied Mrs. 
+Langton, "he was quite attentive the other night."
+
+"Really, Mrs. Langton," I observed impatiently, "you forget the gentleman 
+you allude to could be my father, and is, after all, a middle-aged man."
+
+"A middle-aged man!" echoed Mrs. Langton, looking confounded. "You are 
+hard to please, Miss Burns; a most elegant and accomplished gentleman--a 
+middle-aged man!"
+
+"If he were an angel, he is not the less near forty."
+
+"Still talking of Captain Craik," rather uneasily observed Mrs. Brand, 
+joining us, "Edith, dear, are you not afraid of the tooth-ache?"
+
+"No, Bertha, dear."
+
+"But I am for you. You must come in."
+
+Mrs. Brand slipped her arm within that of her friend, and made her re-
+enter the drawing-room. But something or some one called her away, for in 
+a few minutes, Mrs. Langton was again by me. She came on me suddenly, 
+before I could efface the trace of recent tears. The evening was light 
+and clear. She looked at me and said:
+
+"I could have spared you this, Miss Burns. Mr. Thornton--"
+
+"Indeed, Ma'am," I interrupted, "I am not thinking of Mr. Thornton; but I 
+fear Mr. O'Reilly is vexed with me: that is the truth."
+
+I thought this would rid me of her tiresome jealousy, but it did not.
+
+"Poor child!" she said compassionately, "I see you know nothing. Perhaps 
+it is scarcely right to betray Bertha to you; but can I help also feeling 
+for you? Do you know the play of Shakespeare entitled 'Much Ado about 
+Nothing'?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am, I know it."
+
+"Do you remember the ingenious manner in which two of the characters are 
+made to fall in love with one another? Benedick thinks Beatrice is dying 
+for him, and Beatrice thinks the same thing of him."
+
+"That was vanity, Ma'am, not love."
+
+"Ay, but vanity is a potent passion, and 'Much Ado about Nothing' is a 
+play still daily enacted on the scene of the world."
+
+I heard her with some impatience; I thought her discourse resembled the 
+play of which it treated. She saw plain speech alone would make me 
+comprehend her meaning.
+
+"Our dear Bertha," she sighed, "has quite a passion for match-making. For 
+instance, she will teaze me about Captain Craik, and says he is mad about 
+me. I don't mind it, provided she does not say the same thing to him."
+
+"Oh!" I replied, quite startled, "that would be too bad."
+
+"So it would; but I fear it. Captain Craik has been very peculiar of 
+late."
+
+I felt uncomfortable. It was not to end with Captain Craik we had 
+travelled over the slow ground of this ambiguous discourse.
+
+"Now do you know." resumed Mrs. Langton, "I cannot help fancying that 
+Bertha has been indulging in the same little pastime with you and her 
+brother."
+
+"Not with me," I said, eagerly; "she never even hinted it."
+
+"You are slow at taking hints," replied Mrs. Langton with a sceptical 
+smile.
+
+"But why should she think of me?" I asked, incredulously; "I am not a 
+beauty," I added, looking at her, "I have no wealth--no position. Why 
+should she wish to marry me to her brother?"
+
+"To make a good sister-in-law," answered Mrs. Langton, quietly.
+
+I felt there was something in that, and remained mute with consternation.
+
+"And do you think," she resumed, laughing softly, "he has been quite so 
+slow to take the hint? Why, child, you have scarcely said a word that he 
+has not modestly converted into a proof of your passion for him. Remember 
+how sympathising he was on the evening of the party; he thought: 'Poor 
+little thing! I must be kind. It is plain she is fretting herself away 
+for my sake.'"
+
+She spoke with evident conviction. I remembered words and looks, and I 
+grew hot and faint.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Langton!" I exclaimed desperately, "what shall I do? how can I 
+undeceive him?"
+
+"Leave the house at once," she promptly replied.
+
+"Will it not be better to stay for another day or so, just to be cool 
+with him?"
+
+"He will think it shyness."
+
+"And despair if I run away. No, I must stay to undeceive him."
+
+"And to give him time to inform you in his civil, gentlemanly way, how 
+deeply he feels for you."
+
+"Then I can show him I don't want his sympathy."
+
+"He will think it pride or pique. Take my advice, Miss Burns. You are in 
+a false position. Retreat."
+
+She laid her hand on my arm and spoke impressively. But youth is rash; I 
+scorned the idea of flight. Besides I had no faith in her advice. With 
+the frank indignation of my years, I felt how meanly my candour and 
+inexperience had been imposed upon. "So, Mrs. Brand," I thought 
+resentfully, "you had me here, because you thought I might make a 
+manageable sister-in-law! Much obliged to you, Mrs. Brand; you will have 
+your dear Edith, yet. But to go and tell or imply to her brother that I 
+was in love with him, with a man who might be my father!
+
+"Besides, even if it had been true, how barbarous to betray me! And you, 
+too, Mrs. Langton," I thought, looking at her, "you too have not thought 
+it beneath your pride to deceive me: talking ill to me of the very man 
+you love--as much as you can love--accusing him of profligacy! Then, so 
+piqued because I said he was middle-aged!--and so kindly anxious to make 
+me look foolish by running away! Go! no indeed! It is very odd if I 
+cannot finesse a little in my turn, and, without committing myself, get 
+out of this spider's web into which, like a foolish fly, I have got 
+entangled; and it is very odd, too, if I cannot change the web a little, 
+before I spread out my wings and take my flight back to the home foolish 
+flies should never leave."
+
+I was thoroughly piqued, and walked restlessly from one end of the 
+verandah to the other. I set my wits to work; thought rapidly followed 
+thought; schemes were made and rejected with every second; at length, 
+both mentally and bodily, I stopped short. "I have it," I thought, 
+triumphantly; "I am not so dull but that I have noticed certain passages 
+between a fair lady and a certain gentleman; I have always thought they 
+would end by marrying; I am certain of it now. I shall act on that 
+belief; say something; no matter what; he likes my _naivete_--to prove to 
+my dear cousin that I consider Edith as good as Mrs. Edward Thornton. Let 
+him like it or not, I shall take his vexation as excellent sport, glide 
+out of it with a laugh, then beg pardon, apologize, and show him he may 
+marry the Queen of Sheba, for all it matters to Daisy Burns."
+
+I felt confident of success; and, elated with my scheme, I turned to Mrs. 
+Langton, and said, gaily:--
+
+"I have such a good idea!--only I cannot tell you. But you shall see how 
+it will work."
+
+She bit her lip, and gave me a mistrustful look.
+
+"I have warned you," she said; "I warn you again; do not think yourself 
+equal to Bertha. If she chooses to convince her brother that you are in 
+love with him, I consider it out of the question that you can prevent 
+her."
+
+"I shall see that," I replied, indignantly.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Langton, "you will have that satisfaction."
+
+"Then what should I gain by running away?" I asked, a little tartly. "The 
+best thing I can do is to stay, look on, and learn how these matters are 
+managed."
+
+Mrs. Langton gave me another mistrustful look, and withdrew. I saw she 
+did not believe in my sincerity; perhaps she did not think it possible to 
+resist Edward Thornton, and repented having been so frank. Her thoughts 
+did not trouble me. The more I reflected on my scheme, the better I liked 
+it. I enjoyed, in advance, the manner in which my cousin would open his 
+fine blue eyes. I was not vexed with him; but I remembered the Dresden 
+room, and was determined he should be as fairly undeceived as ever he had 
+been deluded. Absorbed in these thoughts, I remained on the verandah, 
+looking at the beautiful garden and grounds beneath. A visitor came, was 
+received by Mrs. Langton, stayed awhile, left, and still I did not re-
+enter the drawing-room, where Mrs. Brand and her friend now sat, working 
+and talking by lamp-light. At length, scarce knowing why, I began to pay 
+a vague attention to their discourse.
+
+"I think we are going to have a storm," said the soft voice of Mrs. 
+Langton; "it will clear the air, perhaps. Doctor Morton says the weather 
+has been so unhealthy; typhus so prevalent amongst the poor. He mentioned 
+the case of a labourer who has just died, leaving a widow and nine 
+children."
+
+"Very sad, indeed," composedly replied Mrs. Brand; "but then you know, my 
+dear, typhus is generally confined to the poor--which is a sort of 
+comfort."
+
+"It is not always the case," said Edith; "there have been several deaths 
+amongst tradespeople."
+
+"Ah! poor things, they have to deal with the poor, you see; but what I 
+mean is, that it seldom goes higher up; which is a great comfort, you 
+know; for what good would it do the poor that those above them should 
+die?"
+
+"None, of course. The doctor also mentioned another case--very sad too--
+such a fine young man, he had been told, an artist, I think; but he did 
+not know his name, who is lying ill--all but given up."
+
+"Really," said Mrs. Brand, "this gets quite alarming. Do you know 
+whereabouts that unfortunate young man lives?"
+
+Until then, I had listened to them as we listen to speech in which we 
+take no interest. I was young, full of health; the evening air felt 
+pleasant and fresh about me; and standing on that cool verandah above a 
+fragrant garden, I recked not of the fevered dwellings where the poor 
+perish, and of the sick chamber where even the rich man may be reached by 
+death; but when Mrs. Langton spoke of the young artist who lay given up, 
+I felt touched. When Mrs. Brand asked to know where he dwelt, I just 
+turned my head a little to catch the reply of the beautiful Edith. She 
+gave it carelessly.
+
+"In a place called the Grove, I believe; is it far off?"
+
+"Two miles away at least," complacently replied Mrs. Brand.
+
+I know not how I entered the room; but I know that the two ladies 
+screamed faintly, as they saw me stepping in, through the open window.
+
+"Miss Burns, is the house on fire?" exclaimed Mrs. Brand.
+
+"'T is he!" I said, with that dead calmness which many find in their woe. 
+"I know it is. We live in the Grove, and there is not another artist in 
+it."
+
+"I am not sure he is an artist," said Edith, rising. "I now think it was 
+an architect."
+
+"There is no architect in the Grove," I replied; "not one."
+
+"My dear," observed Mrs. Brand, soothingly taking my hand, "it is all a 
+mistake, depend upon it."
+
+I looked at her, and shook my head.
+
+"The house was close and silent; the blinds were drawn down. I know why 
+now--lest the contagion should reach me."
+
+Mrs. Brand dropped my hand rather hastily.
+
+"I shall send and inquire at once," she observed. "Pacify yourself, my 
+dear."
+
+She stretched out her hand to ring the bell.
+
+"You need not," I said, "I am going."
+
+"Oh! but you must not!" cried Mrs. Brand, "think of the danger."
+
+I laughed drearily in her face.
+
+"Of the contagion, my dear?"
+
+"Do not fear, I shall come back, Ma'am," I replied, turning to the door. 
+She followed me.
+
+"My dear, you must have the carriage."
+
+"I shall go by the lanes," I said impatiently. The carriage was, I knew, 
+the delay of at least an hour.
+
+"By the lanes, at this hour? I cannot allow it, Miss Burns."
+
+I turned round upon her.
+
+"But I will go," I said, and even in that moment, I wondered the woman 
+could be so blind as to think her will had the power to detain me.
+
+Without heeding her astounded look, I ran up to my room, took down my 
+cloth cloak, drew it around me, and drawing the hood over my head, I 
+hastened down stairs to the garden. As I passed underneath the verandah, 
+the voice of Mrs. Langton seemed to call me back, but the wind drowned 
+her words, and I ran fast along the avenue. I had soon reached the iron 
+gate; I took down the key, opened the door, and entered the lane. As 1 
+turned my back on Poplar Lodge, I caught a last glimpse of it rising 
+against a dark sky, with a faint speck of light glimmering from the 
+drawing-room window.
+
+No other light shone on my path; the sun had set bright and glorious, the 
+evening had set in clear and serene; but a sudden eclipse had come; one 
+vast gloom shrouded sky and earth; I never saw summer night like this for 
+intense, for dreary darkness. I knew the way well; I walked straight on, 
+swiftly and without pause, meeting no obstacles, fearing none, like one 
+who passes through vacant space.
+
+Once I thought I heard a voice calling on me faintly in the distance 
+behind; but I heeded it not, I did not answer, I did not look round; I 
+went on as in a dream. Raised beyond the body by the passion of my grief, 
+I felt not the ground beneath my feet; all I felt was that the wind as it 
+swept by me with a low rushing sound, seemed to bear me on through that 
+sombre and melancholy night, as a spirit to its viewless home. At length, 
+the air became of a dead stillness; it was as if I had suddenly entered a 
+silent and sultry region in which there was no breathing and no life. I 
+stopped short; I looked round to see that I had not mistaken the way; a 
+streak of fiery lightning passed through the darkness of the sky; for a 
+moment I caught sight of an open space, in which I stood, and saw before 
+me two long lanes diverging from a half ruined gateway, and vanishing 
+into depths of gloom whence seemed to come forth the peal of far thunder 
+that died away in low faint echoes.
+
+I knew the spot well; I had not missed the right path; I was half way on 
+my journey.
+
+But as if this first flash had only been a signal, the brooding storm now 
+broke forth. Before it fled at once the silence and the gloom of the 
+hour. A low, wild murmur ran along the ground, then rose and lost itself 
+in the wide and desolate hollow of the night; trees tossed about their 
+dark boughs, and groaned lamentably like vexed spirits. As the sound of a 
+loosened flood came the rushing rain, the wind rose ever deepening in its 
+roar; and above all rolled the full thunder, louder than the deafening 
+voice of battle, whilst, cleft with many a swift and silent flash, the 
+dark sky opened like a sea of living fire, below which stretched a long, 
+low moving shore of livid clouds.
+
+I stood still and looked; not with fear--to love and fear for what we 
+love, is to be raised beyond all dread--but I felt dazzled with the 
+ceaseless lightning, and dizzy with the tumult of the tempest; the heavy 
+rain beat full in my face and blinded me; the strong gale rose against me 
+in all its might. I could not move on; I could not turn back, seek 
+shelter, or proceed; for a moment I yielded to the burst of the storm, 
+and let the elements wreak their fury on my bowed head. But a thought 
+stronger than even their power, more fearful than their wildest wrath, 
+was on me. I drew down my hood, wrapped my cloak closer around me, and 
+again went on drenched with the pouring rain, and often arrested, but 
+never driven back by the impetuous blast.
+
+The storm was violent and brief. Soon the wind fell; the rain grew less 
+heavy; the lightning less frequent and vivid; the thunder slowly 
+retreated; the sky cleared, and melted into soft clouds, behind which, 
+for the first time, shone the watery moon. She looked down on me with a 
+wan and troubled face, boding sorrow; her dim light filled the path I now 
+followed; on either side, like gloomy giants, rose the dark trees; the 
+rain had ceased, but as I passed swiftly beneath the dripping boughs, 
+they seemed shaken by an invisible hand to dash their chill dew-drops in 
+my face. The smell of the wet earth rose strong on the humid air; in the 
+ditch by me, I heard water flowing with a low, gurgling sound, and every 
+now and then I came across a shallow pool lit with a pale and trembling 
+moonbeam.
+
+The storm had not terrified me, but now my courage sank. This chill calm 
+after the fury of the tempest; this sound of water faintly flowing, 
+following on tumult so loud, seemed to me to speak of sorrow, death and 
+utter desolation. The nearer I drew to the end of my journey, the more my 
+heart failed me. As I turned down into the lane that led home, the 
+church-clock struck twelve; every stroke sounded like a funeral knell on 
+my ear; then a dog began to howl plaintively. I turned cold and sick--as 
+a child, I had heard that this was a token of death. Oh! with what slow 
+and weary steps, I drew near that door towards which I had hastened 
+through all the anger of the storm, and which my heart now dreaded to 
+reach. As I stood by it, my limbs trembled, my very flesh quivered, my 
+blood seemed to have ceased to flow, my heart to beat, cold dew-drops 
+gathered and stood on my brow, and something, an inward struggle, an 
+agony without a name rose to my lips, and made one gasp for breath, but 
+could not pass them. Twice I stretched out my hand to ring, and twice it 
+fell powerless. I sank down on my knees; I uttered a passionate prayer: I 
+asked--what will not the heart ask for?--for an impossible boon. "Even if 
+he is to die. Oh God, do not let him die; even though he shall be dead, 
+do not let him be dead!"
+
+I rose and rang. "Now," I thought, "I shall know it all at once in the 
+face of Kate or Jane, whichever it may be that opens to me." I nerved 
+myself to meet that look, as I heard a door opening within, then a step 
+on the wet gravel, and caught a glimmer of light through the chinks of 
+the door. I heard it unbarred and unbolted, then it opened partly; and 
+standing on the threshold with the light of the upraised lamp in his 
+face, I saw Cornelius.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ 
+
+I think I could endure years of trouble and toil for the joy of that 
+moment. My heart overflowed; I looked at Cornelius, then threw my arms 
+around his neck, and burst into tears. My hood fell back, and with it my 
+loosened hair.
+
+"Daisy!" he cried, for he had not recognized me till then. "Good God!" he 
+added with sudden terror, "has anything happened to you?"
+
+"Nothing, Cornelius; but I am too happy--too happy--that is all."
+
+He drew back a little; looked at my drenched garments and bare head, as 
+he closed the door, and led me in.
+
+"Daisy," he asked, anxiously, "what has brought you here at such an hour, 
+in such a plight?"
+
+"I thought you were ill, dying, Cornelius! I felt beside myself, and ran 
+home to you like a wild thing."
+
+We stood beneath the porch. Cornelius still held the lamp; its light fell 
+on his pale, troubled face. With the arm that was free he drew me towards 
+him, and looked down at me with mingled grief and tenderness.
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "whilst I sat within, sheltered and 
+unconscious, have you, indeed, been exposed to the fury of this pitiless 
+storm--and for my sake?"
+
+I shook back the hair from my face, and looking up into his, smiled.
+
+"Cornelius," I said, "if weary miles had divided us; if rivers had flowed 
+across the path; if I should have walked bare-footed over sharp stones, I 
+would have come to you to-night. I could not have kept away; I feel that 
+my very heart would have flown to you, as a bird to its nest."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, go up to your room at once," he observed, uneasily. 
+"Here is the light."
+
+I took it, and gaily ran up-stairs. I felt light with gladness--a new 
+life flowed in my veins, a new vigour beat with my heart. I blessed God 
+with every faculty of my being: as sincerely as if the miracle I had 
+asked for, had been accomplished. I had soon changed my things, and went 
+down very softly, not to waken Kate. The door of the back-parlour was 
+ajar, and there I found Cornelius, standing by a newly-kindled fire. As I 
+gently closed the door, I said, smiling:
+
+"I have made no noise. Kate never woke--how is she?"
+
+"She complains of a head-ache. The heat of the day, I suppose."
+
+"Yes," I replied, sitting down, taking his hand, and making him sit down 
+by me on a little couch which he had drawn before the fire. "Yes, every 
+one was out this morning, when I called and found the house shut up. Oh, 
+Cornelius! how I thought of that with terror and dismay, as I came along 
+the lanes."
+
+"The lanes!--you came by the lanes?" cried Cornelius, turning pale: 
+"alone along that desolate road, where a cry for aid never could be 
+heard! Daisy, how dare you do such a thing? How could they allow it?"
+
+"Cornelius, who would be out on such a night to harm me? As to daring, I 
+would have dared anything. Mrs. Brand remonstrated, and sent, I believe, 
+a servant after me; but I outstripped him easily. Terror lent me her 
+wings."
+
+"I thought you felt no fear?"
+
+"No fear of man, but a most sickening cowardly dread of fever. Oh, 
+Cornelius! if I had found you ill, or in danger of death, what should I 
+have done, what would have become of me?"
+
+The mere thought was a torment that again sent the freezing blood to my 
+heart. I shivered, and drew close to him.
+
+"There! you are quite pale again," said Cornelius, anxiously. "Oh, Daisy! 
+do you then love me so much--so very much?"
+
+I looked up, and smiled at the question. But his face was burning, and 
+expressed mingled pleasure, doubt, and pain.
+
+"Oh!" he continued, taking my hands in his, and speaking hesitatingly, 
+"what am I to think of the girl who forgets her friend?"
+
+"I knew you were vexed and angry about the party," I interrupted. "I saw 
+you."
+
+"And then, on the first false alarm, who returns to him so kindly, on a 
+stormy night, by a dreary way, fearless though alone."
+
+"Now, Cornelius, what have I done that a good sister, or friend, or 
+daughter, would not do?"
+
+Cornelius dropped my hands, and said, abruptly: "Do you not feel chill?"
+
+"Not with that fire. Do you know, Cornelius, now I am here again with you 
+and Kate, I don't see why I should go back to Poplar Lodge. Suppose you 
+ask me to stay. Well, what are you doing?"
+
+He had stood up, and was pouring out a glass of wine, which he handed to 
+me.
+
+"Take it," he said.
+
+"To please you, Cornelius: but I do not want it. The sight of your face 
+at the door was more reviving than wine to me."
+
+I just tasted the wine, and handed him the glass. He drank off its 
+contents. His hand, in touching mine, had felt feverish, and he looked 
+rather pale.
+
+"You are unwell," I said, uneasily.
+
+"Unwell!" he echoed, gaily. "I never felt better."
+
+He poured himself out another glass of wine, but I took it from him.
+
+"You must not!" I exclaimed, imperatively. "Oh, Cornelius! be careful," I 
+added, imploringly.
+
+He laughed at my uneasiness; but there was something dreary in the sound 
+of his laughter, which I did not like.
+
+"I tell you I am well--quite well," he persisted; "but I feel uneasy 
+about you, Daisy. How this night will fatigue you! I dare not tell you to 
+go to your room, lest it should be too chill; but will you try and sleep 
+here?"
+
+"On condition that, when I am asleep, you will go up, and take some rest 
+yourself."
+
+He promised to do so; and, to please him, I laid my head on the pillow of 
+the couch. He removed the lamp from my eyes, but in vain I closed them, 
+and tried to sleep. Every now and then I kept opening them again, and 
+talking in that excited way, which is the result of over-wrought emotion.
+
+"Cornelius," I said, "I am now quite resolved to stay with you. I should 
+feel too miserable to be even a day away. Always thinking about typhus, 
+you know."
+
+"Sleep, child," was his only reply.
+
+I tried; but awhile afterwards I was again talking.
+
+"And the Academy!" I said, "and 'The Young Girl Reading'! Are the other 
+pictures sold?"
+
+I half-rose on one elbow to look at Cornelius, who sat a little behind 
+me. Without answering, he made me lie down again, and laid his hand on my 
+eyes and brow. He possessed, perhaps, something of mesmeric power, for 
+unconsciously I fell asleep; but mine was not a deep or perfect slumber. 
+I was aware of a change that I could not understand or define. I felt, 
+however, some one bending over me, and a long and lingering kiss was 
+pressed on my brow.
+
+"It is Cornelius going up-stairs," I thought even in my sleep, but 
+without awakening. My next remembrance is that I looked up with sudden 
+terror, and that I found myself face to face with Kate, who sat by the 
+table weeping bitterly. I looked for Cornelius and saw him not.
+
+"Kate, Kate!" I cried, starting to my feet, "where is he? What has 
+happened?"
+
+She shook her head and never replied.
+
+I crossed the room and opened the door of the front parlour; it was empty 
+and in confusion; I ran to the front door, opened it, and looked down the 
+moonlit street.
+
+"Cornelius!" I cried, "Cornelius!"
+
+I paused and listened; all I heard was the sound of a carriage rolling 
+away in the distance. My voice died on my lips in broken accents; my arms 
+fell by my side powerless and dead. He was gone! gone without a word of 
+explanation or adieu. In this one circumstance I read a remote journey 
+and a long absence, and yet I would believe in neither. I re-entered the 
+parlour where Kate still sat in the same attitude. I went up to her.
+
+"So he is gone to Yorkshire to see Mr. Smalley?" I said agitatedly.
+
+"He is gone to Spain," she briefly answered.
+
+My heart fell.
+
+"To Spain! for a few months, I suppose?"
+
+"For years!"
+
+"I don't believe it!" I cried, angrily; "he could not, would not do such 
+a thing. You want to frighten me, Kate, but I don't believe you; no, I 
+don't."
+
+"You do; in your heart you do; in your heart you know it."
+
+I did know it; for I gave way to a burst of passion and grief, and spoke 
+to Kate as I never before had spoken.
+
+"Gone! gone to Spain, and for years! Kate! how dare you let him go and 
+not tell me?"
+
+She looked up at me; her eyes flashing through her tears.
+
+"And how dare you speak so to me, foolish girl? Is Cornelius anything so 
+near to you as he is to me? Did you rear him, sacrifice your youth to 
+him, and then find yourself cast aside and forsaken, as I am this day?"
+
+"He reared me," I cried, weeping passionately. "Claim him by all you have 
+sacrificed to him, my claim is all he has been to me! Oh! Kate, why did 
+he go?"
+
+"What right have you to know?" she asked, with a jealous bitterness that 
+exasperated me.
+
+"Every right," I replied, indignantly. "What have I done to be so 
+treated?"
+
+"What have you done? Why, you have done that I believe there is nothing 
+so dear to him as you are; that his last request was, that instead of 
+going with him, I should stay with you and wait your wakening; that his 
+last kiss was that which he gave you as you slept. If you want to know 
+more, here is a letter for you. Ask me not another question; I shall not 
+answer. I have no more to say, and I have enough of my own grief."
+
+She handed me a folded paper. I opened it and read:--
+
+"Forgive me, Daisy, if I forsake you thus by stealth; but partings are 
+bitter things. I wished to spare you some pain, and myself a severe 
+though useless trial. I had promised to leave you and Kate no more; but 
+you must have noticed how restless my temper has been of late; indeed, 
+there is in my blood an unquiet fever which only liberty and a life of 
+wandering can appease. Good bye, Daisy, God bless you! May you be happy, 
+ay, even to the fullness of your heart's wishes."
+
+Kate need not have asked for my silence. I laid down her brother's letter 
+without a word, not a syllable could I have uttered then; I was hurt; 
+hurt to the very heart. Cornelius had forsaken me cruelly; he had done to 
+the girl what pity would never have let him do to the child; he had left 
+me in my sleep, without one word of adieu.
+
+I felt the shock and bitterness of this sudden separation, and more 
+bitterly still the desertion. How could I, after this, think that 
+Cornelius cared for me? He had liked me, amused himself with me, but I 
+had never been to him that living portion of the heart which we call a 
+friend. I could bear his absence, but that he should not care for me, 
+that he should have been trifling with me all along, I could not bear. I 
+paced the room up and down, vainly trying to keep in my sobs and tears. 
+As I passed by the table, a folded paper caught my attention, I seized it 
+eagerly with that vague hope which clings to everything. In this case it 
+was not deceived.
+
+"Oh! Kate, Kate!" I cried, throwing my arms around her neck in a 
+transport of joy too deep not to make me forget the few sharp words that 
+had passed between us.
+
+"Well, what is it?" she asked, amazed.
+
+"He'll come back; he'll come back; he has forgotten his passport. Oh! I 
+am so glad! so happy; he can't travel without it, you know. I defy him to 
+go to Spain now."
+
+I laughed and cried for joy. She sighed.
+
+"And if he does come back," she said, "it will be to go away again."
+
+"We shall see that," I replied indignantly. "I will not let him, Kate. He 
+has accustomed me to have my way of late, and in this I will have it."
+
+She shook her head incredulously; but I was confident and did not heed 
+her; a low rumbling sound down the street had attracted my attention.
+
+"There he is!" I cried joyfully; and with a beating heart I ran to the 
+street door. I opened it very softly, and keeping it ajar, I listened. 
+The sound had ceased, and for a moment all I heard was the voice of Kate 
+whispering in my ear--
+
+"Daisy, if you let him go this time, I shall never forgive you. Do not 
+mind what I said; keep him; you can if you wish."
+
+I had not time to think on her words or ask her for their meaning; a 
+quick and well-known step was coming up the Grove--the garden gate 
+opened--no bell rang, but a hand tapped lightly at the parlour shutters. 
+I opened the door wide and Cornelius, for it was he, came up to me.
+
+"I have forgotten my passport," he said, in a low tone; "it is on the 
+table in the back-parlour. Is she still asleep?"
+
+Before I could reply, the moon, that had kept hid behind a dark cloud, 
+came forth bright and undimmed; her light fell on my face; I saw him 
+start.
+
+"Will you not come in, Cornelius?" I said quietly. But he stood there at 
+the door of his own home, mute and motionless as a statue. "Well then," I 
+continued, "I must go out to you; perhaps before you cross the seas 
+again, standing on the threshold of your dwelling, you will not refuse to 
+grant me what you did not think fit to give me within it--the luxury of a 
+last adieu--of a last embrace!"
+
+I stepped out to him as I spoke; but he made me re-enter the house, and 
+followed me in.
+
+"Daisy," he said, with a sigh, "I wished to leave whilst you were away, 
+and fate brought you back; I stole away whilst you were asleep, and I was 
+compelled to return and find you awake. I thought to spare us both some 
+pain. I cannot; be it so; you shall have your wish."
+
+His voice plainly said: "Your wish, and no more."
+
+"Very well," I replied, quietly; for though I was resolved he should not 
+go, I knew better than to startle him.
+
+We re-entered together the back parlour; Kate had left it; but the lamp 
+still burned on the table. Cornelius sat down by it; his face was pale, 
+watchful, determined. I saw he was fully on his guard, and prepared to 
+resist unflinchingly to the last. I was as determined to insist and 
+prevail. Oh! daily life, that art called tame and reproved as dull, how 
+is it that to me thou hast ever been so full of strange agitating dramas, 
+I sat down by Cornelius; I passed my arm within his, and looking up into 
+his face, I said:
+
+"When, a few hours ago, I felt so glad to see you safe, Cornelius, I knew 
+not I was looking my last for a long time."
+
+He did not answer; I continued:
+
+"Oh, if I had known we were going to part, how differently I should have 
+spent this evening! I would not have talked away so foolishly, but have 
+asked you so many questions--settled so many things! whereas now I have 
+only a few minutes, and can think of nothing save that you are going 
+away, Cornelius."
+
+He quailed, but only momentarily; if his lip trembled a little, his 
+unmoved look told of unconquerable resolve.
+
+"You, it seems," I resumed, "had nothing to say to me, Cornelius, or you 
+could not have wished to go away thus?"
+
+He drew forth his watch, and said, briefly:
+
+"I must go soon, Daisy."
+
+"Kate says you are to be years away--is it true?"
+
+His silence was equivalent to an assent.
+
+"Well then, give me the farewell of years," I said, passing my arms 
+around his neck, and compelling his face to look down at mine.
+
+He seemed a little troubled, and made a motion to rise. I detained him.
+
+"A little longer," I entreated; "I have thought of some things about 
+which I wish to question you."
+
+"Pray be quick, Daisy."
+
+"Why do you go to Spain?"
+
+"For change."
+
+"You are tired of us?"
+
+"I am tired of a quiet life."
+
+"Go to France, Cornelius."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"It is nearer."
+
+"Daisy, I must really go now."
+
+"A little longer; I have something else to say."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I have forgotten; but give me time to remember."
+
+I laid my head on his shoulder as I spoke.
+
+"Daisy," he asked, "what have you to say?"
+
+I wept without answering; but saw his eye vainly looking over the table 
+in search of something.
+
+"I have it," I said aloud, "I have it, and I will not give it to you, 
+Cornelius, for you must not, no, you must not go."
+
+"I knew it," he resignedly exclaimed, "I knew it would come to this; and 
+yet," he added, looking down at me rather wistfully, "it is of no use, 
+Daisy; I must go, and I will go too."
+
+"No, Cornelius, you will not; you never could have the heart to do it. 
+Besides, why go?"
+
+"For change."
+
+"Change! what is change? If I were an artist I would make variety enough 
+in my own mind to be the charm of daily life; and whilst I painted 
+pictures, I would not care a pin for Spain or Italy. If I were an 
+ambitious spirit, I would not go just when my fame was beginning, when 
+glorious prospects were opening before me. If I were a brother, and had a 
+good sister, who loved me dearly, I would not forsake her. If I were a 
+kind-hearted man, and had adopted a poor little orphan girl, reared her, 
+indulged her, made her my friend, and promised not to leave her, I would 
+not break her heart by running away from her; but when she said to me: 
+'Stay, Cornelius!' I would just give her a kiss, and say: 'Yes, my pet, 
+by all means!'"
+
+But in vain. I looked up into his face; he did not kiss me; he did not 
+call me his pet; his lips never parted to say, "Yes, by all means!" His 
+head was sunk on his bosom; his arms were folded; his downcast look never 
+sought mine. I left my place by him to sit down at his feet and see him 
+better. I read sorrow on his face, great sorrow, but no change of 
+purpose. I took one of his hands in mine, and gazing at him through 
+gathering tears:
+
+"Cornelius," I said, "are you still going?"
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"Are you still going?" I asked, laying my head on his knee.
+
+He remained silent.
+
+"Are you still going?" I persisted, rising as I spoke, and pressing my 
+lips to his cheek. He never moved; he never answered. The blood rushed to 
+my heart with passionate force. I threw back rather than dropped his 
+hand; I stepped away from him with wounded and indignant pride. "Go 
+then!" I exclaimed, with angry tears, "go, here is your passport; take it 
+and with it take back your broken promise and friendship betrayed."
+
+"Betrayed!" he echoed, looking up.
+
+"Yes, betrayed; I do not retract the word. Want of confidence is treason 
+in friendship, and you have had no confidence in me--why in this house, 
+where as a child I had obeyed you, and could have obeyed you all my life, 
+why did you of your own accord raise me to an equality which was my boast 
+and my pride, when in your heart you meant to treat me as a child to be 
+cheated into a parting? You gave me an empty name; I will have the 
+reality or I will have nothing, Cornelius."
+
+I turned away from him as I spoke; he rose and followed me.
+
+"Daisy," he said, "what do you mean?"
+
+I looked round at him over my shoulder, and replied, reproachfully:
+
+"I mean that you do not care for me."
+
+"I do not care for you!"
+
+"No; you have secrets from me; William never had any secrets; he liked me 
+more than you do, Cornelius."
+
+An expression of so much pain passed across his face, that I repented at 
+once.
+
+"You cannot believe that?" he replied at length; "you would not say it if 
+you were not very angry with me, Daisy, and yet you know, oh! you know 
+well enough I cannot bear your anger."
+
+"Can't you bear it, Cornelius?" I answered turning round to face him, 
+"then don't go; for if you do, I shall be so angry--indeed, you can have 
+no idea of it!"
+
+"None, whilst you speak and look so very unlike anger. Oh, Daisy! which 
+is easier: to part from you in wrath or in peace?"
+
+"Why part at all? why go?" I replied passing my arm within his, and 
+looking up at his bending face in which I read signs of yielding.
+
+"Why remain?"
+
+"Because I wish it," I said, making him sit down.
+
+"Is that a reason?"
+
+"The best of all--for it will make you stay."
+
+He did not say yes; but then, he did not say no.
+
+"Stay! stay!" he repeated with an impatient sigh. "What for? You do not 
+want me."
+
+"Indeed, I do," I replied, triumphantly, "I want you much, very much, 
+just now."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To advise me about Mr. Thornton."
+
+"Ah! what of him?" exclaimed Cornelius, with a sudden start.
+
+"Nothing," I replied, sorry to have said so much.
+
+He gave me a look beneath which I felt myself reddening.
+
+"He too!" he said, biting his lip and folding his arms like one amazed, 
+"he too! And I was going, actually going, actually leaving you to him."
+
+He laughed indignantly and rose; I eagerly caught hold of his arm.
+
+"Oh, I am not going," he exclaimed impetuously, throwing down his hat as 
+he spoke. "Catch me going now. No, Daisy," he added, resuming his place 
+by me, and laying his hand on my arm as he bent on me a fixed and 
+resolute look, "though I was fool enough to let him have the picture, he 
+shall not find it quite so easy to get the original."
+
+"Oh, Cornelius!" I exclaimed, feeling ready to cry with vexation and 
+shame, "that is not at all what I mean."
+
+"Another," he continued with ill-repressed irritation, "it is the 
+strangest thing, that young or old, boys in experience, or worn and 
+wearied with the world, they all want you."
+
+"Cornelius, how can you talk so! it is Mrs. Langton whom Mr. Thornton 
+likes."
+
+"Mrs. Langton!"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Langton, the great beauty."
+
+"So much the better," he replied with a scornful and incredulous laugh, 
+"for he shall not have you, Daisy."
+
+"He does not want me," I said desperately; "but if he did, it would be 
+time lost. For I am sure I don't want him."
+
+"You do not like him!" observed Cornelius, calming down a little.
+
+"Very much as a cousin. Not at all, otherwise."
+
+"And you will not have him, will you, Daisy?"
+
+He spoke with lingering doubt and uneasiness.
+
+"I tell you I shall not have the chance," I replied impatiently. "Oh, 
+Cornelius! will you never leave off fancying that everybody is in love 
+with me?"
+
+I could not help laughing as I said it.
+
+"Yes, laugh," he said reproachfully, "laugh at me, because like the poor 
+man of the parable told by the Prophet to the sinful King, 'I have but 
+one little ewe lamb; I have nourished it up, it has eaten of my meat, 
+drank of my cup, lain in my bosom, and been unto me as a daughter.' Laugh 
+because I cannot help dreading lest the rich man's insolence should wrest 
+her from me!"
+
+"No, Cornelius, I shall laugh no more; but indeed you need not fear that 
+sort of thing at all. Neither for Mr. Thornton, nor for any other member 
+of his sex do I care, and when I say that," I added, reddening a little, 
+"you know what I mean."
+
+"Too well!" he replied, in a low, sad tone. "Good bye, Daisy. God bless 
+you!"
+
+I remained motionless with surprise and grief. He rose; Kate entered the 
+room.
+
+"Oh, Kate!" I cried desperately, "after all but promising to stay, he is 
+going. Speak to him, pray speak to him!"
+
+She shook her head and stood a little apart, looking on with quiet 
+attention.
+
+I silently placed myself before her brother, but he looked both sad and 
+determined.
+
+"You cannot have the heart to do it: you cannot!" I exclaimed, the tears 
+running down my face as I spoke; "you cannot!"
+
+"Daisy," he replied, in a tone of mingled pain and reproach, "where is 
+the use of all this? If I could stay, indeed I would; but though I love 
+you so much, that every tear you now shed seems a drop wrung from the 
+life blood of my heart, believe me when I declare that though you should 
+ask me to remain on your bended knees, I should still say no."
+
+"Then I shall try!" I exclaimed, despairingly; but before I could sink 
+down at his feet, he had caught hold of both my hands, and compelled me 
+to remain upright. Hope forsook me.
+
+"Cornelius," I said, weeping, "will you stay?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Cornelius!" I exclaimed, more earnestly. "Will you stay?"
+
+This time he did not answer, but his half averted face showed me a 
+profile severe, resolute, and inexorable.
+
+"You cannot weary me," I said again; "will you stay?"
+
+He turned upon me pale with wrath.
+
+"Oh! blind girl--blind to the last!" he cried, his white lips trembling. 
+"You ask me to stay--to stay!"
+
+"Yes, Cornelius, again and again!"
+
+All patience seemed to forsake him. His eyes lit, his features quivered; 
+he grasped my hands in his with an angry force, of which he was himself 
+unconscious.
+
+"Come," he said, striving to be calm, "do not make me say that which I 
+should repent. Let us part as it is--do not insist--do not provoke me to 
+forget honour and truth."
+
+I could see that Cornelius was angry with me; that my obstinacy provoked 
+him beyond measure; but his wrath was the wrath of love; it could not 
+terrify me. I even felt and found in it a perilous pleasure, that made me 
+smile as I replied:
+
+"But I do insist, Cornelius."
+
+His lips parted, as if to utter some vehement reply; then he bit them 
+with angry force, and knit his brow like one who subdues and keeps down 
+some inward strife. Kate quietly stepped up to us.
+
+"The knot that will not be unravelled must be cut," she said. "He will 
+stay, Daisy, if you will be his wife."
+
+The words seemed sent, like a quivering arrow, through my very heart. 
+Cornelius looked confounded at his sister, who only smiled; then he 
+turned to me, flushed and ardent. As I stood before him, my hands still 
+grasped in his--his face still bent over mine, half upraised--his look, 
+overflowing with passion, reproach, love, anger, and tenderness, sank 
+deep into mine, with a meaning that overpowered me. And yet, as if spell-
+bound by the strange and wonderful story thus, at once revealed to me, I 
+could not cease to hear it. Kate had not spoken--she still spoke in words 
+that echoed for ever. To speak myself, look away, return once more to the 
+daily life beyond which that moment stood isolated, were not things in my 
+power. I felt like one divided from Time by that immortal Present.
+
+"Oh, Daisy!" vehemently exclaimed Cornelius, "how you linger! 'No' should 
+have been uttered at once; 'yes' need not tarry so long. Speak--answer. 
+Must I stay or depart?"
+
+He spoke with the feverish impatience that will not brook delay.
+
+"Stay!" broke from me, I knew not why nor how; but with the word, my head 
+swam; my limbs failed me; there was a chair by me, I sank down upon it. 
+Cornelius turned very pale, dropped my hands, and walked away without a 
+word. Kate came to me.
+
+"Daisy," she said, taking my hand in her own, "what is it? Are you faint? 
+Have this," she added, handing me the glass of wine which, at once, her 
+brother had poured out.
+
+"No," I replied, "water."
+
+She gave me some. I drank it off, but it did not calm the fever which she 
+took for faintness. I clasped my brow between my hands, to compose and 
+concentrate thought; but my whole being--my mind, faculties, soul, body, 
+and heart, were in tumult and insurrection. I could hear, see, feel--know 
+nothing of that inward world of which I called myself mistress. I rose, 
+terrified at the sudden storm which had broken on my long peace.
+
+"Daisy, do not look so wild!" said Kate; and taking me in her arms, she 
+wanted to make me sit down again; but I broke from her. I passed by her 
+brother without giving him a look, ran up to my own room, and locked 
+myself in like one pursued.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ 
+
+A faint streak of grey was breaking in the east, through the low and 
+heavy clouds of night. I went up to the window, opened it, and kneeling 
+down by it, I looked at that still dark sky, and surrendered myself to 
+the swift current that was bearing me away.
+
+
+There is a rapture in strong emotions that has subdued the strongest; a 
+perilous charm to which the wisest have yielded. What the storm is to our 
+senses--something that raises, appals and lifts up our very being by its 
+sublimity and terror--the strife of the passions is to the soul. They are 
+her elements, from whose conflicts and electric shocks she derives her 
+strength, her greatness, the knowledge that she is. And for this, though 
+they so often blight her fairest hopes, she loves them.
+
+It is hard, indeed, to be ever striving against those rebellious 
+servants--to feel torn asunder in the struggle; but sweeter is that 
+bitter contest than a long, lifeless peace. The danger lies not so much 
+in the chance of final subjection, as in that of learning to love the 
+strife too well. More perilous than the sweetest music is its tumult; 
+more endless than are all the delights of the senses, and far more 
+intoxicating is its infinite variety. The soul, in her most blissful 
+repose, has nothing to equal the burning charm of her delirium.
+
+My youth had been calm as an ice-bound sea, over which sweep breezes 
+sweet though chill, but that knows neither the storm nor the sunshine of 
+the ardent south. And now the storm had suddenly wakened, and from 
+northern winter, I passed to the glowing tropics. I thought not of love 
+or passion, of bliss or torment; I felt like one seized by foaming 
+rapids, and swept far beyond human ken, with the sound of the rushing 
+torrent ever in my ears. I yielded to a force that would not be resisted.
+
+"Let it," I thought, my heart beating with fearless delight; "I care not 
+whither it sends me; let the eddies cast me adrift--or bear me safely 
+on--I care not--this is to live!"
+
+I strove not against the current; I sought not to know where I was, until 
+of itself the stream flowed more calm, until its mighty voice died away 
+in faint murmurs, and I found myself floating safe in still waters. Then 
+I looked up, and like one who after sleeping on earth wakens in fairy-
+land, I beheld with trembling joy the strange and wonderful country to 
+which I had been borne during the long slumber of a year. Cornelius loved 
+me! it was marvellous, incredible, but a great and glorious thing for all 
+that. He loved me! my heart swelled; my soul rose; I felt humble, exalted 
+and blest far beyond the power of speech to render. I had no definite 
+thought, no definite wish, but before me extended the future like an 
+endless summer day; beneath it spread life as an enchanted region which 
+Cornelius and I paced hand in hand, bending our steps towards that golden 
+west where burned a sun that should never set.
+
+"Yes, he loves me!" I repeated to myself as I remembered every token 
+unheeded till then. "And do I love him?" oh! how swift came the 
+irresistible reply: "with every power of my soul, with every impulse of 
+my being, with the blood that flows in my veins, with the heart that 
+beats in my bosom." The answer both startled and charmed me. I did not 
+understand it rightly yet, and like one suddenly taken captive, I looked 
+at my bonds and saw incredulously that the liberty of thought, heart and 
+feeling had departed for ever; that an influence as subtle as it was 
+penetrating had taken possession of my being. One moment I rebelled; but 
+after a brief struggle for freedom, I owned myself conquered; with 
+beating heart and burning brow lowly bent, I confessed my master.
+
+Filial reverence, sisterly love, friendship, what had become of ye then? 
+Like weak briars and brambles swept away by a swift stream, ye perished 
+at once on the path of passion. I wondered not that ye should be no more. 
+I only wondered ye had ever been: vain words by which I had long been 
+deluded.
+
+I looked back into my past. Since I had known him, I could not remember 
+the time when the thought of Cornelius had not been to me as the daily 
+bread of my heart. There had been familiarity in my deepest tenderness, 
+and lingering passion in my very freedom. I had felt intuitively that I 
+could not make my love for a man, young and not of my blood, too sacred 
+and too pure, and that love ever craving for a more perfect, more entire 
+union, had caught eagerly at these shadows of what it sought. I had said 
+to myself, to him, to all, that my affection was that of a child for its 
+father, of a sister for her brother, of a friend for her friend, because 
+it had not occurred to me that a closer tie might one day bind us; and 
+what I had said, I had believed most sincerely.
+
+I was very young and very innocent. Of love I had read little, and seen 
+less. So long as it came not to me in visible aspect; so long as I felt 
+not within myself some great change, I dreamt not of it. There is a love 
+that lies in the heart unconscious of itself, like a child asleep in its 
+cradle--and this I had never suspected. There is a love which grows with 
+onr years, until it becomes part of our being; which never agitates, 
+because it has no previous indifference, no remembrance of the time in 
+which it was not, against which to strive; which has purer and deeper 
+signs than the beating heart, the blushing cheek, the averted look--and 
+all this I knew not. Where there is no resistance, there can be no 
+struggle; but because there is no struggle shall any one dare to say--
+there is no victory? Reduce to logic the least logical of all passions, 
+and argue with a feeling that smiles at argument, and disdains to reply.
+
+Had I then loved Cornelius even as a child? loved him with that purer 
+part of affection which needs not to wait for the growth of years? God 
+alone knows. Love is a great mystery; it is easy to remember the time of 
+its discovery, but wise, indeed, are they who can tell the hour and 
+moment of its birth.
+
+I had the wisdom not to ask myself so useless a question. The past 
+vanished from my thoughts; it was all future now. I looked at the eastern 
+sky; it was reddening fast, and grew more bright and burning as I looked. 
+With the superstition of the heart, I watched the dawn of that day, as 
+that which opened my new existence, and for all of the past that it 
+revealed, and I had never seen; for all of the future that it promised, 
+and I had never hoped. I gave thanks to God.
+
+I know not how long I had been thus, when a tap at my door disturbed me. 
+I rose, opened, and saw Kate. She made me turn my face to the light, then 
+half smiled, and said:
+
+"Cornelius wants to speak to you; he is quite in a way. Pray come down."
+
+I followed her down stairs in silence. She opened the back parlour door, 
+closed it, and left me. I stood still; all the blood in my frame seemed 
+to have rushed to my beating heart. It was one thing to be alone with 
+Cornelius, my friend, and another to find myself thus suddenly brought to 
+the presence of Cornelius, my lover.
+
+He sat by the open window; beyond it rose the green garden trees tinged 
+with a rosy light, and above them spread the blushing sky. A fresh breeze 
+came in bearing soft sounds of rustling leaves and twittering songs of 
+wakening birds. He too had watched the dawning day; but there seemed to 
+have been at least as much sorrow as love in his vigil. He looked pale, 
+weary, and slowly turned around as I entered. He saw me standing at the 
+door, rose, and came up to me without speaking. I looked at him like one 
+in a dream. He took my passive hand in his, and gave me a troubled 
+glance, then suddenly he passed his other arm around me, looking down at 
+me with the saddest face.
+
+"And is it thus indeed, Daisy," he said, in a low tone, "you are pale as 
+death, but as silent; your hand lies in mine chill as ice, but not 
+withdrawn; you yield, mute and meek as a poor little victim to the arms 
+that clasp you! No tears! No words to rouse remorse or sting pride. 
+Nothing but entire sacrifice, and that silent submission."
+
+He spoke of paleness; his own face was like marble, his eyes overflowed, 
+his lips trembled, he stooped to press them on my brow. Involuntarily I 
+shunned the embrace.
+
+"Do not shrink," he observed, with evident pain, "I mean it as the last. 
+Yes! the last. I never intended putting you to such a trial. Never, 
+Daisy," he continued, giving me a wistful look, "anger at your blindness, 
+and the irresistible temptation of a sudden opportunity, did indeed make 
+me forget, in one moment, the dearly-bought patience of a year; passion, 
+roused to tyranny after her long subjection, and sick of restraint, did 
+indeed vow she would and should be gratified, no matter what the cost 
+might be; but I never meant it. You are young, generous, and devoted. 
+Months ago, if I had spoken, I know--and I knew it then--that I could 
+have had you for the asking. But I could not bear to have you thus. When 
+your grandfather placed so great a trust in my honour, and showed so 
+little faith in my generosity, I laughed at his blindness, for I thought 
+age had cooled his blood, and made him forget the language which is not 
+speech. But alas! I found that I who had taught you many things, could 
+not teach you this lesson. How could I? when what is held the easiest of 
+all, the letting you see what you were to me, I could never accomplish. 
+Do, say, act as I would, the sacredness of your affection ever stood 
+between us. I tried every art, and love has many, but when I spoke so 
+plainly, it seemed as if a very child must have understood me. You looked 
+or smiled with hopeless serenity. I vowed once that cost me what it 
+might, I would not speak until I had made you love me as truly, as 
+ardently as I loved you myself. I waited months, I might have waited 
+years. Well, no matter, it is over now. Be free, forget the trouble of an 
+hour in the peace of a life-time. Be happy, very happy, and yet, oh! how 
+happy, it seems to me, your friend could have made you, if you would but 
+have let him."
+
+He released and left me. Touched with his sorrow, I could not restrain my 
+tears.
+
+"Weep not for me," he said, with a sad smile; "I shall do. It is true 
+that when I came back from Italy, I secretly boasted that I had escaped 
+both the follies of youth and the dangers of passion. But though Fate, 
+which I braved abroad, has, like a traitor, lain in wait for me in my own 
+home, know, Daisy, that like a man, I can look her in the face, stern and 
+bitter as she wears it on this day, too long delayed, of our separation."
+
+"Then you do mean to go?" I exclaimed, troubled to the very heart.
+
+"Can you think I would stay?" he replied, vehemently. "Oh! Daisy, tempt 
+me not to call you cold and heartless, to say those things which a 
+lifetime vainly repents and never effaces. Is it because I have passed 
+through a year of the hardest self-subjection ever imposed on mortal; 
+through a year of looks restrained, words hushed, emotions repressed; a 
+year of fever and torment endured, that not a cloud might come over the 
+serenity of your peace--is it for this, Daisy, that you think my heart 
+and my blood so cold as to wish me to stay; as not to see that between 
+complete union or utter separation there can now be no medium?"
+
+His look sought mine with a troubled glance; there was fever in his 
+accent, and pain in the half smile with which he spoke.
+
+"But why go so soon?" I asked, in a low tone.
+
+"Why? Daisy, you ask why? Because endurance has reached her utmost 
+limits, and cannot pass them; because the rest is an abyss over which not 
+even a poor plank stretches; because the thing I have delayed months must 
+be done now or never: because, hard as is your absence, your constant 
+presence is something still harder to bear."
+
+He spoke with an ill-subdued irritation I knew not how to soothe.
+
+"Cornelius!" I said in my gentlest accents, "if you would but stay and be 
+calm."
+
+"Stay and be calm!" he replied impetuously, and pacing the room with 
+hasty steps, that ever came back to me; "why, I have been the calmest of 
+calm men! When, one after another, they attempted to woo and win under my 
+very eyes the only girl for whom I cared, she whom I looked on as my 
+future wife; as the secret betrothed of my heart: when, to add taunt to 
+taunt, as if I were not flesh and blood like them; as if I had not known 
+you more years than they had known you weeks; loved you, when they cared 
+not if you existed, they allowed me with insolent unconsciousness to 
+behold it all, did I not subdue the secret wrath which trembled in every 
+fibre of my being? What more would you have me do? Wait to see in the 
+possession and enjoyment of one more fortunate than the rest, that which 
+should have been my property and my joy; whilst I looked on, a robbed 
+father, a friend forsaken, a lover betrayed, and behold my child, 
+companion, friend and mistress the prize of a stranger!"
+
+"Do you think then," he added, stopping short, and speaking with calmer 
+and deeper indignation, "do you think then that I have severed you from 
+the lover of your youth, guarded you from my own friends, watched over 
+you as a miser over his gold, suspected every man who looked at you, 
+sickened at the thought, 'Is it now I am to be robbed?' breathed and 
+lived again at the reply, 'Not yet'--to stay and wait until some other 
+comes and reaps the fruit of all my vain watchfulness."
+
+His eyes flashed, and his lips trembled with jealous resentment. Borne 
+away by the force of his own feelings, he had spoken with a vehement 
+rapidity, that left him no room for pause, as they left me no room for 
+interruption. At length he ceased. I looked at him; he had spoken of his 
+patience with feverish anger, of his calmness with bitter indignation; 
+the passionate emotions had left their traces on his brow slightly 
+contracted, on his pale and agitated face, in his look that still burned 
+with ill-repressed fire; but there was sweetness in his reproaches, and a 
+secret pleasantness in his wrath.
+
+"Another," I said quietly, "and suppose there is no other. Suppose no one 
+cares for me."
+
+"No one!" he echoed, drawing nearer, and taking my hand in his, with a 
+sudden change of mood and accent, "No one, Daisy! Oh! you know there will 
+always be one. One who sat with you by a running stream for the whole of 
+a summer's noon, and at whom your face seemed to look from the clear 
+waters until it sank deep and for ever in his heart. One who waking or 
+sleeping, has loved you since that day, and for whom it is you, Daisy, 
+who care not."
+
+I said I did care for him.
+
+"But how, how?" he asked, with an impatient sigh, "you mean old 
+affection, habit, friendship, and I, you know well enough, mean none of 
+those things. I love you because do what I will, you attract me 
+irresistibly. If I had met you in the street by chance, I should have 
+said, 'this girl and none other I will have;' I would have followed you, 
+ascertained your dwelling, name and parentage, ay, and made you love me 
+too, Daisy, cold as you are now."
+
+"I am not cold, Cornelius."
+
+"Alas, no," he replied, a little passionately, "and there too is the 
+mischief. Oh! Daisy, be merciful! Give nothing if you cannot give all. Be 
+at once all ice, and torment me no more with the calm serenity which is 
+never coldness. Do you know how often you have made me burn to remind 
+you, that though I was no one to you, you might be some one to me; that 
+you have made me long for the sting of indifference and pride; for a 
+familiarity less tender, for a tenderness less dangerous? Do you know 
+that if your affection has been too calm for love, it has been very 
+ardent for mere friendship; that it has possessed the perilous charm of 
+passion and purity; passion which would be divine if it could but be 
+pure; purity which, if it were but ardent, would be irresistibly 
+alluring. You have tormented me almost beyond endurance, then when I gave 
+up hope, you have suddenly said and done the kindest things maiden ever 
+said or did. You have deserted me and returned to me, embraced me with 
+the careless confidence of a sister, spoken with the tenderness of a 
+mistress, and perplexed me beyond all mortal knowledge. But why do I 
+speak as if this were over? Daisy! you perplex me still. This very 
+evening have you not declared that you care for no other, then almost as 
+plainly said you cared not for me. Have you not heard me tell you how 
+warmly I love you, yet have you not asked me to stay here in this house 
+ever near you? Nay, though I speak now from the very fulness of my heart, 
+do you not stand, your hand in mine, listening to me with patient, quiet 
+grace? I dare not hope, I will not quite despair; I can do neither, for I 
+protest, Daisy, that you are still to me a riddle and a mystery, and that 
+whether you love him or love him not, is more than Cornelius O'Reilly can 
+tell."
+
+Cornelius had said all this without a pause of rest: he spoke with the 
+daring rapidity of passion which tarries not for words, but with many an 
+eloquent change of look, tone, and accent. I had heard him with throbbing 
+bosom and burning brow. For the first time I was addressed in the 
+language of love, and the voice that spoke was very dear to me. Answer I 
+could not. I stood before him, listening to tones that had ceased, but 
+that still echoed in my heart. When he confessed, however, that he did 
+not know whether or not I loved him, an involuntary smile stole over my 
+face, and this he was very quick to see; his look, keen and searching, 
+sought mine; his face, eager and flushed, was bent over me.
+
+"Look at me, Daisy," he said, quickly.
+
+I looked up, smiling still; for I thought to myself, "I love him, but he 
+shall not know it just yet." But as I looked, a change of feeling came 
+over my heart. I remembered the past, his long goodness, his patient, 
+devoted love, and I could not take my eyes away.
+
+"Well," he said, uneasily, "why do you look at me so strangely? My face 
+is not new to you, Daisy. You have had time to know it all these years."
+
+Ay, years had passed since our first meeting; and what had he not been to 
+me since then? My adopted father, my kind guardian, my secure protector, 
+my faithful friend, my devoted lover! As I thought of all this, and still 
+looked at him, his kind, handsome face grew dim through gathering tears. 
+"I will tell him all," I thought; "I will be ingenuous and good; tell him 
+how truly, how ardently I love him." The words rose to my lips, and died 
+away unuttered. Is the language in which woman utters such confessions 
+yet invented? Oh! love and pride, tyrants of her heart, how sharp was 
+your contest then in mine! He was bending over me with strange tormenting 
+anxiety in his face. I bowed my head away from his gaze. He half drew me 
+closer, half pushed me back; his hand sought, then rejected, mine. He saw 
+my eyes overflowing.
+
+"Oh, Daisy, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?"
+
+"Guess," was my involuntary reply.
+
+"Do not trifle with me," he said, in a tone of passionate entreaty--"do 
+not."
+
+"Trifle with you! Could I, Cornelius?"
+
+"Prove it then."
+
+He stooped and looked up; for a moment my lips touched his cheek, whilst 
+his lingered on my brow. Many a time before had Cornelius kissed me; but 
+this was the first embrace of a love, mutual, ardent, and yet, God knows 
+it, very pure--ay, far too religiously pure to trouble. And thus it was 
+all understood--all known--all told--without a word.
+
+When I felt that the unconscious dream of my whole life was fulfilled; 
+that I was everything to him who had so long been everything to me; when 
+I looked up into his face, met his look, in which the affection of the 
+tried friend, and the love of the lover, unequivocally blended, and knew 
+that no other human being--not even his sister--could claim and fill that 
+place where my heart had found its home, and that as I loved so was I 
+loved,--I also felt that I had conquered fate; that I triumphed over by-
+gone sorrow, and could defy the might of time. I cried for joy, as I had 
+often cried for grief on that kind heart which had sheltered my forsaken 
+childhood and unprotected youth.
+
+"Tears!" he said, with a smile of reproach; and yet he knew well enough 
+they were not tears of sorrow.
+
+"They will be to me what the rain has been to the night, Cornelius; a 
+freshening dew."
+
+I went up to the open window; I leaned my brow on the cool iron bar; the 
+morning air came in pure, chill, and fragrant. I shivered slightly. 
+Cornelius, who had followed me, saw this, and wanted to close the window.
+
+"Do not," I said; "this cool, keen air is delightful. Then I like to 
+watch the rising of that sun that thought to see you far on your journey, 
+and that shall find you here. Besides, bow beautiful our little garden 
+looks!"
+
+"Then come out into it for awhile."
+
+He took my arm. I yielded. We went down into the garden and paced its 
+narrow gravel path without uttering a word. There came a slight shower; 
+we stepped under the old poplar trees; they yielded more than sufficient 
+shelter. The sun shone through the sparkling drops as they fell, and 
+whilst the fresh rain came down, the birds overhead sang sweetly under 
+the cover of young leafy boughs, as if their song could know no ending. 
+Yes, sweet and near though I knew it to be, it sounded to me as coming 
+from the depths of some dreamy forest far away. I do not think our garden 
+had ever looked so fresh, so pleasant, or been so fragrant as when that 
+shower ceased. The rain-clouds soft and grey, had melted into the vapoury 
+blue of upper air; the warm sunshine tempered the coolness of the breeze, 
+the green grass was white and heavy with the dew of night, and bright 
+with the rain of the morning; the wet gravel sparkled, the dark trunks of 
+the trees trickled slowly, the brown moss clung closer to the old sun-
+dial, the fresh earth smelt sweet, stock, mignionette, wall-flower, 
+furze, and jessamine yielded their most fragrant odours. Rhododendrons 
+beaten down by the last night's storm trailed on the earth their gorgeous 
+masses, whilst sparkling fox-gloves, with a dew-drop to every flower, 
+still rose straight and tall. We were again walking on. Cornelius 
+suddenly stopped short, and for the first time spoke.
+
+"Daisy," he said, earnestly, "you are quite sure, are you not?"
+
+"Look at that flower," was my only reply.
+
+It was a crimson peony, heavy with rain. I bent it slightly; from the 
+delicate petals, from the heart which seemed untouched by a breath, there 
+poured forth a bright shower of liquid dew.
+
+"What about that flower, Daisy?"
+
+"It is a peony, Cornelius."
+
+"Let it."
+
+"Well, I don't think you can prevent it from being one. Peonies will be 
+peonies."
+
+"Who wants to interfere with their rights? and what have peonies to do 
+with our discourse, unless that you look very like one just now? Oh, 
+Daisy! are you sure you like me well enough to marry me?"
+
+"Don't think, if ever I do such a thing, it shall be for liking, 
+Cornelius."
+
+"What for, then?"
+
+"To prevent you from marrying any one else."
+
+He still looked uneasy, and yet he might have known that, though it is 
+sometimes very hard to know where love is, it is always wonderfully easy 
+to know where he is not.
+
+"What would you have?" I asked, a little impatiently. "Is it the love, 
+honour, and obey that troubles you? Well, I have loved you all my life, 
+or very nearly. I honour you more than living creature; as for obedience, 
+I could obey you all the day long, Cornelius."
+
+"Do you mean to turn out a Griseldis?" he said, uneasily. "What put such 
+ideas into your head?"
+
+"Remembrance of the time--"
+
+"I knew you would grow filial again," he interrupted, looking provoked, 
+"instead of answering my question, which was--"
+
+"Concerning your wife," I interrupted, in my turn; "what about her? She 
+ought to be a proud woman, and it will be her own fault if she is not 
+happy--ay, a very happy one."
+
+He stroked my hair, and smiled quite pleased.
+
+"I hope so," he said. "And yet you do not know what I mean to do for her, 
+Daisy. I will paint her pictures that shall beat all the sonnets Petrarch 
+ever sang to his Laura. I will win her fame and money: I will dress her 
+as fine as any queen, until my field-flower shall outshine every flower 
+of the garden. Above all, I will love her as knight of chivalry, or hero 
+of romance, never loved his lady."
+
+He spoke with jesting, yet very tender flattery. Love can take every 
+tone, and bend any language to its own meaning.
+
+I know not how long we lingered together in that garden. I was the first 
+to become conscious of time.
+
+"Where is Kate?" I asked.
+
+"Forgotten," replied her low voice.
+
+She stood beneath the ivied porch; her head a little inclined; one hand 
+supporting her cheek. She looked down at us with a smile happy, yet not 
+without sadness.
+
+"Don't think I envy you the pleasant time," she resumed more gaily; "I 
+like to see people enjoying themselves. When I meet couples in the lanes, 
+I either get out of the way, or, if I cannot do that, I give them 
+internally my benediction. 'Go on,' I think to myself, 'go on; you will 
+never be happier, nor, perhaps, better than you are now. Go on.'"
+
+"We want to go in," said Cornelius, as we ascended the steps.
+
+As I passed by her, Kate arrested me by laying her hand on my shoulder, 
+and saymg:
+
+"Look at that child! She has not slept all night, and there is not a rose 
+of the garden half so fresh. It's a nice thing to be young, Cornelius."
+
+She sighed a little, then led the way in to the front parlour, where 
+breakfast was waiting.
+
+"Already!" said Cornelius.
+
+"Yes, already," she replied, sitting down to pour out the tea: "whilst 
+you were in the clouds, the world has gone on just the same. Midge, why 
+don't you sit near him as usual? you are not ashamed of yourself, are 
+you?"
+
+Ashamed! Oh, no! There is no shame in happiness; and God alone knows how 
+happy I felt then sitting by him whom I loved, and facing her whom I 
+loved almost as well. I do not know how I looked, or Cornelius either; 
+for I did not look at him; but I know that Kate was radiant; that every 
+time her bright eyes rested on us, they sparkled like diamonds, and that 
+it touched me to the heart to read the generous, unselfish joy painted on 
+her handsome face.
+
+We were no sooner alone, than with her habit of continuing aloud whatever 
+secret train of thought she chanced to be engaged in, Miss O'Reilly said 
+to me in her most positive manner:
+
+"I am very glad of it."
+
+"Are you, Kate?" I replied, passing my arm around her neck and kissing 
+her.
+
+"Yes, you coaxing little thing; for he is devotedly fond of you, and I 
+believe you like him with your whole heart, though it took you so long to 
+find it out. What would you and  he have done without me."
+
+"I don't know, Kate, but how came you to let him think of going?" 
+
+"Ah! he quite deceived me in that matter; I never dreamt of it until it 
+was all settled. It was no use my telling him that if you only knew he 
+liked you, you would be glad to have him, as indeed any girl in her 
+senses would. He said you only liked him in a sisterly sort of way, and 
+would be off. I thought I would find out when he was gone, what sort of a 
+way it was, but I had not the trouble."
+
+I smiled. She gave me a wistful look and said:
+
+"Ah! you don't want to be his niece now, do you?"
+
+"No, indeed," I promptly answered.
+
+"And I don't wish it either," she replied with a stifled sigh, "time was 
+when I fretted and repined; when I wished I had been the wife of Edward 
+Burns, and that his child had been my child; but that is over. I am glad 
+now that my heart was denied that which it craved so eagerly; that my 
+youth was cold and lonely; that my sorrow which past, purchased him and 
+you a happiness which will I trust endure. Oh, Daisy! this is a good 
+world after all, and with a good God over it; don't you see how the grief 
+of one is made to work the bliss of another; how because your father and 
+I were severed, the two children we loved so dearly can be united?"
+
+"I see, Kate," I replied looking up into her face, "that Cornelius is 
+good; that I, too, am what is called a good girl, and yet that we are two 
+selfish creatures; that you alone are truly good and noble."
+
+She shook her head with humble denial.
+
+"I am an idolator for all that," she replied, her lips trembling 
+slightly, "and you are blind if you do not see it. When I lost my lover, 
+I set my heart on a child--for what are we to do with our hearts, if we 
+don't love with them?--and he has kept it, and if God, to chastise me, 
+were to take him from me to-morrow, I feel I should love him as much in 
+his grave as I do on earth. If it be a sin, I trust to His mercy to 
+forgive it. Sometimes, when my heart fails me, I cling to the 
+recollection of His humanity. He who felt so much tenderness for his dear 
+mother; who loved His brethren so truly; who cherished the beloved 
+disciple; who wept by the grave of Lazarus, will surely not be very 
+severe on a poor woman to whose whole life he thought fit to grant but 
+one delight and one happy love. Do you think he will, Daisy?"
+
+I was too much moved to reply.
+
+"Now, child," she said gaily, "don't cry, or Cornelius, whom I hear 
+coming down after you, will think I have been scolding my future sister-
+in-law."
+
+"And would you not have the right to do so?" I asked, kissing her with 
+mingled tenderness and reverence.
+
+As she returned the embrace, Cornelius entered, and from the threshold of 
+the door, looked at us with a delighted smile.
+
+ 
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ 
+
+How Mrs. Langton explained her conduct towards me, is more than I know; 
+but it cannot have been to the dissatisfaction of Edward Thornton; for 
+within two or three weeks they were married. They went to Italy on a 
+matrimonial tour, and there they have resided ever since, leaving Mrs. 
+Brand in happy and undisturbed possession of Poplar Lodge.
+
+They thought not of us, and we thought not of them, nor of mortal 
+creature, save Kate. The present effaced the past, and absorbed the 
+future. Familiar affection may not have the romance and mystery of the 
+passion which has given one soul and one heart to beings hitherto 
+strangers; but it has a deeper tenderness and far more sacred purity. 
+Love now sat with us at board and hearth; something unknown lingered at 
+twilight-time in the shadow of the room, and morn and eve a charmed 
+presence haunted every garden-path and bower.
+
+Kate allowed us to dream away a few days, then suddenly startled us one 
+evening, by saying quietly:
+
+"Cornelius, when do you mean to write to Mr. Thornton?"
+
+Cornelius started, and turned a little pale; my work dropped from my 
+hands, and I sank back on my chair. Upon which he looked distracted, and 
+seemed ready to quarrel with Kate for having started such an unwelcome 
+subject.
+
+"Nonsense!" she said gaily, "don't you see it is all right."
+
+We looked at her, she smiled kindly.
+
+"You have written to him?" anxiously observed Cornelius.
+
+"I have seen him this very day. You need not open your eyes. What are 
+railroads and express trains for? Why should I not go via Thornton House, 
+and give a look to Rock Cottage; for I trust you do not mean to follow 
+the foolish cockney fashion of associating your honeymoon with hotels and 
+long bills. I shall never forget the impression I received, when Mr. 
+Foster said to his wife with whom he ran away: 'Don't you remember, dear, 
+how they cheated us at that Hotel des Etrangers?' 'Yes, dear,' she 
+replied, 'but you know they were twice as bad at the H?tel d'Angleterre.' 
+Poor things, it was ten years ago, but they had not forgotten it yet."
+
+"Kate," interrupted Cornelius, "what about Mr. Thornton."
+
+"Why nothing save that he seemed inclined to be merry, and said if he had 
+reflected there was a woman in the case, he could have foretold at once 
+what would become of the secret. Don't you see, you foolish fellow, that 
+he only meant this as a bit of humiliation and punishment for you. But 
+that if he did not want you to marry Daisy, he would not have allowed her 
+to be here. For my part I like him, and did not find him so very grim. He 
+showed me his books, instruments, and when I left, hoped he should see me 
+again."
+
+"That is more than he ever did for any one," I said astonished; "Kate, 
+you have made a conquest."
+
+She looked handsome enough for it, and so Cornelius told her. She laughed 
+at us, and bade us mind our own business. More she did not say then, but 
+it came out a few days later that Mr. Thornton had told her the sooner 
+Cornelius and I were married, the better he would be pleased. As this was 
+precisely the feeling of Cornelius and Kate, I yielded.
+
+We were married very quietly one sunny summer morning; then we bade Kate 
+adieu for a fortnight, which we were to spend in Rock Cottage. It was her 
+darling wish that we should go there, and we gratified her.
+
+I remember well how strangely I felt when we reached my old home, now 
+ours. It was not a year since I had left it, but it seemed ages. 
+Everywhere we found touching tokens of the recent presence of Kate, and 
+of her thoughtful tenderness. The sun was setting; we watched it from the 
+beach beneath the pine trees, and never--so at least it seemed to me, and 
+it cannot have been a fancy of mine, for Cornelius said so too--never had 
+the sun set more gloriously, or the sea looked more beautiful than on 
+this the eve of our marriage day.
+
+As in the visions of olden prophets, the cloudless heavens before us 
+seemed to open, revealing depths of blazing light with long golden rays 
+that, as they departed from the sun, grew paler until they faded into the 
+deep evening blue. From the cliff whence we looked down, we saw the heavy 
+billows of the sea rolling away towards the far horizon, and touched with 
+a changing light that seemed both alive and burning.
+
+The glowing heavens were still; the voice of the ocean was murmuring and 
+low; the land breeze was silent, and thus, looking at the two vast 
+solitudes of sea and sky, we forgot earth beneath and behind us, as we 
+sometimes forget life in the contemplation of eternity. I do not think I 
+ever felt existence less than I did then, though so near to him whom I 
+yet loved with every faculty of my being. But there is in true happiness 
+something sublime that raises the soul far beyond mortality.
+
+If I felt anything in that hour, it was that the glorious ideal world 
+which lay before us was not more lovely or more ideal than the new world 
+which I now entered; and where in this life and the next, I hoped to 
+dwell for ever with Cornelius. For to those who love purely, love is its 
+own world, its own solitude, its own new created Eden, green and pleasant 
+where they abide, a new born Adam and Eve, without the temptation and the 
+fall, their hearts filled with tenderness, their souls overflowing with 
+adoration.
+
+I know at least that sitting thus by Cornelius, my hand in his, my eyes 
+like his watching that broad, tranquil sun slowly going down to rest, I 
+had never felt more deeply religious, more conscious of God in my heart. 
+As the bright disk dipped in the long line of the cool looking sea, then 
+sank rapidly, and at length vanished beneath the deep wave; as dark 
+clouds advanced across the sky, and the beautiful vision was lost in the 
+purple shadows of coming night, I felt that the earthly sun might set, 
+but that within me dwelt the peace and loveliness of an eternal dawn.
+
+When the chill sea breeze began to sweep down the coast, Cornelius made 
+me rise. Through the green garden we walked back to the house. He stopped 
+before the stone steps and said:
+
+"It was here I found you lying eight years ago: do you remember, Daisy?"
+
+"Yes, Cornelius, I was very wretched, very lonely when you came and sat 
+down by me, took me in your arms, kissed me and consoled me."
+
+"God bless you for having remembered it so long!"
+
+"As if it were likely I should forget it! Cornelius, I do not think we 
+have ever sat on those stone steps since that day; let us do so now, and 
+talk of all that has happened since then."
+
+We did so. It was the pure twilight hour, when earth and all she bears 
+lie dark and sleeping beneath a vast clear sky, to which light seems to 
+have retreated. For awhile we talked, but of its own accord speech soon 
+sunk into silence. What we said I do not remember now; but I still 
+remember how solemnly beautiful was that eve; how the calm moon rose 
+behind the house and looked down at us from her lonely place above; how, 
+as the sky darkened, it grew thick with stars; how the pine-trees bowed 
+to the sea-breeze at the end of the garden; how the waves broke at the 
+foot of the cliff with a low dash, pleasant to the ears, and how as I sat 
+by Cornelius I felt I was no longer a poor orphan child, but a happy and 
+loved woman; no longer an object of pity and sorrow, but the proud 
+companion of his life, and the chosen wife of his heart.
+
+ 
+
+Home, realm of woman, pleasant shelter of her youth, gentle dominion 
+granted to her life, I can say that thou hast yielded me some of the 
+purest and deepest joys.
+
+Before leaving Leigh, we saw my grandfather, who received us kindly, and 
+bade Cornelius be fond of me. We have now been married three years. He 
+declares he is more in love with me than on the first day, and I believe 
+it. Kate says "nonsense!" but I know well enough she likes us to be so 
+fond of one another. She, too, is very happy; for though she agrees with 
+me that Cornelius has not yet obtained the position he deserves to have, 
+yet, as he is universally acknowledged to be a genuine artist, as his 
+pictures are prized, and sell well, she assures me that, spite of 
+professional jealousy, he will one day be held second to none. I tell her 
+I am sure of it. Cornelius laughs at us, and thinks the very same thing 
+in his heart, for he works harder, and, though he will not confess it, is 
+more eager and ambitious than ever.
+
+We are, as we have always been, a good deal together; for we have no 
+children to divert my attention. This is the only sore point with Kate. 
+It seems such a thing never happened before in the O'Reilly family, and 
+she cannot make it out. But Cornelius and I do not mind; we are young, 
+happy and leave the future to Providence.
+
+It was last year, when Cornelius went to Spain--for he did go after all, 
+but only for a few months, and I did not like to leave Kate, who seemed 
+to me rather unwell--that I began this narrative. I had just received a 
+letter from William Murray, who wrote to tell me that he was married and 
+happy. My past life seemed to rise before me; so, to recal it, and divert 
+my mind from dwelling too much on the absence of Cornelius, I one evening 
+wrote a few pages, to which, day after day, more were added.
+
+Oh my husband! my handsome, gifted husband! I love you much, very much, 
+more than I shall ever tell you, and far more than I have dared to write 
+even here; but if you should some day chance to see that which I never 
+meant to be seen, know, at least, that to your wife, there never was a 
+pleasanter task than thus to record the story of her long love for you, 
+as child, girl, and woman.
+
+ 
+
+THE END.
+
+ 
+
+PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
+
+
+ 
+
+Typographical errors silently corrected:
+
+
+Volume 1
+
+
+Chapter 5 : =you no lessons.= replaced by =you no lessons?=
+
+Chapter 11 : =in a lone tone= replaced by =in a low one=
+
+Chapter 11 : =was it not Mr. O'Reilly= replaced by =was it not, Mr. 
+O'Reilly=
+
+Chapter 13 : =Well, what is it?= replaced by ="Well, what is it?=
+
+Chapter 14 : =examined now.= replaced by =examined now?=
+
+Chapter 15 : =it I saw= replaced by =if I saw=
+
+Chapter 19 : =rocks at Leigh,= replaced by =rocks at Leigh,"=
+
+
+Volume 2
+
+ 
+Chapter 1 : =hastily checked,= replaced by =hastily checked.= 
+
+Chapter 2 : =knew me not."= replaced by =knew me not.=
+
+Chapter 6 : =I forget it= replaced by =I forgot it=
+
+Chapter 6 : =thing. I am satisfied= replaced by =thing, I am satisfied=
+
+Chapter 6 : =creature you are?= replaced by =creature you are!=
+
+Chapter 6 : =with that you know= replaced by =with that, you know=
+
+Chapter 6 : =answering that question.= replaced by =answering that 
+question?=
+
+Chapter 9 : =bouquet, I meant= replaced by =bouquet I meant=
+
+Chapter 9 : =recal= replaced by =recall=
+
+Chapter 10 : =There reigns= replaced by ='There reigns=
+
+Chapter 10 : =do you advise.= replaced by =do you advise?=
+
+Chapter 10 : =Yung-Frau= replaced by =Jung-Frau=
+
+Chapter 12 : =trumbler= replaced by =tumbler=
+
+Chapter 12 : =You don't Cornelius= replaced by =You don't, Cornelius=
+
+Chapter 12 : =next day, day Cornelius= replaced by =next day, and 
+Cornelius=
+
+Chapter 13 : =not an artists= replaced by =not an artist=
+
+Chapter 16 : =about Nothing?'"= replaced by =about Nothing'?"=
+
+Chapter 16 : =poor you see= replaced by =poor, you see=
+
+Chapter 17 : =Girl Reading!'= replaced by =Girl Reading'!=
+
+Chapter 18 : ="Ashamed= replaced by =Ashamed=
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY BURNS (VOLUME 2)***
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