CHAPTER XII.
"Where do you come from?" he asked.
"From the next room."
"Have you been there long?"
"The whole evening."
"I thought you were upstairs sleeping?"
"No, Cornelius, I was lying on the couch."
"And you have just awakened, I suppose?" he carelessly observed, but with his look bent keenly on my face. I answered in a faltering tone—
"I have been awake some time."
"Before Miss Russell left?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
The blood rushed up to his brow.
"You listened?" he exclaimed, with a wrathful glance.
"I heard, Cornelius," I replied, unwilling to lose the distinction, "and heard as little as I could."
"Heard!" he indignantly echoed. "Upon my word! and why did you hear? Why did you not leave the room?"
"Twice I rose to do so; I made a noise on purpose; but you did not hear me, and I did not dare to disturb you."
Cornelius did not say which of the two evils—being disturbed or overheard by me—he would have preferred. I sat at his feet, wistfully looking up into his face. It was always expressive, and now told very plainly his annoyance and vexation. It would scarcely have been in the nature of mortal man, not to resent the presence of a witness on so interesting and delicate an occasion.
"I never heard anything like it," he exclaimed, indignantly. "I am fond of you, Daisy, but you do not imagine I ever contemplated taking you—a little girl too—into my confidence, as twice I have been compelled to do. What do you mean by it?" he added, with a perplexed and provoked air, that to a looker-on might have been amusing.
"I mean nothing, Cornelius."
"Foolish child," he continued, impatiently, "not to stay on your couch, and let me fancy you had slept through it!"
"But that would have been a great shame," I replied very earnestly; "I came out on purpose that you might know."
"Thank you!" he said drily.
"I shall not tell," I observed, in a low tone.
"It is to be no secret," he shortly answered.
I had no more to say. Cornelius rose impatiently, walked about the room, came back to his place, and still looked unable to get over the irritating consciousness of having been overheard.
I rose to go; he suddenly detained me.
"Stay," he said, with a profound sigh, "it is most provoking—the more especially as there is no dipping you into Lethe—but 'Hon[n]i soit qui mal y pense.' I did not say one word of which I need be ashamed, and as to its being a little ridiculous—why, it is very odd if a man cannot afford to be ridiculous now and then—eh, Daisy?"
He gave me an odd look, half shy, half amused. He could not help enjoying a joke, even though it might be at his own expense.
"Then you are not vexed with me, Cornelius?" I asked, looking up.
"Not a bit," he replied, smiling with perfect good-humour; "I acquit you of wilful indiscretion, my poor child; I should have shut the door—but one cannot think of everything."
He had laid his hand on my shoulder. I turned round and pressed my lips to it, for the first time, scarce knowing why I gave him the token of love and homage he had yielded to Miriam. It is thus in life; we are perpetually bestowing on those who give back again, but rarely to us. Every trace of vexation passed away from the face of Cornelius; he made room for me by his side, and as I sat there in my familiar attitude, he shook back his hair, and observed, with philosophic coolness—
"After all, she would have known it to-morrow; only," he added, a little uneasily, "I think there is no necessity to let Miriam suspect anything of all this: you understand, Daisy?"
"Yes, Cornelius," I replied submissively.
He smiled.
"What a docile tone! Do you know, my pet, it is almost a pity there is not some romantic mystery in this matter; how discreet you would be! how you would carry letters or convey messages! but your good offices will never be needed."
He spoke gaily; I tried to smile, but he little knew how my heart was aching.
"I suppose, Cornelius, you will marry Miss Russell," I observed after awhile.
He smiled again.
"Soon, Cornelius?" He sighed and shook his head.
"Will you still live in this house?"
"Provided Miriam does not think it too small," he replied with a perplexed air, "but by uniting it to the next-door house, it would be quite large enough. Then I could have the upper part of both houses with a sky-light,—much better than a place in town; besides, I shall want her to sit to me—eh, Daisy?"
He turned to me; my face was partly averted from his gaze, or he must have read there the sharp and jealous torment every word he uttered awakened within me. Who was this stranger, that had stepped in between Cornelius and me, whose thought absorbed all his thoughts, whose image effaced every other image, who already made her supposed wishes his law, already snatched from me my most delightful and exclusive privileges? He seemed waiting for a reply; I compelled myself to answer—
"Yes, Cornelius."
"For our gallery, you know," he continued.
I did not reply; I felt sick and faint. He stooped and looked into my face with utter unconsciousness in his.
"How pale you look, my little girl!" he said, with concern; "and you are feverish too. Go up to your room."
He bade me good-night, and kissed me two or three times with unusual warmth and tenderness. Jealousy is all quickness of spirit and of sense. I reluctantly endured caresses which I knew not to be mine; if I dared, I would have repelled those overflowings of a heart in whose joy and delight I had not the faintest part. Sweeter, dearer to me was the quiet, careless kiss I was accustomed to get, than all this tenderness springing from love to another. I was glad when Cornelius released me from his embrace; glad to leave him; glad to go upstairs and be wretched in liberty.
Never since Sarah had told me that my father was going to marry Miss Murray, had I felt as I now felt. The grief I had passed through after his death was more mighty, but it did not, like this, attack the existence of love and sting it in its very heart. Cornelius married to Miriam Russell, parted from us in the sweet communion of daily life, living with her in another home, painting his pictures for her and with her sitting to him or looking on,—alas! where should I be then?—was a thought so bitter, so tormenting, that it worked me into a fever, which fed eagerly on the jealousy that had given it birth.
Gone was the time when I stood next to Kate in his heart, and my loss was the gain of her whom I had heard him making the aim of his future, the hope and joy of his life. His love for her might not exclude calmer affections, but it cast them beneath at an immeasurable distance. I could not bear this. I was jealous by temper and by long habit. My father had accustomed me to the dangerous sweetness of being loved ardently and without a rival; and though I had not expected so much from Cornelius, yet slowly, patiently, by loving him to an excess, I had made him love me too; and now it was all labour lost: she had reached at once the heart towards which I had toiled so long, and won without effort the exclusive affection it was hard not to win, but utter misery to see bestowed on another.
The manner of Kate on the following morning showed me she knew nothing; breakfast was scarcely over when she rather solemnly said to her brother—
"Cornelius, what did you do to that child whilst I was out yesterday?"
He stood by the fire-place, looking down at the glowing embers and smiling at his own thoughts; he woke from his reverie, shook his head, opened his eyes, and looked up astonished.
"I have done nothing to her, Kate," he replied, simply.
"She has been crying herself to sleep, though!"
I had, and I heard her with dismay; he gave me a keen look.
"Her nerves are weak," he suggested.
"Nonsense! did you ever know a fair-haired, dark-eyebrowed man or woman to have weak nerves?"
"I know dark eyebrows are a rare charm for a blonde."
"Nonsense! charm!—I tell you it is an indication of character—of energy and wilfulness. It is all very well for the fair, meek hair to say, 'Oh! I'm so quiet;' I say the dark, passionate brow tells me another story, and as Daisy never cries without a reason, I should like to know what she has been crying about."
"Her health affects her spirits, that is all," hastily replied Cornelius; "come up with me, Daisy, it will cheer you."
I obeyed reluctantly. It was some time however before Cornelius took any notice of me. He stood looking at a study for a larger picture begun during my illness. It represented poor children playing on a common, and was to be called "The Happy Time."
"And don't they look happy?" observed Cornelius, turning to me with a smile.
He was perhaps struck with the fact that the child he addressed did not look a very happy one, for, with the abruptness of a thing suddenly remembered, he said—
"By the bye, what did you cry for, Daisy?"
I hung down my head and did not reply.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
"Then answer, child."
I did not; he looked astonished.
"Answer," he said again.
I felt myself turning red and pale, but to tell him I was jealous of Miriam Russell! no, I could not; the confession was too bitter, too humiliating.
"Daisy," he said, "I shall get angry."
I stood by him obstinately mute. I looked up at him with a dreary, sorrowful gaze; he frowned and bit his lip. I summoned all my courage to bear his coming wrath; to my dismay he chucked my chin, and said with careless good humour—
"As if I should not be fond of you all the same, you jealous little thing!"
And with the smile which he no longer repressed he turned away whistling "Love's young dream." Vexed and mortified to the quick, I burst into tears; Cornelius turned round and showed me an astonished face.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed, laughing incredulously, "you never can be crying, Daisy!"
The laugh, the gay, careless tone exasperated me. I turned to the door to fly somewhere out of his sight; he caught me back and lifted me up. In vain I resisted; with scarcely an effort he mastered me and laughed again at my unavailing efforts to escape. Breathless with my recent resistance, irritated by my subjection, I lay in his arms mute and sullen. He bent his amused face over mine.
"You are an odd little girl," he said, with the most provoking good- humour, looking with his merry brown eyes into mine, that were still heavy with tears, and speaking gaily, as if my jealousy, anger, and weeping were but a jest; "I suppose you object to my marrying—well, that's a pity—but it is all your fault! You know I wanted to wait for you, only you would not hear of it, so I naturally got desperate and looked out elsewhere."
With this, and as if to humble and mortify me to the last, he stooped to embrace me. In vain, burning and indignant, I averted my face; he only laughed and kissed me two or three times more. To be thus gently ridiculed, laughed at, and kissed, was more than I could bear. I submitted, but with a bursting heart, that betrayed itself by ill- repressed sobs and tears. Cornelius saw this was more than childish pettishness: "Daisy!" he exclaimed, with concern, and he put me down at once.
There was a little couch close by; I threw myself upon it, and hid in the pillow my shame and my grief. He said and did all he could to pacify me; but when I looked up a little soothed, it stung me to read in his eyes the smile his lips repressed. The folly of a child of my age in presuming to be jealous of his beautiful Miriam, was evidently irresistibly amusing. My tears and my sobs ceased at once. I locked in the poignant feelings which could win no sympathy even from him who caused them. I listened with downcast eyes to his consolations, and apathetically submitted to his caresses. But Cornelius, satisfied that it was all right, chid me gently for having made him lose "ten precious minutes," gave me a last kiss, and returned to his easel. At once I rose and said—
"May I go downstairs?"
"Of course," he replied; but he looked surprised at the unusual request.
I remained below all day. When after tea I brought out my books as usual,
Cornelius very coolly said—
"My dear, Kate will hear you this evening."
He took his hat and left us. As the door closed upon him, Miss O'Reilly shook her head and poked the fire pensively. I saw she knew all. Once or twice she sighed rather deeply, but subduing this she observed with forced cheerfulness—
"Well. Daisy, let us go through those lessons."
We did go through them, but with strange inattentiveness on either side.
"Nonsense, child!" impatiently exclaimed Kate; "why do you keep stopping and listening so, it is only Cornelius singing next door; what about it?"
What about it? nothing, of course; and yet you too, Kate, stopped often in your questioning to catch the tones of your brother's gay and harmonious voice; you, too, guessed that the time when he could feel happy to stay at home and sing to you was for ever gone by; you, too, when the lessons were over, sadly looked at his vacant place, and felt how far now was he whose song and whose laughter resounded from the next house. Oh, Love! invader of the heart, pitiless destroyer of its sweetest ties, for two hearts whom thou makest blest in delightful union, how many dost thou wound and divide asunder!
We had thought to spend the evening alone, but a strange chance, not without sad significance, brought us an unexpected visitor; the Reverend Morton Smalley called, for once unaccompanied by Mr. Trim. He was more gentle and charming than ever. He expressed himself very sorry not to see Cornelius, whom he evidently thought absent on some laborious errand, for looking at Kate in his benignant way over his spotless neckcloth and through his bright gold spectacles, he earnestly begged "she would not allow her brother to work so very hard."
She shook her head and smiled a little sadly.
"I fear Art absorbs him completely," gravely said Mr. Smalley.
"Oh dear no!" sighed Kate.
"We were never intended to lead a purely intellectual life," continued our guest, bending slightly forward, and raising his fore-finger with mild conviction, "and I fear your brother, Ma'am, is too much given to what I may venture to term the abstract portion of life: life has very lovely and tender realities."
Kate poked the fire impatiently.
"And then he works too hard," pensively continued Mr. Smalley, returning to his old idea that Cornelius was engaged on some arduous task: "why not give himself one evening's relaxation?"
I sat apart on a low stool, unheeded and silent; I know not what impulse made me look up in the face of our guest and say earnestly—
"Cornelius is gone to see Miss Miriam."
Mr. Smalley started like a man who has received an electric shock. He looked at me, at Kate; her face gave sorrowful confirmation of all he could suspect and dread. He said not a word, but turned very pale.
"Mr. Smalley," said Kate, "have a glass of wine."
He did not answer, he had not heard her; like one in a troubled dream, he passed his handkerchief across his moist brow and trembling lips. He made an effort to look more composed, as Kate handed him the glass of wine which she had poured out. He took it from her, smiled a faint ghastly smile, and said—
"I wish our friend every happiness."
But he could not drink his own pledge. He raised the glass to his lips, laid it down as if it were poison, rose, pressed the hand of Miss O'Reilly, and left us abruptly.
"Daisy," severely said Kate, "go up to your room." I obeyed, to spend another wretched night, not sleepless, but feverish dreams and sudden wakenings.
I did not go near Cornelius on the following day. Of this he took no notice, and again went out in the evening. I saw him depart with a sharp jealous pang. Ere long we heard him laughing next door.
"Just listen to him!" said Kate, smiling, "is he not enjoying himself! God bless him! that boy always had a gay laugh. Ah! many's the time, when, though I scarcely knew how to provide for the morrow, that laugh has made my heart light and hopeful—God bless him!"
On the next evening Miriam called. She entered the room quietly, sat down on the sofa, took a book from the table, looked listlessly over it, and spoke calmly as if nothing had occurred. Both she and Kate were more civil than cordial. Cornelius sat by Miss Russell. There was still a place vacant by him; it had always been mine; I took it and gently laid my head on his shoulder. As I did so, I met the glance of Miriam. She had not seen me until then: she started, turned pale, and, as if she resented that I, the weak sickly child, should still live, whilst her fair young sister lay cold in the grave, she said—
"How unwell that child looks!—but perhaps it is only because she is so sallow."
Childhood is fatally quick in catching the spirit of contest. I reddened, looked at her, and suddenly pressed my lips to the cheek of Cornelius, conscious this was more than she dare do.
"Be quiet, child!" he said a little impatiently.
I gave him a look of keen reproach; he did not heed it; his eyes were again bent on Miriam; he was again absorbed in her. The child whom he had petted and caressed evening after evening, for two years, was now forgotten as if she had never existed.
"Daisy," said Kate, "come and help me to wind this skein."
She saw my misery, and did this to give me a pretence to leave them; but I would not yield. As soon as the skein was wound, I returned to my place by Cornelius; for two hours I persisted in staying there, vainly striving to win a caress, a word, a look. Alas! he did not even know I was by him. He was talking to Miriam of a new piece of music, and said—
"I shall tell Daisy to look it out for you to-morrow."
"Daisy is here," replied Miss Russell, "by you."
He turned round astonished, and exclaimed—
"Why, so she is!"
To be so near him and yet so far apart, was too great a torment. My heart swelled as if it would burst. Stung at his cruel indifference, I rose, and without looking back I went up to Kate, sat down on the lowly cushion at her feet, and thus silently relinquished the place which had been mine so long.
Miriam Russell was now acknowledged as the betrothed of Cornelius. She was twenty-six, and independent both in her means and in her actions. Her aunt declared "that she had made a very bad match, and that she was throwing herself away on a handsome, penniless Irishman, whose artful sister was at the bottom of it all."
This speech was repeated to Miss O'Reilly, and brought on a great coolness between her and her tenant. Kate resented especially the reflection on her brother. Without letting him know what suggested the remark, she observed to him in my presence—and it was the only comment on his engagement I ever heard her make—
"Cornelius, Miss Russell has some property, but I trust you will not think of marriage before you have won a position."
"No, indeed," he replied, reddening, and throwing back his head half indignantly.
I now never went near Cornelius unless when sent by Kate. At first I had hoped he would miss me, but sufficient companionship to him was the charmed presence which haunts the lover's solitude; he asked not why I staid away, and pride forbade me to return.
Passion had seized on him, and she absorbed all his faculties save one: he remained faithful to Art. He was a most enamoured lover, but not even for his mistress did he leave his easel, or lose an hour of daylight. She did not put him to a test, of which it was plain that, of his own accord, he would never dream. Every moment he could spare he gave to her; evening after evening he handed over my lessons to Kate, and left us to go next- door: he was still kind, but somehow or other the charm had departed from his kindness.
Several weeks had thus elapsed, when Miriam was suddenly summoned to the sick bed of an aged relative, who dwelt in a retired village twenty miles away. Cornelius seemed to feel this first separation very much. He sighed deeply when the hour struck that usually led him to his beloved, opened his cigar-case, and smoked what, if he had used a pipe, might have been termed the calumet of sorrow. But he was not one of those inveterate smokers who, from the clouds they raise around them, can look down on the tribulations of this world with Olympic serenity. When his cigar was out, he brought forth no other, and half sat on the sofa with a most ennuy? aspect. Kate had gone up to her room, complaining of a bad headache. I sat reading by her vacant chair, in that place which had become the type of my altered destiny.
"Daisy!" all at once said Cornelius.
I looked up.
"Come here," he continued.
I rose and obeyed, and, standing before him, waited to hear what he had to say to me. He said nothing, but stretched out his arm and drew me on his knee, smiling as he met my startled look, and felt my heart beating against the arm that encircled me.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Oh no, Cornelius," I replied, but I felt astonished and happy at this unexpected return of kindness; so happy that, ashamed of it, I hid my face on his shoulder. He laughed because I would not look up, kissed my averted cheek, and finally compelled my burning face and overflowing eyes to meet his gaze.
"How perverse you have been!" he said, chidingly; "I don't know what tempted me to take any notice of you again; I am too fond of you, you jealous, sulky little creature."
His old affection seemed to have returned in all its warmth; his look had the old meaning, his voice the old familiar accent, his manner more than the old tenderness. When I saw myself again so near him, again petted, caressed, loved, how could I but forget Miriam, the past and the future, to yield to the irresistible charm of the moment? Oh! why was he so imprudently kind? Why, when I was growing almost accustomed to his indifference, almost resigned, did he unconsciously destroy the slow labour of weeks, and sow for us both the seed of future torment? But I thought not of that then, nor did he. If I was glad to be once more near him, I saw in his face—and it was that undid me—that he was glad to have back again the child of whom he had for more than two years been so fond. He caressed me as after a long separation, and smoothing my hair, asked the question he had often put to me during my lingering illness—
"What shall we talk about?"
"The Gallery," was my prompt reply.
"Will you never tire of it, my darling?"
"Never, Cornelius."
"Well, I have been making an addition to it lately: a Gipsy couple in a green lane—the husband lying idly on the grass—his dark-eyed wife cooking."
"And the child?"
"There is none; for I speak of a real Gipsy couple who are to come to sit to me to-morrow, but who have no child."
"Could not I do, Cornelius?"
"Do you, with your fair hair, look like a little Gipsy?"
"I might be a stolen child, Cornelius."
"So you might!" cried Cornelius, his whole face lighting up at the idea; "why, it is an excellent, an admirable subject! What a tender and pathetic contrast!—they the type of rude animal enjoyment and power, you, like divine Una among the Satyrs, a meek and intellectual captive. A sketch! I shall make a picture of it—a fine picture—a great picture, please God."
He rose, and walked about the room quite excited; his eyes had kindled and burned with inward light; his face glowed with triumph. Once he paused, and with his fore-finger rapidly traced on the air lines which had already struck his fancy for the arrangement of the group; then he came back to me and gravely said—
"I see it, Daisy; it is painted, finished, and hung in the great room; in the meanwhile let us discuss the particulars."
We discussed them, or rather Cornelius spoke, and I approved unconditionally every word he uttered, until, to our common astonishment, the clock struck eleven. As he bade me good-night, Cornelius laid his hand on my head, and said, admiringly—
"You clever little thing to have thought of it! no wonder I am fond of you; but do you know you will have to dress in rags, like a poor little drudge?"
"As if I minded it, Cornelius!" I quickly replied.
He smiled and kissed me very kindly. I went up to my room, to be as restless and wakeful with joy as I had not so long ago been with bitter grief.
Early the next morning I stole up to the studio. Cornelius was already at work; he never looked round as I entered, but observed, with a smile—
"So you have at length found your way up here?"
I did not answer.
"What kept you away so long?" he continued.
"I thought you did not want me."
"Did I ever want you?"
"No, that is true."
"Then why do you come now?"
"Shall I go away, Cornelius?"
He turned round smiling.
"Look at them," he said, nodding towards an open portfolio, "you have not seen them yet."
He alluded to several sketches of a child in various attitudes, intended for the "Happy Time."
"I have seen them, Cornelius," I replied.
"And when, if you please?"
"I came up the other day when you were out. Pray do not be vexed, but I could not bear any longer not to see what you were doing."
Vexed! oh, he did not look vexed at all with this proof of my constant admiration. Flattery is so sweet, so subtle, so intoxicating. All he said was—
"Well, which do you prefer?"
I luckily hit on the very sketch he himself approved.
"That child has a great deal of judgment," he observed, with thoughtful satisfaction: "I could trust to her opinion as to my own: it is the best, of course it is. There, put them all away; you have always kept my things in order for me until lately; see the mess in which they now are."
So they were, in a most artistic confusion, which I remedied with great alacrity. When we went down to breakfast, Kate, who had seen with pleasure that I had not of late been so much with her brother, asked, with some asperity, "if I was again going to settle myself upstairs."
"Precisely," replied Cornelius, and with great ardour and enthusiasm he told her of his intended picture. "Such an admirable subject,—not at all so commonplace as the 'Happy Time.'"
Miss O'Reilly was horrified at the prospect of Gipsy sitters, and prophesied the utter ruin of her household. Cornelius laughed at her fears, and promised to keep such strict watch that no disaster could possibly occur. The Gipsy couple came the same day—a wild, restless- looking pair, who tried to the utmost the patience of Cornelius, and gave me many an odd, shy look as they saw me take my attitude, in the costume, more picturesque than attractive, of an old brown skirt, torn and made ragged for the purpose; a shabby bodice; my hair loose and tangled, and my neck, arms, and feet bare. They were very wilful, too, and had on the subject of attitudes ideas which differed materially from those of Cornelius. At length the group was formed, and in this first sitting he could take a rapid sketch of it, "just to fix the idea of it in his mind," he observed to Kate at tea-time; "they were a little restless for the first time, but I have no doubt we shall get on very well, though you looked rather afraid of that swarthy fellow, Daisy."
"I did not like his eyes—nor those of his wife either, Cornelius."
"Why, there is a tea-spoon missing," hastily observed Kate, who had been holding a conference at the door with Deborah; "you had not one in the studio, had you, Cornelius?"
He rose precipitately, left the room, and in a few minutes, came down with a melancholy face.
"There was one and there is not one," he said, sadly,—"the perfidious wretches!"
"I shall send the police after them," warmly cried Kate.
"Will the police make them sit to me again?" impatiently asked Cornelius.
"Indeed I hope not," indignantly replied his sister.
"To leave me in such a predicament for the sake of a miserable tea- spoon!" he observed, feelingly.
"A miserable tea-spoon! one of the dozen that has been fifty years in the family, with our crest, a hawk's head, upon it too! I am astonished at you, Cornelius; a miserable tea-spoon! you speak as if you had been born with a silver spoon in your mouth!"
Cornelius sighed profoundly by way of reply; but even so tender a disappointment could not weigh long on his cheerful temper.
"After all," he philosophically observed, "they left me my idea."
"I wish the tea-spoon had been an idea," shortly said Kate.
"Well, I wish it had," placidly replied her brother; "but I have at least the consolation of having hit on the very characters I wanted—arrant thieves."
"Indeed you did, Cornelius."
"I remember their features quite well, and shall without scruple consider and paint them too as the real abductors of Daisy; for it stands to reason that she would not be here now if they had only found some decent opportunity of abstracting her."
"Or if she had only been a tea-spoon!" sighed Kate.
"This incident will be of the greatest use to me," gravely continued Cornelius; "it will enable me to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the picture story."
This was rather too much for Kate. But Cornelius bore her reproaches with great serenity, and found another motive of consolation in the fact that I, the principal figure, being always under his hand, it really was not so bad after all.
Happy were the three weeks that followed. Cornelius had acquired great facility and worked hard; I sat to him nearly all the day long; we rested together, and he then put by his own fatigue to cheer and amuse me. It was to me as if Miriam had never existed. Cornelius by no means forgot her, but even a man in love may think of other things besides his mistress, and a new picture on the easel was the most dangerous rival Miriam could dread in the heart of her betrothed. They wrote to one another daily; every morning Cornelius consecrated a quarter of an hour to love, then devoted himself heart and soul to his task; and I—as sharing in that task—occupied, I believe, a greater share of his thoughts and feelings than even his beautiful mistress.
One morning indeed, when the postman did not bring him his usual letter, he looked quite mournful, and began his labour with the declaration "that it was no use—he could not work," but after a quarter of an hour his brow had cleared and he was wholly absorbed in his task. He worked until we were both tired, he with painting, I with sitting; he then threw himself on the low couch, and wanted me to sit by him and talk as usual, but I said he looked drowsy.
"So I am, you little witch."
"Then pray sleep awhile."
"No, I should sleep too long."
"Shall I awaken you?"
"You could not."
"Indeed I could, Cornelius."
"Promise not to mind my entreaties."
"I shall not mind them, Cornelius."
"Then take my watch, your poor father's present, Daisy, and wake me in a quarter of an hour."
He closed his eyes, and, having the happy faculty of sleeping when he liked, he was soon in deep slumber. I sat by him, the watch in one hand, the other resting on the cushion which pillowed his head; I neither moved nor spoke until the quarter of an hour was over, then, without a second's grace, I called him up.
"Five minutes more," he drowsily entreated.
"Not five seconds. I wish you would wake up, Cornelius, or I shall have to pinch you or pull your hair."
"Pull and pinch, so you only let me sleep."
Of course I did not pinch; but I pulled one of his raven locks with sufficient force.
"Little barbarian!" he exclaimed, "what do you mean by such usage?"
"I mean to waken you, Cornelius."
"And why so?" he asked, to obtain that second's delay which is so delightful to the sleeper.
"Oh, Cornelius! how can you ask? Must you not work to become a great artist, paint fine pictures, and become famous?"
"Very true!" he exclaimed, starting up; "thank you, Daisy, you are a faithful friend." And in rising, he passed his arm around my neck and kissed me. But even as he did so, I saw his glance light suddenly; I turned round, Miriam was standing on the threshold of the open door looking at us. I sighed: my three weeks' happiness was over.