"I don't mind it, Cornelius."
"You can come down now."
I obeyed with great alacrity.
"May I speak now?" I asked with a questioning look.
"You may ease yourself a little," was his charitable reply.
"Cornelius, is not that Juno?"
"The wife of Jupiter and the mamma of Vulcan—precisely."
I was standing by him. There were other drawings on the table; I raised the corner of one and glanced at Cornelius; he smiled assent. I drew it forth; it represented an Italian boy sitting on sunlit stone steps.
"That is the boy to whom Kate gave the piece of bread the other morning,"
I exclaimed eagerly, "is it not, Cornelius?"
I looked up into his face; he seemed charmed: first praise is like early dew, very fresh and very sweet. He drew forth another drawing, and asked whose face it was. Breathless with astonishment, I recognized myself; then Kate, Deborah, Miss Hart, and even Mr. Trim, passed before me in graphic sketches. I felt excited; I now knew the power of Cornelius: he had actually, if not created, yet drawn from obscurity, those forms and faces by the mere force of his will.