"In this case especially."
"It was not jealousy," he replied, looking annoyed.
"The name then! I said so: a Smith, a Jones, a Jenkins would have got in, but an O'Reilly—"
"Kate," interrupted her brother, reddening, "it was not the name."
"What then?" she asked, with a wistful look.
His lip trembled, but he made an effort, and replied firmly—
"The picture."
"The picture!" echoed Kate, looking disheartened.
"Yes, the picture," resumed Cornelius, inexorable to himself, to his youthful ambition, to his long-cherished dreams; "it is not its being rejected that troubles me, but its having deserved the rejection. Kate, I have committed a bitter mistake, and I found it out, not to-day, but weeks ago. So long as Art was unattempted, faith was in me as a living stream; it has ebbed away, and left the bed where it once flowed, barren and dry."
He sat by the table, his brow resting on his hand, the light of the lamp falling on his pale face, where will vainly sought to control the keen disappointment of a life-long aim. There was a pause, then his sister said—