"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, "she is."
"I thought you admired Miriam most," he said a little shortly.
"I did not know then she had green eyes."
This was true: the hue of Miriam's eyes, of a blue verging on green, was the fault of her face; I had been quick to detect it; Cornelius reddened and never broached the subject again.
Miriam came no more near us, and kept such good watch on her young sister, that we never had the opportunity of again comparing them together. Strange and sad to say, as autumn opened, the young girl sickened and in a few weeks died in the arms of her sister, childish and unconscious to the last. Miss O'Reilly and I watched the funeral leaving the house; as I saw it pass by, I felt as if Death, baulked of one prey and unwilling to leave our dwelling unsated, had seized on her, and I startled Kate by observing—
"Kate, don't you think poor Miss Ducky died instead of me?"
"Bless the child!" exclaimed Kate, turning pale; "never say that again."
But the fancy had taken hold of me, and, unless I am much deceived, of another too. Weeks elapsed before we saw anything of the bereaved sister. We heard that, wrapt in her grief, she remained for days locked in her room, and there brooded over her loss, rejecting consolation with scorn, and indulging in passionate mourning. Kate blamed this excessive sorrow; her brother never uttered one word of praise or blame.
Though my health was much improved, I was still delicate and subject to attacks of languor. One evening, Kate, seeing me scarcely able to sit up, wanted me to go to bed; but Cornelius had been out all day, I wished to await his return, so I went to the back-parlour, reclined on a couch, and there fell asleep.
I was partly awakened by the sound of voices talking earnestly in the next room, of which the door stood half open. I listened, still half asleep: one of the voices was that of Cornelius, passionately entreating; the other that of Miriam, coldly denying and accusing him of infidelity to the dead, whilst with ardent warmth he protested that she alone had been mistress of his thoughts. I sat up on the couch amazed and confounded. My room was dark, they could not see me, but I could see them. Miriam sat by the table, clad in deep mourning; Cornelius by her, with his face averted from me; he held her hand in his, still entreating; she said nothing, but she no longer denied. He raised her hand to his lips unreproved; whilst a bright rosy hue, that seemed too ardent for a blush, passed over her face, late so pale with grief.