"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."