More I could not get out of her, either then or subsequently. For some time the consciousness that Cornelius had missed me, sufficed me; but the heart is craving; mine asked for more, and not obtaining what it asked for, grew faint and weary. It sickened for the sight of his face, for the sound of his voice, for his greeting in the morning, for his kiss at night, for all it had lost and missed daily. It missed home too, the home I had loved so much, with its cheerful rooms, its ivied porch, its green garden and old trees, its sense, so sweet and pleasant, of happy liberty; its studio, where I loved to linger. Another now enjoyed the shelter and pleasantness of that home; the garden flowers yielded her their sweetest fragrance, the trees their shade; she might sit with him in the studio, alone and undisturbed, all the day long. I was ever haunted by these thoughts; the cure of absence was but a slow one for me.
Three months passed away; the wedding was put off from week to week and day to day, to the great vexation of Kate.
"It is not that I am in a hurry for it," she said to me, when I questioned her on the subject, "but I do not like to see my poor brother made a fool of. I am sure Miriam plays with him, as a cat with a mouse. He can think of nothing else. He was not half so bad in the beginning; but she has irritated him into a perfect fever. Ah well! I wish it may not cool too much after marriage, that is all."
"I wish they were married," I said, sadly, "for then I might at least be with you, and see him now and then."
Kate took both my hands in her own, and looked at me very earnestly.
"Midge," she said, "you are now thirteen; you are old enough to hear sense, and to make up your mind as I have made up mine; think that when Cornelius is married, he is, in one sense, lost to you as well as to me; do not imagine that he will or can be the same again; do not come home with an idea that old times can return; one who has proved it can tell you, that there is no beginning over again old affections."
I looked at her wistfully, loath to believe in so hard a sentence.
"It is so," she resumed, sighing: "think of Cornelius as of a very dear friend; love, respect him as much as you will, but expect nothing from him; wean your heart; you must, for his sake, as much as for your own."
"Kate," I replied, "I shall try and not be jealous of his wife."
"My poor child, you do not understand me; indeed it is very difficult; but wives do not like their husbands to care for those who cannot be included in the circle of home; they want to have them for themselves and their children."