We sat down on a ledge of rock facing the sea, and I told him all there was to tell. He heard me with a pleased smile on his kind, handsome face, which he kept turned towards mine, as he sat there in a listening attitude. William was then between eighteen and nineteen. He was slight in figure, but above the middle height, and of a spirited bearing. His complexion, once too fair, had become embrowned by constant exposure, and spite of his light hair and blue eyes he looked sufficiently manly; his midshipman's attire became him well, and the consciousness of having entered active life had freed his manner from much of its ungracious roughness. Of these changes I was conscious, but other change I saw not: William was to me what he had been since we had become friends—frank, ingenuous, and boyish in his kindness. I had often spoken to him of Cornelius, and I now closed my brief recital with the remark—
"Oh, William! I am so happy that I scarcely know what to do with myself."
He looked at me silently, began tracing figures in the sand with a slender wand which he held, then suddenly looked up again, and said, very earnestly—
"He is quite like a father to you, Daisy."
"More than a father," I replied, ardently, "for a father is bound to do for his child what, of his own free-will, Cornelius did for me. And then so kind! always giving me new playthings, or books, or things I liked."
"And you were quite like a daughter to him."
"I was, and am. Look, here is his last letter, beginning with 'my dear child,' and signed, 'your old friend, Cornelius;' but I have another at home, in which he actually calls me 'his dear, adopted daughter.' I am quite proud of it, for he is to be very celebrated, you know, and it is a great honour."
William again traced figures in the sand, but he did not speak.
"Well," I said, bending down to look at him, "what are you thinking of?"
"That I should like you to be proud of being my friend," he replied, with an earnest look.