"Why did you let her admire Mary Stuart?"
"How could I undeceive her? I had brought the unfortunate thing as a proof of my industry, not to encumber the walls of the Academy, or for her to admire; but when she looked at it with tears of admiration, what was I to do?"
"To show her the sketches."
"She won't care about them, Daisy."
"Try her."
I opened the door, and called her in eagerly. But the event proved the correctness of her brother's conjecture. Miss O'Reilly thought the sketches very pretty things, but she hoped Cornelius had not lost too much time with them. It would be such a pity, considering how admirably fitted he was for historical compositions. He winced, but did not contradict. She proceeded—
"I have been thinking of such a series of subjects: what do you say to the battle of Clontarf, or to Bannockburn? something to make one feel as if that grand lyric of Burns were being sung in the distance."
Cornelius stroked his chin and looked puzzled.
She resumed: "Perhaps you would like a subject more pathetic,—The
Children in the Tower, eh, Cornelius?"
"I have been thinking of something more domestic."