"Ah," I replied, with a remorseful sigh, "you know very well I only like it too much."
He smiled, and we walked on. There were woods about Leigh, and I took him to one, where we lingered, until its glades and avenues, instead of a golden light pouring in from above through the green foliage, were lit up from beneath by the long, red streaks, of a low, setting sun. As I write, there rises before me a vision of a mossy dell, low sunk down and overshadowed by three wide-spreading oaks, beneath which Cornelius and I sat during the still and burning hours of noon. There was little sketching, yet what we said and of what we conversed I know not now. But memory will sometimes keep the aspects of outward nature, when that which impressed them on the mind has faded away and is lost for ever. I had often seen that wood before, but on no day do I seem to have felt so much the calm of its silence, the freshness of its deep shadow, the sweetness of its many murmurs, ever rising from unknown depths, and dying away again as mysteriously as they had awakened. Never do I seem to have breathed in with so much delight, that wild forest fragrance sweeter than the perfumes of any garden.
Thus passed not merely that day, but many other days, of which I remember still less. There is always something vague and dreamy in the memory of happiness. Seen from afar, that time is like a sunny landscape, beheld through light and warmth. Dazzled and enchanted, you scarcely know what the passing hour was like, and scarcely remember afterwards what it has been; all that remains is a warm, golden hue cast over all things, and such to me was then in the present, and is in memory, the presence of Cornelius.
At the end of a delightful fortnight, I wakened to the consciousness that, though Cornelius went out sketching daily, he sketched very little; and that the two rainy days we had been obliged to spend at home, had been devoted to the task of teaching me Italian, and to nothing else. The little back parlour had been destined, by Kate, to be her brother's studio; but though Mary Stuart stood there, with her face turned to the wall, there came no intimation of a successor to this hapless lady. "Decidedly," I thought, "things cannot go on so." Accordingly, the morning, when, after breakfast, Cornelius stepped up to me, and said:
"Where is it to be to-day?"
I put on a grave face, and replied:
"I must stay at home to-day, Cornelius. I cannot leave everything to
Kate, you know."
"Very true," answered he, submissively.
"Therefore, whilst you are out sketching, I shall just sit here in the window, with work-box and work-basket, and make up for lost time."
Before I knew what be was about, the chair was in the window, and near it stood the work-box and work-basket. I felt a little confused at his civility, for which I was, however, going to thank him, when I saw him draw a chair near mine.