"To mind the affairs of the State," I interrupted, again taking up my stocking.
"Nay," he replied, gently taking it from me, "to leave by those important cares, and idle away a day with him, was the request, says History."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, "I am so glad you are not offended, Cornelius!"
"Then you thought I was; and that explains why you looked at me with a sorrowful audacity that seemed to say: 'Be angry if you like. I have said the truth, nothing but the truth, and by that I stand fast.'"
"Yes, Cornelius, that is just what I felt; but I am very glad that you are not offended for all that."
"Then if you are so glad," he answered smiling, "how did you come to risk it?"
"Because I am not quite a child now," I replied earnestly. "Oh! Cornelius, do you not understand that I can love you better than your good pleasure, and your honour better than you?"
"And do you not understand," he answered, bending over me a warm and animated face, "that I cannot be offended to see the child's blind affection make room for the heart, mind and feelings of the woman; and call that look in the eyes, and that flush on the cheek?"
"I meant to be very quiet," I replied, deprecatingly; "and if I reddened as I spoke, it was because my heart was in it, Cornelius, as it is in everything that concerns you; and I could not help it."
"Who wants you to help it?" he asked with mingled tenderness and impatience in his accent, "or to be quiet either. Quiet affection is nonsense: there is but one way of loving or of doing anything, and that is, as much as one can, Daisy."