How pleasant is the privilege, so little valued, because it is so common,
of living in one home with those we love. Life has few things more true
or more deep, and holds forth no promises more delightful. To sleep
beneath the shelter of the same roof, to meet morn, noon and evening at
the same board, to converse familiarly by the same fireside, to share the
same sorrows and pleasures, is the ideal of those who love, whatever name
their affection may take. The imagination of lovers themselves--and yet
what can they not imagine?--has never gone beyond this. After all the
trials, temptations and griefs, which may have beset their path, the
magic hope of their future is still: one home.
Of one part of this happiness, we may be fully conscious, but another we
seldom feel, unless after long separation; even as we know that life is
sweet, yet rarely pause and stand still to enjoy its sweetness, so though
we are well aware of the happiness of union, we sometimes forget to be
happy. Too often do we accept the presence of those we love best, as we
receive sunshine and our daily bread; wants of our nature fulfilled.
I rejoiced in the return of Cornelius with an eager delight I never
strove to hide, and which he seemed to share. To hear his step, his
voice, his laughter about the house; to meet him daily, and out or within
to be constantly near him, was now my happy fate. Twice Miss O'Reilly
accompanied us in our long daily walks; but the rest of the time she
found some excuse to stay within, and we went out alone. That we should
do so, gave her a degree of satisfaction I could not quite make out; but
which I could not help perceiving. As I sat alone sewing one morning in
the back parlour, Cornelius came, and leaning on the back of my chair,
said:
"Where shall we go to-day?"
"Indeed, Cornelius," I replied, gravely, "I cannot always be going out
with you, and leaving Kate alone."
"Kate is very fond of solitude," was his calm answer.
"Yes, but she might think it selfish."
The entrance of Kate interrupted the remark.
"The morning is getting very hot," she said, looking at her brother.
"Yes," he carelessly answered, "therefore I shall go out before the heat
of the day."
"Quite right."
"I shall even go now."
"Of course, but what else?"
"What else?"
"Yes; do you not take Daisy with you?"
"If you can spare her."
"Of course I can," replied Kate, whose clouded face immediately
brightened, "child, why are you not ready?"
What could I do but comply, and again go out walking with Cornelius? I
resolved, however, that it should not be so on the following day. I
declined accompanying him, giving him my reason, to which he submitted
with a silent smile. I even managed to send him off without the knowledge
of his sister. He had not long been gone when she came up from the
kitchen where she had been engaged. She gave a rapid look round the room,
and said hastily:
"Where is Cornelius?"
"He is gone out sketching, Kate," I replied without looking up from my
work.
"Why did not you go with him?"
I did not answer.
"Did he not ask you?"
"I did not like to leave you."
"Did he ask you?"
"Yes, he did."
"Do you know where he is?"
"He said he would go down the beach."
"Well, then, put on your bonnet and be off."
I remonstrated, but she was peremptory. I felt the kindness hidden
beneath her imperative ways, and, as I rose and passed by her, I could
not help giving her a kiss, and saying:
"How good you are, Kate."
"And how foolish you and he are," she replied, smiling, "not to make the
most of this good time."
"Why, Kate, we have a whole summer before us, and with it I trust, plenty
of fine weather."
She told me not to stand dallying there; in a few minutes I was ready,
and running down the path that led to the sands. To my surprise, I found
Cornelius quietly sitting on a rock at the base of a cliff, and smoking a
cigar. He rose on seeing me, came to meet me, and as he took my arm,
said:
"How long you were."
"Did you expect me?"
"Of course I did."
"But you could not know Kate would send me?"
"But I could guess it."
"And if she had not sent me, Cornelius?"
"I should have gone to fetch you."
"Then it seems it is quite a settled matter that I must go out with you
every day?"
Cornelius stopped short, and looking at me, said earnestly:
"Do you object, Daisy?"
"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.
"Are you not going out?" I asked.
"No," he quietly replied, and sat down by me. I worked in perfect
silence. He sat, with his elbow resting on the back of my chair, and his
eyes following the motion of my darning-needle, handing me my scissors
when I wanted them, and picking up my thimble, which fell once or twice.
I thought he would get tired of this, but he did not. At length, unable
to keep in, I looked up, and said:
"Do you not feel dull, Cornelius?"
"Not at all," he replied, smiling. "I had no idea that to watch the
darning of stockings was so entertaining."
As to entertain Cornelius was, by no means, my object, I quietly put by
my work, and went up to my room. I had not been there half an hour, when
I heard a low tap at my door. I guessed from whom it came, and did not
answer it any more than the cough, and the low "Daisy!" which followed.
He waited a while, then went down. In a few minutes, Kate entered my
room.
"Child," she said, "what keeps you here? Cornelius has just found his way
to the kitchen, to inform me that you had vanished, and that he felt
morally certain you were unwell."
"I am quite well," I replied, gravely; "but, as you see, particularly
engaged in airing my things, for fear of the moths."
"Make haste, then, for he is fidgeting in the front parlour."
"Indeed," I thought, "he may fidget. I am not going to make him lose all
his time."
Instead, therefore, of joining him, when my task was done, I quietly
slipped down to the garden; but I had scarcely sat down on the bench
beneath the pine trees, when Cornelius came, and settled himself by me. I
seemed intent on my crochet; but, as this produced no effect, I rose, and
composedly observed the sun was very hot.
"Burning!" replied Cornelius, rising too.
We went in. The front parlour faced the east, and was as warm as the
garden; the back parlour, on the contrary, looked cool and shady.
Cornelius quietly brought in my work-basket and work-box, placed a chair
for me by the open window, another chair for himself, near mine, then
closed the door, and smiled at me.
"Yes," I thought, as I sat down, "I am caught; but, since you have such a
relish for my company, you shall even hear a bit of my mind."
I sat darning my stockings, and meditating how to bring this about, when
Cornelius observed, with a touch of impatience:
"Am I to see only your side face to-day?"
"Do you object to my side face?" I gravely asked.
"Oh, no!" he hastily replied. "It is a very charming profile; and I was
thinking, just now, how well it would look on a medal or ancient coin."
"And why not on a modern coin, as well as on an ancient one?"
"With the legend, Daisy Regina, &c," he answered, smiling.
"Do you mean to imply I could not grace a throne, and bear a sceptre?"
"Heaven forbid; but I wonder what History would say of Queen Daisy!"
I looked up to answer calmly:
"History would despatch her with a few more &cs., Cornelius; such as:
'The most obscure of our long line of sovereigns, &c. Instead of
emulating the Elizabeths and the Catherines, &c. Although with the
intellectual mediocrity of her sex, &c. Her reign was nevertheless
illustrated by a certain Irish artist, &c, &c.'"
"The Irish artist respectfully kisses her Majesty's hand," said
Cornelius, raising my hand to his lips with mock homage; "he ventures to
hope that, spite of the distance of rank, something like friendship
existed between him and Queen Daisy."
He still held my hand in his; encouraged by the friendly kindness of the
clasp, I replied:
"So much friendship that, on one propitious occasion, Queen Daisy
ventured to remind her friend that time was passing fast, and his fame
yet to win."
Cornelius dropped my hand, and asked, gravely:
"Does History say how this advice was received?"
"History is silent," I replied, with a beating heart. "How do you think
it ended, Cornelius?"
"I think," he replied, smiling as our looks met, "that most artists would
have civilly requested her Majesty to mind the affairs of the State.
Painters are a touchy race, better accustomed to royal favour than to
royal advice. The brush of Titian was picked up by Charles V.; Holbein
found the English Bluebeard gentle; Leonardo da Vinci died in the arms of
Francis I.; and, I suppose the artist we now allude to must have been
spoiled by favours still more high, for I have heard that on this
occasion he had the presumption to request of her Majesty--"
"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."
He uttered not a word to which something within me did not echo and
reply. To this day, I do not understand placid affection, even though it
should take the calmest name. Like him I hold that there is but one true
way of loving any one, or anything, with one's whole heart.
"As much as one can," I echoed, passing my arm within his; "that's how
you are going to set at painting, is it not?"
My upraised face looked into his; he did not reply.
"You know," I continued, "you said you could paint over again Count
Morsikoff's pictures."
"And so I will, but not just yet."
"Cornelius, do you no longer like painting?"
"No longer like it! I like it but too well; and as I know its power over
me, I delay placing myself under a spell, even you, Daisy, might not be
able to break."
"As if I should wish to break it! When do you begin, Cornelius?"
"What a hurry you are in!"
"I am in a hurry to see you famous."
He smoothed my hair with a flattered smile.
"Will you begin to-morrow?" I persisted.
"No."
"After to-morrow?"
"No."
"Next week?"
"No."
"But, Cornelius, when will you begin?" I inquired, rather disappointed.
"Now."
"Now!" I exclaimed, delighted.
"Why did you not tell me sooner that you wished for it?" he asked,
reproachfully. "I thought you liked the walks, and put off talking of
work from day to day."
I had a confused impression at the time, that there was something odd in
this speech, but in my joy at having succeeded, I forgot it.
"It is quite early yet," I said, "you can begin at once. Which shall it
be, Cornelius, the women praying, or the children by the fountain?"
"Neither one nor the other for the present," he replied, "that is to say
I hope not. I have thought of another subject to begin with."
"What is it, Cornelius?" I asked, much interested.
"I saw a young girl once," he said in a thoughtful tone, like one who
looks back into memory, "and she brought to my mind's eye a full and
charming picture. She sat within the meditative shadow of an ill-lit
room, reading by an open window--well, why do you look at me so?"
"I only think that I was sewing that day--you know, not reading;
therefore you cannot mean me."
"Logically concluded. To resume: the room was gloomy, but the open window
gave a sense of space, and admitted the light, high and serene, of a pale
evening sky. The book lay open on the lap of her who read, one hand
rested upon its pages; the other supported her cheek; the eyes were rapt
and thoughtful; the silent lips met and closed with a charming and
austere grace; the attitude was meditative, even down to the garment's
quiet and gathered folds. The slender figure told of early youth, but
there was the calmness of an immortal spirit on the brow, and something
beyond time in the bearing and the mien. I remembered the Greek's
meditating muse, and Corregio's divine Magdalen reading in the
wilderness, and I thought though Pagan times be gone and art may have
lost her early faith, she still can tell the story of earnest spirits
that live and move within the shadow of our own homes, yet ever seem to
dwell serene in their own heights. That is the subject, Daisy, and there
is a speech for you."
"Is that all, Cornelius?"
"All. It will stand in the catalogue, as 'A Young Girl Reading,' and
many, unable to see more in it, will give a brief look and pass on. If a
few linger near, even though they scarcely know why; if to them it
embodies thought, meditation, or some such thing, I am satisfied. Daisy.
Well, what do you think of it?"
"Nothing for the present; I am thinking whether Jane will do."
"What for?" he asked promptly.
"To sit for you. She is very pretty, you know."
"And she looks very meditative, with her bright black eyes ever open, and
her cherry lips ever parted."
"I wish you had seen Miss Lindley. She is tall, graceful, and dresses
with so much taste. Then she has a pale olive face, and looks very lady-
like."
"And a lady-like Meditation--who dresses well too--would be the very
thing."
"But Cornelius," I said, rather perplexed, "how will you manage? I can do
for the figure pretty well, I dare say, but the face?"
He gave me an odd look, and answered:
"Yes, there is a puzzle."
"How thoughtless of you."
"Very."
"Then how will you manage?"
"Really," he said, turning round to confront me, "is it possible you do
not guess whose face I want, Daisy?"
"Mine!" I exclaimed, much astonished.
"Yes, yours," he replied, taking my hand in his. "I once saw you
reading--"
"Sewing, Cornelius."
"No [!] reading--do you think I never looked at you but that one time?--
and I liked it, for I saw it would make a very charming picture. The
attitude is one in which you often fall unconsciously--simple, true, and
graceful. I like it. I like, too, the exquisite colour of your hair, and
the meditative light of your gray eyes. Dark eyes may be for passion;
blue, for love and sweetness; gray, less beautiful, perhaps, but also
less earthly, are for meditation and spiritual thought."
"And the meaning of hazel eyes?" I said, looking up at his.
"Sincerity," he replied, biting his nether lip to repress a smile. "If,
for instance, a person with hazel eyes ever tells you 'you are truly
pretty, Daisy, though you do not seem to know it,' believe that person,
Daisy."
"I shall see about that when the time comes. In the meanwhile, I wish you
would begin."
He called me a little tyrant, but it was a tyranny he liked, for he
yielded to it with an ardour and alacrity that betrayed him. He placed me
in the attitude he wanted--sitting by the window, with a book on my lap--
and began at once. I saw he was quite in his element again; and when,
after a long sitting, we both rested, I said to him, a little
reproachfully:
"You like it more than ever, Cornelius. I see it in your face."
"It does not annoy you?" he asked, giving me an uneasy look.
"Annoy me, Cornelius! Have you forgotten Daisy?"
"Ah! but she was a sickly child: and for the merry young girl to be shut
up--"
"She does not mind being shut up the whole day long, provided it be with
Cornelius."
"Who, when once he is at his easel, has scarcely a word or a look to give
her."
"She does not want him to give her words or looks. She wants him to paint
a fine picture, than which, she thinks, there is nothing finer; and to
become a great painter, than which, she believes, there is nothing
greater."
"Indeed, then, there is not," he replied, laughing and reddening, and his
brown eyes kindling with sudden, though lingering light. "Oh, Daisy!" he
added, after a pause, laying his two hands on my shoulders, and looking
down at me intently, "what a fine, generous little creature you are!"
"Because I do not mind sitting," I replied, smiling. "You forget.
Cornelius, I always liked it. Let us return to it, and surprise Kate."
Miss O'Reilly was certainly surprised when she came up--much more
surprised than pleased--to see the historic style put aside; but when her
brother gently informed her that Mary Stuart was not quite a masterpiece,
she waxed wroth, indignantly said he would never do better, and only
hoped he would do as well. Cornelius heard her quietly, and smiled at me
with the security of conscious power.
As he went on with his "Young Girl Reading," I was struck with the
wonderful progress he had made--it more than fulfilled the promise of the
Italian sketches. I expressed my admiration without reserve, and I could
not but see in his face, how much it gratified him. The time that
followed was, indeed, a happy time, as happy as the past, with much that
the past had never known. Cornelius looked engrossed and delighted. He
worked either with the impassioned ardour of a lover, or with a lingering
tenderness as significant. He dwelt _con amore_, over certain bits, or
stood back and looked at the whole fondly, through half-shut eyes,
drinking in, with evident delight, that sweet intoxication which lies in
the contemplation of our own work, when we can behold in it the
fulfilment of some cherished idea. But, at the end of a fortnight, there
came a change. He looked gloomy, misanthropic, and painted with the air
of an angry lover, who has fallen out with his mistress. Ardour had
become scorn--tenderness was changed into sullen languor. I guessed that
one of his old desponding fits was on him, and, at length, I spoke. It
was on a day when, spite of all his efforts, I could see that he scarcely
worked. I left my place, and went up to him. For a while, I looked at the
picture; then said:
"How it progresses."
"Wonderfully."
"I wish you would not be ironical, Cornelius."
"I wish you would not, Daisy."
"I only say what I think: that it progresses."
Cornelius laughed, but by no means cheerfully.
"I know you long for me to praise it," I observed, quietly.
"Indeed, I do not," he interrupted.
"Yes, you do: it would give you so good an opportunity of abusing it."
"Do you kindly mean to spare me the trouble?"
"No; for then you would defend it against all my criticisms. I know very
well how you rate your picture, Cornelius."
"Do you?"
"Yes; I do. You know it will make your reputation; that it will be
praised and admired; but it fails in something on which you have set your
heart, and, though it may do for the world, it will not do for Cornelius
O'Reilly, his own severest judge, public and critic."
"Oh, you witch!" he replied, unable to repress a smile.
"Do you not like it better now?" I asked, thinking the cloud was
beginning to break.
"No, Daisy. It is the old story; something within me to which, do what I
will, I cannot give birth; it is this torments me, Daisy, it is this."
"And let it be this," I replied gravely; "let it be this, Cornelius, you
will be better than your pictures: if you were not, if you could give all
to art, would art be any longer worth living for? Where would be the
mystery, the desire, the hope, the charm, to lure you on for ever. I dare
say painting resembles life; and that to feel I am better than my
pictures, is like the pleasure of feeling 'I am better than my destiny.'"
"And what do you know about that pleasure?" asked Cornelius.
"I have felt it," was my involuntary reply. "Well, why not?" I added,
reddening beneath his look, "do you think that because I am a girl, I
have had no ambition, no dreams of my own, no longing for a little bit of
the heroic? We all have, Cornelius, only we don't confess it, for fear of
being laughed at."
He looked attentively at me and smiled.
"What were your dreams about, Daisy?"
"Not worth your losing time in listening to them, Cornelius--time, that
leads to fame!"
The smile vanished from his face.
"Not for me," he replied, with a clouded brow.
"Why not?"
"Because I have no genius."
"No genius?"
"No," he said impatiently, "not a bit."
"Do you mean to say, Cornelius, that you will never be one of the
celebrated artists of whom I have read so much?"
"Never!" he replied, with a dreary seriousness that proved him, for the
moment at least, to be quite in earnest.
"Cornelius," I said, decisively, "I am not going to put up with that, you
know; fame is not a thing to be laid aside in that fashion."
"Fame! what is fame?"
"A poor aim, but a glorious reward."
"Empty, Daisy, empty. I do not care one pin for fame."
"Sour grapes," was the prompt reply which escaped me.
"Thank you, Daisy," he answered, reddening.
I felt rather disturbed. He resumed:
"Sour grapes! The illustration is kind and civil. Sour grapes!"
"They must be very sour," I ventured to observe, in a low tone, "for you
seem unable to digest them, Cornelius."
"I beg your pardon," he said, very gravely, "I do not care for celebrity,
and do not want to be famous."
"But I do," I warmly answered, "you were asking a while ago about my day-
dreams: I will tell you one, a favourite one, of which the fulfilment
lies with you:--I am out somewhere; for of course we shall not always
live in this quiet way, and I overhear Mrs. H-- asking Mrs. G--, in an
audible whisper: 'Who is that commonplace-looking girl in white?'
'Something or other to the celebrated artist, Cornelius O'Reilly.' Mrs.
H-- looks at me with sudden veneration, whilst I give her a compassionate
glance, implying 'Who ever heard of Mr. H--?'"
"You saucy girl," said Cornelius, passing his arm around me, but looking
down at me, with anything but a displeased face.
"I am not saucy; I am very humble. I am proud by temper, and yet I cannot
fancy that if I were to go and earn my bread, it would have a sweeter
taste than that you have earned for me so long. I am ambitious, and
instead of winning fame for myself, here am I suing you to do it for me!"
"And shall it not be won for you?" he asked, fondly smoothing my hair,
"that and anything else you wish for, my darling."
"Then, don't you see," I replied, triumphantly, "that you have got
genius?"
"Oh! Daisy," he said sorrowfully, "what brought up that unlucky word?
Look at that figure, cold, lifeless thing, it tells its own story."
I lost all patience. I felt my face flush, and turning round on
Cornelius, I put by at once all the filial reverence of years.
"Cornelius!" I exclaimed, indignantly, "you are as capricious as a
spoiled child. How can a man of your age indulge in such whims?"
"I am not so old as to have my age thrown in my face!" he replied,
looking piqued. "I am only a few years beyond legal infancy."
"You ought to be ages beyond thinking and speaking as you do. If you have
no faith in yourself, why do you paint at all? If I were a man, I would
rather be a shoemaker or a tailor, than an artist without faith."
"On my word," said Cornelius, looking very angry, "you do speak
strongly."
"Because _I_ have faith in you," I replied, passing my arm around his
neck, and looking into his averted face. "Call the picture bad, but do
not say you have no genius. It cuts me to the heart, indeed it does.
Besides, I cannot believe it. I never look at your face, but I seem to
see the word 'Genius' written there."
And, as I spoke, I laid my lips on a brow where eyes less prejudiced than
mine might have read the same story. A sudden and burning glow overspread
the features of Cornelius; he looked another way, and bit his lips, as if
seeking for calmness, as striving to curb down that impatient fever of
the blood which, in good or in evil, it is always a sort of pain to
betray. I half drew back, thinking him vexed again, but he detained me;
and turning towards me a flushed and troubled face, he said with a forced
laugh:
"Your head has been turned by reading those Lives of the Painters, and
you want to turn mine too. To satisfy you, I should be the first painter
in England."
"In England!" I echoed; "in Christendom, Sir."
"Rather high-flown, Daisy. Besides that it sounds like a reminiscence of
the seven champions."
"High-flown! Ambition is a bird of high feather, Cornelius. I would scorn
to aim at the second place when there is the first to win."
"Oh! you witch!" he said again, "how well you know me!"
"What has become of the evil spirit that possessed you?" I asked,
smiling.
"Gone to the winds for the present," he answered gaily.
"Well then work."
"Not yet. Let us rest awhile."
He sat down on a low couch by the open window, and made me sit down by
him. Since his return, I had not seen his face wear so free and happy a
look, as it then wore. His brilliant and deep-set hazel eyes shone
beneath the dark arch of the brow, with unusual light, and rested on me
with a triumphant tenderness that perplexed me; a warmer glow tinged his
cheek, embrowned by a southern sun. There lurked both joy and exultation
in the half smile that trembled on his lips: like his sister, he had a
very beautiful and fascinating smile; and, as I now gazed at him. I could
not help smiling, too, for I thought I had never seen him look half so
handsome. In the freak of the moment, I told him so.
"Do you know, Mr. O'Reilly?" I said, taking hold of his curved chin, and
looking up at him laughing. "Do you know that you are very good-looking?"
He half threw back his head, as if in scorn of the compliment; but when I
added, "I suppose all great artists are so!" he smiled down at me; and if
his smile was somewhat conscious, it was still more fond and tender.
"You like me, Daisy; don't you?" he said, bending over me a flushed and
happy face.
I laughed, and he laughed, too, with the security of the knowledge.
"Oh! you may laugh," he said with sparkling eyes; "I know you do. I know
it, but I have not deserved it," he added, remorsefully. "Oh! when I
think how cold, and how careless I have been; and how you might serve me
out now!"
"How so, Cornelius?"
He smiled, and smoothed my hair without replying.
"Why it is you who might serve me out," I said.
"Is it?"
"Of course, for it is I who have all to gain or lose."
"Are you afraid?"
"No."
He repressed a smile, gave me a curious look, and said I was an odd girl.
"And won't the other girls be jealous of me, Cornelius?" I asked,
proudly.
"Jealous! What for?"
"Because you are immortalizing me in a picture."
"What else?"
"Because you like me."
"What else?"
"Because I am to be always with you."
"And how do you know you are to be always with me?" he asked with a
mischievous look; "answer me that."
I did not at first; he laughed.
"Well," I said, piqued, "am I not to be always with you? Was it not
agreed before you went to Italy? Am I not to be the governess?"
"The governess!" he echoed, astonished.
It was some time before I could make him remember what had passed between
us. If I had not been positive, he would have denied it altogether.
"How can you think of such nonsense?" he asked, impatiently; "the
governess of what?"
"Of the children; and please not to call them _what_."
"_Them!_ Will you be pleased to remember that I am a poor artist."
"Sceptic! Providence will send for every child a new picture to paint."
"Providence is very kind. I hope her liberality will know some limits."
"The first must be Cornelius or Kate, second ditto, third--"
"Daisy!"
"There must be a third to be called after the mother, and the fourth
after one of her friends; the fifth--"
"Daisy!" indignantly asked Cornelius: "do you mean to make a patriarch of
me?"
"Patriarch or not, there must be a fifth--mine, whom you will call Daisy,
in memory of the other Daisy you brought home, wrapped in your cloak."
Cornelius turned round to look at me smiling:
"So you were piqued," he said, "and brought up the governess to punish
me!"
"Piqued!" I echoed, laughing in his face, "what about?"
He looked a little disconcerted. I thought him vexed, and apologized at
once for my want of respect.
"Respect!" he replied seeming half astonished, half displeased, "what do
I want with respect--your respect?" And he gave me a glance of mingled
incredulity and uneasiness.
"Cornelius, you said before you went to Italy--"
"What about the foolish things, I may have said years ago." he
interrupted impatiently; "Surely," he added, looking down at me
reproachfully, "surely, we have both outgrown that time."
"I hope I have not outgrown my respect for you, Cornelius," I replied
rather gravely.
"Again!" he said with subdued irritation; "why don't, you ask to call me
'Papa?'"
"I would if I thought you would say yes, Cornelius."
"No, you would not," he answered reddening and looking vexed; "you know
you would not. You know all this is mere childish talk."
"Put me to the test!" I said laughing.
"I dare you to do it." he replied hastily. "Take warning, and, if
troubled with filial feelings, look out for some other paternal parent.
C. O. R., Esq., is not the man."
"When Louisa Scheppler asked the good Pastor Oberlin--he consented."
Cornelius looked at me uneasily and tried to smile.
"I know you are only jesting," he observed; "I know it, of course. But
yet, Daisy, I would rather you did not."
"Is the idea of a daughter so formidable?" I asked.
"A daughter! Oh, Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius a little desperately, "this
is too childish! The next thing will be, that you will get out of the
teens altogether, and go back to the little girl of ten whom I found here
seven years ago."
"And you don't want me to do that?" I said amused at the idea.
He looked at me expressively.
"Oh, no!" he murmured, "oh, no! Surely, you know yourself how charming
you have grown."
I smiled incredulously. I knew I was improved, but thought it was his
affection which transformed a little freshness and colour into so
comprehensive a word as charming.
"I wonder you will never believe me," he said, looking half annoyed. "I
wonder, what is your real opinion of yourself. I do not mean that
conventional opinion of one's own inferiority, or at the best mediocrity
which, under penalty of being hunted out from decent society, every
civilized individual is bound to profess, but that honest opinion of our
merits and defects, by which we judge ourselves in our own hearts. Do you
mind answering that question?"
"No, it is not worth minding."
"Then answer it."
"You must question me categorically. I have not a ready-made certificate
of my good or bad points, to deliver on such short notice."
"What do you think of Daisy morally?"
"A good sort of girl; has received honest principles; devoutly believes
she will never do anything very shocking."
"What of her intellectually?"
"Sensible, not brilliant."
"What of her person?"
"Like her mind--plain; but, thank Heaven, has the use of her limbs and
senses."
"And this common-place character is your real opinion of yourself!"
exclaimed Cornelius almost indignantly.
"My real opinion; but it is scarcely civil to tell me to my face that I
am common-place."
"I never said so. That is not my opinion of you, Daisy."
"Ah!" I said a little embarrassed, for it was plain he meant to favour me
with that opinion.
"No," he continued very earnestly, "I do not think you that pale, every-
day girl you described. I think you more than good, for you are high-
minded; I think you more than sensible, for you are original. You may as
well laugh out at once," he added in a piqued tone, "for to crown all,
Daisy, I think you pretty, ay, and very pretty."
"Oh, Cornelius!" I replied endeavouring to look melancholy; "if you had
not made that unlucky addition, I could have believed in the rest--but
now!"
"Daisy, beauty is manifold: the greatest fool can discover the beauty of
a perfectly beautiful woman."
"Whereas it requires a peculiar talent to find out the invisible sort of
beauty. Judicious remark!"
"Allow me to return to the point. My meaning is, that to be able to see
and feel none save the self-demonstrative sort of beauty, is common-
place."
"The other course is decidedly more original; is that the point,
Cornelius?"
"The point," he replied, fairly provoked, "is, that such as you are,
pretty or plain, _I_ find you charming."
"Well, then," I said, amused at his persistency, "glamour has fallen on
your eyes, and you see me through it."
"What if I do?" he answered, in a tone that, like his look, suddenly
softened; "will that sort of magic vex you? What is there so pleasant in
this world as the face of one we love; and if your face has that
pleasantness for me; if the glamour, as you call it, of affection has
fallen on my eyes and heart, why should you mind?"
Oh! not indifferent, even in the purest affection, are these things. I
glanced up into his face; and as it told me how thoroughly he meant all
he said, I blushed; then ashamed of blushing, I hung down my head. He
stooped to look at me.
"Perverse girl," he said, chidingly, "don't you see it was useless to try
to frighten and torment me? But you have provoked me. Shall I tell you
why I find you so very, very charming?"
I looked up at him, and, passing my arms around his neck, I smiled as I
replied:
"Cornelius, it is because as a father you have reared me; because as a
father you love me. What wonder, then, that a father should see some sort
of beauty in his daughter's face?"
Cornelius looked thunder-struck; then recovering, he gave me an
incredulous glance, and attempted a smile, which vanished as he met my
astonished look. A burning glow overspread his features: it was not the
light blush of boy or girl, called up by idle words, but the ardent fire
of a manly heart's deep and passionate emotions. He untwined my arm from
around his neck; he rose: his brown eyes lit--his lips trembled. At first
he seemed unable to speak; at length he said:
"You cannot mean it, Daisy--you cannot mean it."
"Why not, Cornelius?" I asked, amazed at his manner.
"Do you mean to say that I love you as my daughter or child?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
"Do you mean to say that you love me as your father?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
His voice rose and rang with each question; mine sank with every reply.
He darted at me a look of the keenest reproach.
"Never," he exclaimed, with a fire and vehemence that startled me, "never
have I loved you, or shall I love you so; never for a second in the past;
never for a second in the future; never, Daisy, never!" And turning from
me, he paced the room with hasty steps, a flushed brow, and angry look.
At length he stopped before me; for, being somewhat calmer, the fire of
his look seemed more earnest and concentrated, the accents of his voice
more measured and deep. He said:
"Confess you have been jesting."
"No, Cornelius, I spoke as I thought."
"And you thought that I liked you, as a father likes his child; I defy
you to prove it! Since I returned from Italy, have I not done all I could
to show you that your esteem, approbation, praise, and love were dearer
to me than language could express? Have I not, through all our old
familiarity, say, have I not mingled reserve and respect with all my
tenderness? Have I not acknowledged the woman in you, and that in a
hundred ways? The love of a father? I defy you to prove it, Daisy!"
He again paced the room with angry steps. I followed him, and laying my
hand on his arm, I said earnestly--
"Cornelius, you should not be angry with me. Have you forgotten that,
before you went to Italy, you called me your adopted child? that in your
letters you addressed me thus? That on the very evening of your return,
when Kate seemed vexed about it, you were not displeased, though you are
so angry now?"
Cornelius turned a little pale.
"I had forgotten it," he said bitterly, "but you forget nothing--nothing;
years pass, and words spoken in the heedlessness of ignorance and the
presumptuousness of youth, still live in your pitiless memory."
"Cornelius," I said, gently, "is it a sin to remember the truth?"
"The truth!" he echoed, indignantly, "do not call that the truth. I may
have said it, been fool enough to have believed it, but true it has never
been. Never, I tell you, never have I felt for you one spark of the
affection a father feels for his child, never. Do not think, dream, or
imagine such a thing. I deny it in every way in which man can deny. I
would, were it in my power, efface from your mind every such remembrance
of a past, beyond which we both should look."
I began to feel startled. What did Cornelius mean? Why did he object so
pertinaciously to a matter like this? I looked up at him and said
earnestly--
"Cornelius, I do not understand at all why you are so vexed. Pray tell
me."
He looked down at me very fixedly. Every trace of ungentle passion had
passed away from his features, and there was a strange, undefined
tenderness in his gaze, as he said in a low tone--
"If I have been vexed. Daisy, it is to find out a mistake--a great
mistake of mine."
"What mistake, Cornelius?"
"Do you really want to know, Daisy?"
"Yes," I said, almost desperately, "I want to know."
There was a pause. He still stood by me, looking down in my face.
"Do not look so pale, and above all so frightened," he said, gently;
"there is no need. How you tremble!" he added, taking my hand in both
his, and speaking very sadly, "Oh, Daisy! Daisy!" And he turned his look
away with a strange expression of disappointment and pain, of shame and
mortification.
I hung down my head; I did not dare to look at him, to withdraw my hand,
to move. I stood mutely expecting--what I knew not exactly; but I seemed
to feel that it must be some shock, dreadful, because violent, that would
perforce turn the current of my destiny, and compel it to flow through
regions, where of itself, my will would never have led we. Vain fear;
unfounded alarm. Cornelius turned to me, and said very calmly--
"The mistake into which I fell, was to think that we understood one
another tacitly, Daisy. I do not love you now because I have reared you,
but on your own merits, for the sake of that which you have become. And
thus I thought that you too liked me, with a higher feeling than
gratitude. In short, as I like you myself--as a very dear friend."
He spoke simply and naturally. I breathed freely.
"Oh! how good, how generous you are!" I exclaimed, moved to the heart by
so much delicacy of affection. "You want to raise me to an equality with
you. God bless you, Cornelius."
I pressed his two hands in mine, with much emotion.
"Are you happy?" he asked, looking down at me.
"So very happy!" I replied, with a joyous smile.
"I am glad of it," he said, trying to smile too.
"Shall we resume the sitting?" I asked.
"Not to-day. 1 am in no mood to work; I think I shall go out for a walk."
I felt somewhat surprised that Cornelius did not ask me to join him; and
so was Kate, when she learned from me--she had been in her room all this
time--that he was gone out alone.
"Why did you not go with him?" she asked, frowning slightly.
"He did not ask me, Kate."
"You have not quarrelled?"
"Oh, no! we are very good friends."
The cloud passed away from her brow. She kissed me and said "Of course
you are."
Cornelius did not come in until late in the evening; he had walked miles,
and was so tired that he could scarcely speak.