Our journey was short and pleasant. Cornelius seemed quite gay again. In
order to surprise Kate, we stepped down from the cab at the end of the
lane, talking of that evening seven years before, when he had brought me
along the same path to the same dwelling.
"Oh, Cornelius," I exclaimed, looking up at him, "was it not kind of Mr
Thornton to let me come back?"
He looked down at me, and smiled as he replied:
"I don't know that he meant it as any particular kindness to me; but that
he could do me none greater, I mean to show him yet."
The lane was long; we walked slowly; the evening was one of early
autumn's most lovely ones, brown and mellow, our path was strewn with
fallen leaves, but the beauty of summer was still in the sky, and its
warmth in the glorious setting sun. As we approached the well-known door,
we saw Kate in her hair, standing on the threshold and talking to two
little Irish beggars, whom she was scolding and stuffing at the same
time. As she turned round, she saw us, and looked at us with incredulous
astonishment. I ran up to her, and threw my arm around her neck.
"I am come back," I cried, "indeed I am."
"I see and feel it; but is it for good?"
"To be sure."
She kissed me heartily, then pushed me away and said, "there was no
getting rid of that girl, but that she knew well enough Cornelius would
not come back without her," then she turned to the two petitioners, bade
them be off and never show their faces again, and ended by telling them
to call for some cold meat on Monday. This matter dispatched, she shut
the door and followed us in. As we passed through the garden, I saw with
surprise that it was no longer separated from its neighbour.
"No," said Kate, with some pride, "it is now one garden and one dwelling,
Daisy. No more tenants, you know. I like room. Are you too tired to come
and see the changes I have made?"
We both said "No," and Miss O'Reilly took us over the whole house at
once. It was much larger, and much improved; we had parlours to spare
now; drawing-rooms elegantly furnished, bed-rooms more than we needed; so
that, as Kate said, if any old friend came from Ireland--though she was
afraid they must be all dead, for they never came--or if those two good
friends of Cornelius, Schwab and Armari, should leave fair Italy for
smoky London, they could be accommodated easily. Thus talking carelessly,
Miss O'Reilly took us to the top of the house, where we found the old
dream of Cornelius fairly realised: several rooms thrown into one, with a
skylight. She laughed at his surprise; pushed him away, and told him to
keep his distance when he kissed her, then suddenly flung her arms around
his neck and embraced him ardently.
We returned to our old life on the very next day, as if it had known no
interruption. I sat to Cornelius, who painted with renewed ardour;
towards dusk he took me out walking; when evening had fairly set in, he
gave me my Italian lesson, and when that was over, he sang and played or
read aloud. He never seemed to think of going out; one evening, when his
sister insisted on making him leave us, he returned at the end of ten
minutes. "He had not been able," he said, "to get beyond the end of the
grove. There was, after all, no place like home."
"Domestic man!" observed Kate, smiling as he sat down by me on my sofa.
Without seeming to hear her, he took up Shakespeare from the table, and
began reading aloud the most fervent and beautiful passages from Romeo
and Juliet. Then he suddenly closed the book and turning on me, asked how
I liked the story of the two Italian lovers.
"Were they not a little crazy, Cornelius?" I replied; "but I suppose love
always makes people more or less ridiculous."
On hearing this heretic sentiment, Cornelius looked orthodox and shocked.
"Ridiculous!" he said, "who has put such ideas into your head?" He
glanced suspiciously at Kate who hastily observed:
"I had nothing to do with it."
"Do you think I could not find that out alone?" I asked, laughing.
But Cornelius remained quite grave. Did I not know love was a most
exalted feeling? That angels loved in Heaven, and that poor mortals could
not do better than imitate them on earth? That love was the attribute of
the female mind, its charm and its power? On these high moral grounds, he
proceeded to give me an eloquent description of the universal passion. It
was pure, it was noble, tender and enduring; it was light and very
joyous; it had sweetness and great strength; it refined the mind; it
purified the heart; and, though seemingly so exclusive, it filled to
overflowing with the sense of universal charity. It was a chain of subtle
and mysterious sympathies.
Here I rapidly passed my forefinger along his profile, and resting it on
the tip of his nose, I said gravely:
"Kate! is it aquiline or Roman? Aquiline, I think."
On feeling and hearing this piece of impertinence, Cornelius turned round
on me with such a start of vexation and wrath, that I jumped up, and ran
off to the chair of Kate. She only laughed at her brother's discomfiture.
He said nothing, but sat fuming alone on the sofa.
"Serve you right," she said, "why will you explain love philosophically
to a girl of seventeen? Don't you see her hour is not come, and that if
it were, she would know more than you could tell her?"
Cornelius sharply replied "that was not at all the question, but that
when he spoke, he thought he might be listened to."
"I did listen to you," I said, "your last words were: 'a chain of subtle
and mysterious sympathies.'"
He did not answer, but took up Shakespeare, and looked tragic over it.
"He's vexed," I whispered audibly to Kate. "He looks like Othello, the
Moor of Venice. What shall I do? I am afraid of the sofa-pillow, if I go
near him! He looked a while ago as if he longed to throw it at me; just
because I said his nose was aquiline, and broke his chain of subtle and
mysterious sympathies."
"Kate!" said Cornelius, looking up from his book, "can't you make that
girl hold her tongue?"
Kate declined the office, and sent me back to him. He pretended to be
very angry, but when I deliberately took Shakespeare from him and shut
it, he smiled, smoothed my hair, and called me by two or three of the
fondest of the many fond and endearing names in Irish, English, and
Italian, which it was now his habit to bestow upon me, and thus our
little quarrels always ended.
I was very happy; yet here as well as at Leigh, the restless spirit of
youth was stirring within me. Kate had suffered much, she liked repose;
Cornelius had travelled, home sufficed him. My sorrows had been few, and
Leigh was the extent of my peregrinations. Of home, of the daily comedies
and dramas, which can be enacted in a human dwelling, I knew something;
but of life, busy, active, outward life I knew less than most girls of my
age, and they--poor things--knew little enough. Kate seldom went beyond
her garden; when Cornelius took me out in the evening, it was for a quiet
walk in the lanes. I said nothing, but I never passed by the landing
window on my way to or from the studio, without stopping to look with a
secret longing at the cloud of smoke hanging above London. Cornelius
found me there on the afternoon which followed his Shakspearian reading,
and he said with some curiosity:
"Daisy, what attraction is there in that prospect of brick and smoke?"
"What part of London lies next to us?" I asked, instead of answering.
"Oxford Street; you surely know Oxford Street?"
"I remember having been there two or three times."
"Two or three times! You do not mean to say you have never been in Oxford
Street more than two or three times!"
"Indeed I do, Cornelius. I was ten when I came here, always weak and
sickly; then we went to Leigh, and we have been back about a fortnight.
It is not so wonderful, you see."
Cornelius smiled, smoothed my hair, and said something about "violets in
the shade, and birds in their nests."
"Yes, but birds leave their nests sometimes, don't they, Cornelius?" I
asked a little impatiently.
"You want to go to town," he exclaimed, astonished.
I smiled.
"Oh!" he said, reproachfully, "have you really a wish, and will you not
give me the pleasure of gratifying it? Do tell me what you wish for,
Daisy--pray do."
He spoke warmly, and looked eagerly into my face.
"Well, then," I replied, "take me some day to Oxford Street. I know the
Pantheon is there, and I remember it as a sort of fairy-palace."
"Some day!--to-day, Daisy--this very day. Though this is not the season,
there must be places worth seeing; museums, exhibitions--"
"The streets with the shops, the people, and the great current of life
running through them, will entertain me far more than museums or made-up
exhibitions."
"Why did you not say so sooner?"
"Kate dislikes long walks."
"But do I?--do I dislike long walks with you, Daisy, in town or country,
in lanes or in streets? Is there anything I like better than to please or
amuse you?"
Without allowing me to thank him, he told me to make haste and get ready.
I obeyed, and within an hour, Cornelius and I were walking down Oxford
Street.
London, according to a figurative mode of speech, was quite empty; that
is to say, a few all-important hundreds had taken flight, and left the
insignificant thousands behind, just to mind the place in their absence.
To me, after the long quietness of Leigh, it looked as gay and crowded as
a fair. At once I flew to the shops, like a moth to the light, and
Cornelius, with a good humour rare in his sex, not only stood patiently
whilst I admired, but kept a sharp look out for every milliner's and
linendraper's establishment, saying, eagerly:--
"There's another one, Daisy."
But, after a while, I was dazzled with all I saw, deafened with the sound
of rolling carriages, bewildered with the unusual aspect of so many
people, and glad to take refuge in the Pantheon, with its flowers, its
birds, its statues, its pictures, its fanciful stalls, and its profusion
of those graceful knick-knacks which have ever been, and ever will be,
the delights of a truly feminine heart.
We had entered this pretty place by Great Marlborough Street. Cornelius
began by buying me a beautiful, but most extravagant bouquet, which I had
been imprudent enough to admire, and did not like to refuse. As we
loitered about, I looked at one of the birds in the cages around the
little fountain, and praised its glowing plumage.
"Have it," eagerly said Cornelius, and his purse was out directly.
"No, indeed," I quickly replied, "I do not like birds in cages."
"Well, then, have one of those squirrels."
"I will have nothing alive. And I will not have a plant either," I added,
detecting the look he cast at the expensive flowers around us. I
compelled him to put back his purse; but as we went on, and inspected the
stalls, I bad to entreat add argue him out of buying me, first a vase of
magnificent wax flowers; then a _papier-mach?_ table, and thirdly, some
costly china. No sooner did my eye chance to light with pleasure on
anything, than he insisted on giving it to me. At length, I told him he
spoiled all my enjoyment. He asked, with a dissatisfied air, if I was too
proud to accept anything from him. I assured him I had no such feeling,
and that he might buy me something before we went home, if such was his
fancy.
"What?" he asked, with a look of mistrust.
"Anything you like; but for the present, pray let me look about."
He yielded; but I wished afterwards I had let him have his own way; for
as we were leaving the Pantheon, with all its temptations, and I thought
all right, Cornelius suddenly took me into a shop, and before I could
remonstrate, he had bought me a light blue silk dress, as dear as it was
pretty. I left the place much mortified; he saw it, and laughed at me,
telling me to take this as a lesson, for that he would not be thwarted.
We took a cab and rode home; yet it was dusk when we reached the Grove. A
light burned in the drawing-room window. We wondered what company Kate
was entertaining; and on going up-stairs, found her sitting with our old
friend, Mr. Smalley. We had not seen him since his marriage with Miriam
Russell. He was now a widower. He looked paler and thinner than formerly;
but as good and gentle as ever. He and Cornelius exchanged a greeting
friendly, though rather calm and reserved. With me, Mr. Smalley was more
open; but as he held my hand in his, he looked at me, and, smiling,
turned to Cornelius.
"I should never have known in her the sickly child whom I still
remember," he said; "indeed, my friend, your adopted daughter has thriven
under your paternal care. Hush, darling!"
He was addressing a child of two or three, who clung to him, casting shy
looks around the room, and seeming very ready to cry. To pacify her, he
sat down again, and took her on his knee. She nestled close to him, and
was hushed at once. Mr. Smalley made a little paternal apology. Darling
had insisted on coming with him, and as she would not stay with his
sister Mary, he had to take her with him wherever he went.
"Those young creatures," he added, looking at Cornelius, "twine
themselves around our very heart-strings. I know what a truly paternal
heart yours is for your adopted daughter."
"Ay, ay!" interrupted Cornelius, looking fidgetty, "how is Trim?"
"He died a year ago," gravely replied Mr. Smalley. "Ah! my friend, my
heart smote me when I heard the tidings. I had always been harsh to Trim,
you know."
"You harsh to any one!" said Cornelius, smiling.
But Mr. Smalley assured him his nature was harsh; though, with the grace
of God, he had been able to subdue it a little. Darling, he might add,
had been the means of softening many an asperity. He kissed her kindly as
he spoke. She was a pale, fair-haired little creature, very like him, and
evidently indulged to excess. He was wrapped in her, and when of her own
accord, she left him to come to me, he felt so much astonished, that he
could speak of nothing else. In her two years' life, Darling had never
done such a thing before. Indeed her shyness, he plainly hinted, was
alone an insuperable obstacle to a second union.
"Mr. Smalley," I said, "Darling has just agreed to stay with me, if you
will leave her."
"You have bewitched her," he replied, giving me a grateful look; but he
confessed it would be a great weight off his mind; and with many thanks
and evident regret, he left me the treasure of his heart.
Darling soon fell asleep in my arms. One of her little hands was clasped
around my neck, the other held mine; her fair head rested on my bosom,
and her calm, sleeping face lay upraised and unconscious with closed eyes
and parted lips. I stooped, and with some emotion, softly kissed the
child of my persecutor. Cornelius, who sat by me, whispered the two
concluding lines of Wordsworth's sonnet, with a slight modification:
"How much is mixed and reconciled in thee,
Of mother's love, with maiden purity."
Then bending over me, he attempted to embrace Darling; but his beard woke
her; she screamed, kicked, burst into a new fit of crying every time he
attempted to sit near me, and said "her papa should take me to Rugby."
"And be your mamma. No, indeed, Miss Smalley," replied Cornelius, tartly.
"She is mine, and I keep her."
To teaze her, he passed his arm around me, and caressed me, upon which
Darling got into such a passion, that he asked impatiently "if I would
not put the sulky little thing to bed?"
She succeeded on this and on subsequent occasions in keeping him at a
safe distance from me. At first her childish jealousy amused him, but as
she was in other respects a very endearing little thing, and engrossed me
like a new toy, Cornelius did not relish it at all. He looked especially
uncomfortable during Mr. Smalley's daily visits, and to my amusement, for
I know well enough what he was afraid of, he did not seem easy, until
both Darling and her papa were fairly gone.
I always made my own dresses, and I made the blue silk one with great
care. It was finished one afternoon before dusk. I put it on in my room,
and came down to show it to Kate; she was not in the parlour. I felt
anxious to see how it fitted, and got up on a chair to look at myself in
the glass over the fire-place. At that very moment Cornelius entered. I
jumped down, rather ashamed at being caught. He came up to me, and
without saying a word, took a white rose from a vase of flowers, and put
it in my hair. I took another, and fastened it to the front of my dress.
Then he took my hand in his, and drawing a little back from me, he
smiled. I sighed, and asked:
"What shall I do with it, Cornelius?"
"Look pretty in it, as you do now."
"But where shall I wear it?"
"Here, of course."
"It is only fit for a party. Why have we no party to go to?"
"Because people don't ask us," was his frank reply.
"I wish they would."
"To be seen and admired by others besides Cornelius O'Reilly, you vain
little creature."
"It is not for that; but I should like a party or so."
"Well, when we get invited, I shall take you," he replied, with a smile
that provoked me.
"Yes," I said, colouring, "but you know no one will ask us. We go
nowhere; we see no one, not even artists. I wish you would see artists."
"I don't care about English artists," he replied, drily.
"Well then, Irish."
"Still less. The three kingdoms and the principality do not yield one
with whom I would care to spend an hour."
"But I want to see artists."
"And am I not an artist?"
"Oh! I know you so well! What is your friend Armari like?"
"A good-looking Italian," replied Cornelius, whistling carelessly, with
his hands in his pockets, "rather given to be in love with every woman he
sees."
"And Mr. Schwab?"
"A good-looking German, and a professed woman-hater."
"I wish they would come."
"But they won't," he said, with evident satisfaction.
"You are glad of it!" I exclaimed a little indignantly. "You are glad
that I have no parties to go to; that I see no one."
I turned away half angrily; he caught me back, ardently entreating me not
to be vexed with him; "He could not bear it," he said. Astonished and
mute, I looked up into his bending face. The time had been when I had
trembled before a look and a frown, and now a petulant speech of mine
distressed him thus.
"Forgive me," he earnestly continued, "for not having forestalled your
wishes; but I cared so little for other society than yours, that I forgot
mine might not be to you so delightful and engrossing. A party, I cannot
command, but I shall take you to the play this very evening."
I wanted to refuse, but he would hear of no objection, though I told him
plainly he had not the money to spare.
"And if it is my pleasure to spend on you the little I have--what about
it, Daisy?"
At length I yielded; and, on his request, went up to ask Kate to join us.
She refused peremptorily, and said she liked home best. As she helped me
to finish my toilet, she gave me sundry instructions concerning my
behaviour. I was to let Cornelius be civil to me, it was his turn now,
and if he picked up my glove, carried my shawl or put it on, I was to
take it as a matter of course.
"Very well, Kate," I said, "but it is odd."
"Why so!"
"I don't know, but it is odd."
We were entering the parlour where Cornelius stood waiting for me. I gave
him the shawl I had brought down on my arm.
"You are to put that on me," I said, "for Kate says you are to be civil
to me; so I hope you will, and not disgrace me in the face of the whole
house by any want of proper attention due to the sex. I cannot go and
tell the people 'you need not wonder at his being so rude; it is all
because he knew me when I was a little girl.'"
"Impertinent little thing," observed Kate, "I only told her not to be
civil to you."
"Well, am I? I spoke as impertinently as I could. Did I not, Cornelius?"
"Indeed you did," he replied, smiling, and helping me to pin my shawl on.
"Have you any more commands for me?"
"Only just to hold my fan, my gloves, my scent-bottle, my handkerchief,
and to give me your arm."
He managed to obey me; Kate smiled approvingly, and we entered the cab
which was waiting for us at the door. Cornelius took me to a house which
had not long been open, but where both performances and actors were said
to be good. We occupied the front seats of a centre box, and commanded a
full view of the stage and audience. I was young, unaccustomed to
pleasure, and easily amused. I felt interested in the play, and when the
second act was over, I turned to Cornelius and said--
"Do you think Lady Ada will marry her cousin?"
"I suppose so," he replied, without looking at me.
"Oh! Cornelius, I hope not; he is not the right one, you know."
"Is he not?"
"Oh! dear, no; what can you have been thinking of?"
"That there never was a more insolent fellow than that man in the pit,"
replied Cornelius, who looked much irritated, "for the whole of the last
act he has kept his opera-glass fully bent upon you."
"Then his neck must ache by this."
"How coolly you take it!"
"What am I to do?"
"Nothing, of course; but surely you will grant that sort of admiration is
very insolent."
"How do I know it is admiration? He may be thinking 'poor girl, what a
pity she is so shockingly dressed, or has such a bad figure, or has not
better features!'"
"Do you think a man loses a whole act to find out that a girl is plain?"
sceptically asked Cornelius.
I did not answer. He very unreasonably construed this into being pleased
with being looked at. Wishing to get rid of the subject, I asked him to
change places with me; he accepted at once, and took my seat, whilst I
sat partly behind him. At first this produced nothing; the gentleman with
the opera-glass really seemed to enjoy the face of Cornelius quite as
much as mine.
"He has not found it out yet," I said. But even as I spoke, the
individual I alluded to rose and left the pit.
"Oh! he has found it out, has he?" ironically inquired Cornelius.
The third act was beginning when the door of our box opened, and a
foreign-looking man, dark and handsome, entered. I felt sure it was
Armari, it was; but it also was the gentleman with the opera-glass, a
fact that gave rather an odd character to the greeting of Cornelius.
Most foreigners are self-possessed. Signor Armari was pre-eminently so.
He looked at me as if he knew not the use of the opera-glass, which he
still held, and even had the assurance to offer it to me. I did not know
Italian sufficiently to understand the whole of his discourse; but it
seemed to me that its chief purport was an enthusiastic, intense
admiration of the golden hair, blue eyes, and dazzling complexions of
English ladies--a theme that, by no means, appeared to delight Cornelius.
Signor Armari remained with us until the play was over. We then parted
from him, and never once mentioned his name, until we reached the Grove.
Kate was sitting up for us. She received us with a pleased smile, asked
how we had been entertained, and what the play was about. I told her as
well as I could, but, after the second act, my memory was rather at
fault.
Cornelius said, pointedly:
"You must not wonder if she does not remember it better. I was talking to
Armari."
"What, your old friend Armari?" interrupted Kate.
"Yes, he is in England."
He spoke with a calmness that astonished her.
"Are you not delighted to see him?" she asked.
"I am very glad to see Armari," he replied, in a tone of ice. "I have
asked him to dine with us next Thursday. He has promised to bring
Schwab."
"Schwab, too!--was he there?"
"No; he was kept at home by a cold."
"They shall have a good dinner," warmly said Kate. "Midge, is Armari as
handsome as Cornelius described him in his letters?"
"He is good-looking," I replied, awkwardly.
"Pleasant?"
"Yes--I don't know--I think so."
"Armari," gravely said Cornelius, "resembles the celebrated portraits of
Raffaelle. He is something more than good-looking--he is a delightful
companion, and something more than pleasant."
"I am sure he is not the common-place fellow you made him out, Daisy,"
observed Kate.
"I did not make him out anything; I don't think about him at all," I
replied, half vexed.
"Well, you need not colour up so," she said, looking surprised; "and you
need not look so glum about it, Cornelius. Tastes differ."
Neither replied. Miss O'Reilly, whose whole thoughts were absorbed in
hospitality, did not notice this, but added, with a start:
"How long are they to stay?"
"Two or three weeks."
"Then ask them to spend those two or three weeks here," she rejoined,
triumphantly. "I have bed-rooms to spare, you know."
"Here--in the house?" exclaimed Cornelius.
"Where else should I have bed-rooms?"
"Thank you," was his short reply.
"Does thank you, mean yes?"
"No, indeed. What should they do here?"
He seemed impatient and provoked. His sister asked if he would not feel
glad to have his friends near him? He replied "Certainly," but that they
came to see London, and not to coop themselves up in a suburb. Miss
O'Reilly said she would at least make the offer. Her brother looked quite
irritated.
"Schwab will smoke you to death," he said.
"As if I were not used to smoking."
"My cigars are nothing to his Turkish pipe. Besides, he swears awfully."
"In German," philosophically replied Kate. "Let him, Cornelius: I shall
not understand him; and it will only be the worse for his own soul, poor
heathenish fellow."
"He is a confirmed woman-hater."
"Unhappy man, not to know better!--but there is a comfort in it, too. I
shall not be afraid of his making love to Daisy."
"He will eat you out of house and home."
"I am astonished at such a mean, paltry objection," replied Miss
O'Reilly, waxing indignant.
"Well, then," he said, impatiently, "take it for granted that I do not
want Schwab."
"I suppose you could not ask Armari alone?"
"No," was the prompt reply. "To tell you the truth, Kate, I want to work
hard, and their presence in the house would interfere with it."
"Could you not say so at once, instead of abusing that unfortunate
Schwab? Well, your friends shall at least have a good dinner."
Miss O'Reilly was learned in many a dainty dish, and had imparted to me
some of her art. Our united skill and efforts produced as luxurious a
little dinner for five as one need wish to see. The guests were punctual
to the very minute; there was no delay, no spoiling of dishes and chafing
of tempers, and all would have gone on admirably, but for an unlucky
circumstance. Kate and I did not speak Italian, and the friends of
Cornelius did not speak English; bad French was therefore the medium of
our conversation. Kate liked talking, and she sat with a provoked air
between her two guests whom I watched with silent amusement. With his
dark hair, his classical features, ivory throat, and collar turned down ?
la Byron, Signor Armari looked very interesting; but all his vivacity
seemed gone. He hung his handsome head with dismal grace, like a wounded
bird, smiled at the untouched food on his plate, and gave us looks that
seemed to say: "Eat away--eat away."
The injunction was religiously obeyed by his friend Schwab. He belonged
to the handsome Germanic type, and was very like an illustrious
personage. He had an honest, hearty northern appetite, and marched into
the dishes, and tossed off the claret with a careless vigour that edified
Kate. It was pleasant to see him dispatch the choicest dainties of the
dessert without even a smile. When he came indeed to some tarts, in which
I think I may say I had distinguished myself, his countenance relaxed a
little; and when Cornelius informed him that they owed their existence to
me, Mr. Schwab looked at me with an uplifting of the eye-brow expressive
of wonder and admiration.
I had expected a dull evening, and I spent a very pleasant one. The two
friends of Cornelius sang and played admirably, and treated us to the
most exquisite music I had ever heard. Both Kate and I were delighted,
and when they were gone, said how much we had been pleased.
"I like that Schwab," observed Kate, "he is very good-looking, and not
the bear you made him out, Cornelius. He has a good appetite, but your
great eaters are the men after all. The little eaters are only half-and-
half sort of people; and then he sings so well, and so does Armari. How
handsome he is; but how melancholy he looks! Is he in love?"
Cornelius looked on thorns, and replied: "he did not know."
To our surprise and vexation, his friends came no more near us. He said
they found the distance too great, and spent his evenings with them. I
did not like that at all, and one evening spared no coaxing to keep him
at home. I passed my arms around his neck, and caressed him, and
entreated him to stay with me and Kate. He returned the caresses, called
me by every dear name he could think of, protested that he would much
rather stay than go, but left me all the same. I had taken the habit--it
is one easily taken--of being humoured. I now cried with vexation and
grief. Kate said nothing, but privately invited her brother's friends to
come and stay with us. They accepted. I shall never forget the face of
Cornelius, when she quietly informed him they were coming the next day.
"Coming to stay?" he said looking at her incredulously.
"Yes, coming to stay," she composedly replied, "you did not think I was
going to stand that much longer--such a mean way of receiving one's
friends. Why, what would be thought of us in Ireland, if it were known!
For shame, Cornelius, you look quite dismayed."
So he did, and repeated the word "coming!" with ill-repressed irritation.
"Yes, coming!" persisted Kate, "don't trouble yourself about them. I
shall so stuff Mr. Schwab's mouth, as to leave no room even for German
swearing, and I shall turn up Signor Armari into the drawing room where
he may sing Italian to Daisy. So there's a division of tasks."
"Nice division, indeed," said Cornelius, seeming much provoked. "You
forget that I want Daisy."
Our dwelling was honoured the following day by receiving the two
strangers. They had made some progress in English; and though Signor
Armari was still rather melancholy, we got on much better; but to my
annoyance and chagrin, I could scarcely see anything of him or his
friend. In the daytime, Cornelius kept me in his studio, which they never
entered but twice in my absence; in the evening he either went out with
them, or got me in a corner of the sofa, and sat most pertinaciously by
me. Once, however, he was late, and accordingly found me between his two
friends, hearing them through the universal verb, to love, which one
pronounced, "I loaf," and the other, "I loove." They laughed good-
humouredly at their own mistakes, and I laughed too; but Cornelius seemed
to think it no joke, and looked on with a face of tragic gloom.
He took care this should happen no more. At the end of a fortnight our
guests left us. Cornelius saw them off, and came back with a pleased and
relieved aspect that did not escape his sister. I was sitting with her in
the parlour by the fire, for the cold weather was beginning. He sat down
by me, smoked a cigar with evident enjoyment, and declared those were the
two best fellows he had ever met with--Schwab especially. Something in my
face betrayed me; he took out his cigar, and hastily said:
"What is it, Daisy?"
"What is what, Cornelius?"
"What did Armari do to annoy you?"
"He did nothing."
"Why do you look so odd, then?"
I did not answer.
"Why, you foolish fellow," said Kate, laughing, and not heeding my
entreating look, "it was Schwab, that best of good fellows."
"Was he rude or bearish?" asked Cornelius, reddening.
"Rude!" she replied, impatiently, "he was too civil!"
"Schwab!" echoed Cornelius, in the tone of Caesar's 'Et tu Brute'--
"Schwab, too!"
"Cornelius," I said, a little indignantly, "it was Schwab alone, if you
please."
He did not heed me; he was lost in his indignation and astonishment.
"Schwab!" he said again--"Schwab, the woman-hater?"
"There are no women-haters," observed his sister; "her tarts softened his
obdurate heart from the first day, and Cupid did the rest. Now you need
not look so desperately gloomy, Cornelius; he was not more civil than he
had a right to be; and when she let him see quietly she did not like it,
he, sensible man, thought there were girls as good and as pretty in
Germany, and did not break his heart about her. He kept his own counsel,
so did we; and but for me, you would be none the wiser."
"Thank you," shortly said Cornelius, "but as I know this much, and as I
am sure there is more, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me all
about Armari now."
"Ah! poor fellow," sighed Kate, "he is in a very bad way; I noticed he
could scarcely eat, and Schwab said he had not slept a wink since that
night at the play."
"He will get over it," impatiently interrupted Cornelius. "I have known
him seven times in the same way."
"Then he must lead rather an agitated life; but, as I was saying, or
rather, as Mr. Schwab told me, he has lost rest and appetite since that
night at the play, when he saw the beautiful Mrs. Gleaver in the box next
yours."
She knew all about the opera-glass, and glanced mischievously at her
brother. He reddened, looked disconcerted, and exclaimed hastily:
"I don't believe a bit of that."
"Yes, you do," she replied quietly, "and now, Cornelius, mind my words:
that sort of thing is not in the girl's way, and will not be for a good
time yet; perhaps never, for she has a very flinty heart."
"Don't I know it?" he replied composedly, "and was it not Christian
charity made me uneasy about poor Armari? I feared lest that brown,
golden hair of hers," he added, smoothing it as he spoke, "might prove
such a web as even his heart could not break. Lest her eyebrow, so dark
and fine, might be the very bow of Cupid. Lest--"
"Spare us the rest," interrupted Kate, "it must be an arrow shot from the
eye at the very least. Don't you see, besides, the girl has sense enough
to laugh at it all; though I don't mean to say that if Signor Armari
loses his heart and gets it back again so easily, he might not have paid
her that little compliment. However, he did not, and it is as well, for
she does not chance to be one of those soft girls, who, poor things, must
be in love to exist; and her jealous grandpapa, who does not care about
her himself, and yet won't let another have her, is, if he but knew it,
perfectly safe."
"Is he?" said Cornelius, throwing back his head in his old way.
"Indeed he is," replied his sister, poking the fire in her old way, too;
"another piece of advice, Cornelius: don't make the girl vain by talking
and acting, as if she were the only decent-looking one in existence."
"There grows but one flower in my garden," he said, looking at me with a
fond smile, "and so I fancy that every one casts on it a longing eye; as
if elsewhere there grew no flowers."
His flower laid her head upon his shoulder, and looking up in his face,
laughed at him for his pains.
"Laugh away!" he observed philosophically, "you have opened in the shade,
and you know nothing of the sun; but the sun, my little Daisy, will shine
on you yet."