I awoke late on the following morning, dazzled by the sunshine which
filled the room. I was alone, but on the staircase outside I heard Miss
O'Reilly's voice, exclaiming--
"Deborah, will you never clean those door-steps?"
With this, she opened the door and came in. I looked at her; her cheek
was fresh, her eyes were bright and clear. With a smile, she asked how I
felt, said I did not look amiss, and helped me to rise and dress,
chatting cheerfully all the time. A lonely breakfast awaited me in the
back parlour; I looked in vain for Cornelius.
"He is gone to the City, and will not be back till five," said Miss
O'Reilly. "What, already done! Why, child, how little you eat!" she added
with concern; "go into the garden, and run about for awhile."
She opened a glass door, through which came a green and sunny glimpse of
a pleasant-looking garden beyond. Without being small, it had the look of
a bower, and a very charming bower it was, fragrant and wild. In the
centre of a grass-plat rose an old sun-dial of grey stone, with many a
green mossy tint. Around wound a circular path, between which and the
wall extended a broad space filled with lilac-trees, laburnums, thickets
of gorse and broom, and where, though half wild and neglected, also grew,
according to their season, cool blue hyacinths, yellow crocuses with
their glowing hearts, gay daffodils, pale primroses, snowdrops, shy hare-
bells, fair lilies of the valley, tall foxgloves of many a rich dark hue,
summer roses laden with perfume, stately holly-hocks, bright China-
asters, and bending chrysanthemums--"a wilderness of sweets." The wall
itself, when it could be seen, was not without some charm and verdure. It
was old and crumbling, but bristling with bright snap-dragons, yellow
with stonecrop above, and green below with dark ivy that trailed and
crept along the ground. From a few rusty nails hung, torn and wild,
banners of tangled honeysuckle and jasmine, haunted by the bees of a
neighbouring hive. Two tall and noble poplars, growing on either side the
wooden door by which Cornelius and I had entered, cast their narrow line
of waving shadow over the whole place, which they filled with a low
rustling murmur. The lane behind was silent; beyond it, and everywhere
around, extended gardens, wide or small, where quiet dwellings rose in
the shade and shelter of embowering trees; still further on, spread a
rising horizon, bounded by lines of low hills, where grey clouds lay
lazily sleeping all the day long.
On this autumn morning, Miss O'Reilly's garden was little more than warm,
green, and sunny. The poplars had strewn it with sere and yellow leaves,
and of the flowers none remained save a few late roses, China-asters, and
chrysanthemums. I walked around it, then sat down on the flag at the foot
of the sun-dial, and amused myself with looking at the house.
It was one of those low-roofed, red-tiled, and antiquated abodes, which
can still be seen on the outskirts of London, daily removed, it is true,
to make room for the modern cottage and villa. It stood between a quiet
street and a lonely lane, a plain brick building, with many-paned
windows, half hid by clustering ivy, which shadowed its projecting porch,
and gave it a gloom both soft and deep. A screen of ivy sloping down to
the garden-wall partly separated it from a larger house, to which, in
point of fact, it belonged; both had originally formed one abode, but,
for the purpose of letting, had thus been subdivided by Miss O'Reilly,
whose property they had recently become. On either side, the double
building was sheltered by young trees. It looked secluded, lone, and
ancient: an abode where generations had lived and loved.
From contemplating it, I turned to watching a spider's web, one of my
favourite occupations in our garden at Rock Cottage.
"Well!" said the frank voice of Miss O'Reilly.
I looked up; the sun fell full on the house, and on the three worn stone
steps that led down to the garden, but she stood above them, beneath the
ivied porch, where she looked fresh and cool, like a bright flower in the
shade. She gazed at me with her head a little pensively inclined towards
her right shoulder; then said gently--
"Why do you sit, instead of running about?"
"It tires me so."
"Poor little thing! but you must move. Come in; go about the house; walk
up and down stairs; open the cupboards, look, do something."
"Yes, Ma'am," I replied, astonished however at her singular behests.
"You must call me Kate; say Kate."
I did so; for, like her brother, it was not easy to say her nay. With a
kind smile, she sent me on my voyage of discovery. The only apartment
that interested me was a room lying at the top of the house, and which I
considered to be the lumber-room. It was filled with plaster casts and
old dusty pictures without frames; the greater part were turned to the
wall; a few that were exposed looked dull in the warm sun-light pouring
in on them through the open window; before it stood a deal table, on
which, after examining the pictures. I got up.
"Daisy, what are you doing there?" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, entering the
room; "come down."
I obeyed, but said in a tone of chagrin--
"I cannot see the sea!"
"I should think not. Why did you turn those pictures?"
"I found them so, Kate."
She frowned slightly; turned them back, every one, then said gravely--
"You must not come here any more; it is the study of Cornelius. He reads
and writes here."
"Did he paint them?" I asked, with sudden interest.
"No," was the short answer; "they are by my father, who has been dead
some years."
"Why does he not paint pictures too?"
"Bless the child!" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, turning on me a flushed and
annoyed face; but she checked herself to observe, "He is at a bank, and
has neither time nor inclination for painting."
With this we left the room, and went down to the front parlour, where she
worked, and I amused myself with a book until the clock struck five. I
then looked up at Miss O'Reilly.
"Yes," she said, smiling, "he will soon be here." But there was a delay
of ten or fifteen minutes: she saw me restless with expectation, and
good-naturedly told me I might go and look out for him at the back-door.
I jumped up with an eagerness that again made her smile, and having
promised not to pass the threshold of the garden, I ran out to watch for
Cornelius, as I had formerly so often watched for my father. The lane was
green, silent, and lonely, with high hawthorn hedges, a few overshadowing
trees, and a narrow path ever encroached on by grass, weeds, and low
trailing plants. Ere long I saw Cornelius appear in the distance; he
walked with his eyes on the ground, and never saw me until he had reached
the door. He entered, and in passing by me carelessly stroked my hair by
way of greeting. To his sister, who stood waiting for him on the last
step of the house, he gave the embrace without which they never met or
parted.
The tea was made and waiting. Miss O'Reilly poured it out, and called me
from where I sat apart, feeling shy and unnoticed, to hand his cup to her
brother, who was again lying on the sofa. He asked how I had behaved.
"Too well; she is too quiet."
"Shall we send her to school!" said Cornelius.
I turned round from the table, to give him an entreating look, which he
did not heed.
"She is too weak; we must teach her ourselves," replied his sister.
I heard the decision with great relief. A school was my horror. When the
meal was over, I made my way to Cornelius, and half whispered--
"Will _you_ teach me?"
"Perhaps so; well, don't look disappointed--I will."
"What do you know?"
"Grammar, history, geography--"
"I can vouch for the geography," interrupted Miss O'Reilly.
"We shall see."
He examined me; I did my best to answer well, and waited for his verdict
with a beating heart.
"What do you think of her?" asked his sister, who now re-entered the
room, which she had left for awhile.
"She won't fit in it!" replied Cornelius, giving me a perplexed look.
"What?"
"Ah! I forgot to tell you. I bought her a cot, or crib--what do you call
it?--I fear she won't fit in it! Can't we shorten her?"
"You have bought her a bed!" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, looking confounded,
and laying down her work.
"Yes; come here, Daisy."
He measured me with his eye, then added triumphantly, "She will fit in
it; it is just her size, Kate! see if it is not, when it arrives! just
her size."
"Just her size! bless the boy! does he not mean the poor child to grow?"
"Faith!" exclaimed Cornelius, looking astonished, "I never thought of
that, never!--and yet," he added thoughtfully, "I think I can remember
her shorter than she is now."
"You are the most foolish lad in all Ireland!" hotly observed Miss
O'Reilly, with whom, though she had left it many years, her native
country was ever present.
She gave him a scolding, which he bore with perfect good-humour. A little
mollified by this, she changed the subject by asking--
"Well, how did the child answer?"
"Oh,--hem! Oh, very well, of course."
He had already forgotten all about it, as I felt, with some
mortification. Quite unconscious of this, he rose, opened the piano, and
turning to his sister, said--
"What shall I sing you, Kate?"
"Anything you like,--one of the Melodies."
She sat back to listen, with her hand across her eyes, whilst, in a rich
harmonious voice, her brother sang one of those wild and beautiful Irish
melodies,--plaintive as the songs of their own land which the captives of
Sion sang by the rivers of Babylon. I listened, entranced, until he
closed the piano, and read aloud to his sister from a book of travels,
which sent me fast asleep.
Happy are the bereaved children whom Providence leads to the harbour of
such a home as I had found! Cornelius and his sister lived in a retired
way; their tastes were simple; their means moderate; but their home,
though quiet, was pleasant like a shady bower, where the waving trees let
in ever-new glimpses of the blue sky, with gliding sun beams and many a
wandering breeze. There was a genial light and vivacity about them; an
endless variety of moods, never degenerating into ill-temper; a pleasant
union of shrewdness, simplicity, and originality, which lent a great
charm to their daily intercourse. To be with them was to breathe an
atmosphere of cheerful, living peace, far removed from the fatal and
enervating calmness which makes a pain of repose.
I knew them at the least troubled period of their lives. They were the
children, by different mothers, of an ambitious and disappointed artist,
who had left Ireland ardent with hope, and after vainly struggling
against obscurity for a few years, had died in London, poor, miserable,
and broken-hearted.
For some years his daughter supported herself and her young brother by
teaching; then my father, who had long known them, came to her aid, and
insisted on defraying the expenses of the education of Cornelius. She
struggled on alone, until, about a year before I saw her, an old
relative, who had never assisted her in her poverty, died, leaving her a
moderate income, and the house in which we now resided. Towards the same
time Cornelius, who had completed his studies, instead of entering one of
the learned professions, as his sister urged him to do, accepted of a
situation in the City. This was one of the few subjects on which they
differed; but it was seldom alluded to, and never allowed to disturb the
harmony of their home. On most points they agreed; on none more entirely
than in taking every care of their adopted child.
Cornelius had a memory tenacious of benefits and injuries. He thought
himself bound to watch over the orphan daughter of his benefactor and
friend. He took me, indeed, to my grandfather--my natural protector; but,
on learning from Miss Murray the footing on which I was said to be
treated in Mr. Thornton's house, he at once set off to obtain possession
of me, "if possible," not being quite prepared for the ease with which
his object was accomplished.
I rejoiced in the change, as might a plant removed from deadly shade to
living sunshine. My health improved; I became more cheerful. Every day I
walked out with Kate in the neighbourhood. It was then one of the
prettiest suburbs about London. We lived in a street called the "Grove,"
and which deserved its name, for it was planted with old trees, and
passed like a broad walk through the gardens on either side, where, like
brown nests in a green hedge, appeared a few ancient houses irregularly
built, and still more irregularly scattered. But its lanes were the great
attraction of this vicinity.
If we opened the garden door we entered a verdant wilderness of paths
crossing one another; and each was (and there lay the charm) in itself a
solitude. Country lanes may break the grand lines of a landscape; but, in
the neighbourhood of a great and crowded city, every glimpse of nature is
pleasant and lovely. I remember the sense of serene happiness I felt in
walking out with Kate in the early morning, along a quiet path; now,
alas! crowded with villas, but then called "Nightingale lane," and
sheltered on one side by a cheerful orchard, with its white and fragrant
blossoms in Spring, or its bending fruit in Autumn, glittering in the
rising sun; and, on the other, screened by a row of elms, whose ancient
roots grasped earth in the tenacious hold of ages, and whose broad base
young green shoots veiled with a tender grace. The horizon on our left
was bounded by an old park, a stately, motionless grove of beech-trees,
above which, bending to every breeze, rose a few tall and graceful
poplars; to our right, hidden in its garden, lay our humble home. Kate,
reading her favourite Thomas ? Kempis, walked on, her eyes bent on the
page; I followed more slowly, reading, child though I was, from the
Divine book man cannot improve, and vainly tries to mar.
Between the path and the hedge which enclosed the orchard, lay a broad
ditch. There grew green grasses, that bent to the breeze like forests,
and beneath which flowed a faint thread of water, the river of that small
world, peopled with nations of insects, and which to me possessed both
attraction and beauty. For there the ground-ivy trailed along the earth,
its delicate blue flowers hidden by fresh leaves; there rose the purple
bugle, the stately dead-nettle, with its broad leaves and white whorls,
and grew the cheerful celandine, bright buttercups, the sunny dandelion,
the diminutive shepherd's purse, the starry blossoms of the chickweed,
the dark bitter-sweet with its poisonous red berries, the frail and
transparent flowers of the bindweed, sheltered in the prickly hedge like
shy or captive beauties, with every other common weed and plant which man
despises, and God disdained not to fashion.
My communion with nature, though restricted, was very sweet. I was
debarred from her wildness and grandeur, but I became all the more
familiar with those aspects which she takes around human homes. And is
there not a great charm in the very way in which man and nature meet? The
narrow garden, its flowers and shrubs so tenderly protected and cared
for, the ivy that clings around the porch, the grass that half disputes
the little beaten path, have a half wild, half domestic grace, I have
often felt as deeply, as the romantic beauty of ancient glens, where
mountain torrents make a way through pathless solitudes. My world might
seem narrow, but I never found it so whilst the deep skies, with all
their changes, spread above to tell of infinity, and the sweet and
mysterious song of free birds, under distant cover, allured thought away
to many a green and shady bower.
Not less pleasant to me were the autumn evenings. They still stand forth
on the background of memory, as vivid and minutely distinct as the home
scenes, by light of lamp or fire-flame, which the old masters like to
paint. Cornelius loved music and poetry, those two glorious gifts of God
to man. He played and sang with taste, and read well. When the piano was
closed, he took down some favourite volume from the bookcase, and gave us
a few scenes from Shakspeare, a grand passage from Milton, a calm
meditative page from Wordsworth. Sometimes he opened AEschylus,
Sophocles, or Euripides, and, translating freely, transported us into a
world gone by, but beautiful and human in its passions and sorrows. Miss
O'Reilly listened attentively; then, after hearing some fine fragment
from the Bound Prometheus, some stirring description from the Seven
against Thebes, she would look up from her work and say, with mingled
wonder and admiration--
"That is grand, Cornelius!"
"Is it not?" he would reply, with kindling glance, for they both had the
same strong admiration for the heroic and great.
I should have been very happy, but for one drawback. It was natural,
perhaps, that having been reared by my father, and never having known my
mother, I should attach myself to Cornelius in preference to his sister.
But in vain I strove to win his attention and favour; in vain I ran, not
merely on his bidding, but on a word and on a look; gave him his hat and
gloves in the morning; watched for him every fine evening at the garden
gate; followed him about the house like his shadow, sat when he sat,
happy if I could but catch his eye; in vain I showed him how devotedly
fond I was of him; he treated me with the most tantalizing mixture of
kindness, carelessness, and indifference. Half the time, he did not seem
to see me about the house; when he became conscious that I existed, he
gave me a careless nod and smile. If I did anything for him he thanked
me, and stroked my hair; yet if I looked unwell, he was quick to notice
it. He occasionally made me small presents of books and toys, and every
evening he devoted several hours to the task of teaching me. I worked
hard to give him satisfaction, but he only took this as a matter of
course; called me a good child, and, as I was quiet and silent, generally
allowed me to sit somewhere near him for the rest of the evening, and
this was all: he seldom caressed, he never kissed me.
With his sister Cornelius was very different, and I felt the contrast
keenly. He loved her tenderly; he was proud of her beauty; he liked to
call her his handsome Kate, to talk and jest with her, and often, too, to
sit by her and caress her with a fondness more filial than brotherly;
whilst I looked on, not merely unheeded, but wholly forgotten.
Of course I was still less thought of, when, as happened occasionally,
evening visitors dropped in. I remember a dark-eyed Miss Hart, who kept
up a gay quarrel with Cornelius, and of whom I was miserably jealous,
until, to my great satisfaction, she got married and went into the
country; also a bald and learned Mr. Mountford, whom I disliked heartily
for keeping Cornelius to himself, but who, in a lucky hour, having made
an offer to Kate and being rejected, came no more; likewise Mr. Leopold
Trim, whom I detested on the score of his own merits.
As I entered the front parlour on a mild autumn afternoon which I had
spent in the garden, I found Miss O'Reilly entertaining him and another
gentleman. Mr. Trim sat by the fire in his usual attitude: that is to
say, with his hands benevolently resting on his knees, his little eyes
peering about the room, and his capacious mouth good-naturedly open.
"Eh! little Daisy!" he said, in his warm husky voice, "and how are you,
little Daisy, eh?"
He stretched out an arm--long, for so short a man--and attempted to seize
on me for the kind purpose of bestowing a kiss; but I eluded his grasp,
and took refuge behind Miss O'Reilly's chair, whence I looked at him
rather ungraciously. Mr. Trim took this as an excellent joke, threw
himself back in his chair, shut his little eyes, opened his mouth wider,
and gave utterance to a boisterous "Ha! ha!" that ended all at once in a
strange sort of squeak. Miss O'Reilly frowned; she never heard that laugh
with patience.
"Daisy," she said, "go and shake hands with Mr. Smalley, an old friend of
Cornelius."
I was shy, but that name had a spell; I obeyed it at once. Morton Smalley
was a pale, slender, and good-looking young clergyman, with a stoop, and
a long neck; he seemed amiable, and might be said to look meekly into the
world through a pair of gold spectacles and over an immaculate white
neckcloth. He sat on the edge of his chair, nervously holding his hat;
yet when I went up to him, he held out his hand with a smile so kind, and
looked at me so benignantly through his glasses, that my shyness vanished
at once.
"That Smalley always was a lucky fellow with the ladies," ejaculated Mr.
Trim, once more peering round the room with his hands on his knees.
Mr. Smalley blushed rosy red at the imputation.
"A very wild fellow he used to be, I assure you, Ma'am,--ha! ha!"
"My dear Trim," nervously began Mr. Smalley.
"Now, don't Smalley," deprecatingly interrupted Leopold Trim,--"don't be
severe; you always are so confoundedly severe."
"Not in an unchristian manner, I hope," observed Mr. Smalley, looking
uncomfortable.
"As if _I_ meant any harm!" continued Mr. Trim, looking low-spirited; "as
if any one minded the jokes of a good-natured fellow like _me!_"
Mr. Smalley looked remorseful.
"Don't be afraid of me, my dear," he said to me, "I am very fond of
little girls."
"Oh! I am not afraid," I replied, confidently; for he did not look as if
he could hurt a fly.
Mr. Smalley brightened, and began questioning me; I answered readily. He
looked surprised and said--
"You are really very well informed, my dear."
"It is Cornelius who teaches me," I replied proudly.
"Then my wonder ceases. We were all proud of your brother, Ma'am,"
observed Mr. Smalley, addressing Kate, "and grateful--"
"For fighting all your battles--eh, Smalley?" kindly interrupted Mr.
Trim.
Mr. Smalley coloured, but subdued the carnal man, to answer meekly--
"I objected on principle to the unchristian encounters which take place
amongst boys, and I certainly owed much to the superior physical strength
of our valued friend."
"Lord, Smalley! how touchy you are!" exclaimed Mr. Trim, with mournful
surprise.
"Not in this case, surely," Mr. Smalley anxiously replied; "how could I
take your remarks unkindly, when you know it was actually with you our
dear friend had that first little affair--"
"It is very well for you, who looked on, to call it a little affair,"
rather sharply interrupted Mr. Trim, "but I never got such a drubbing."
Kate laughed gaily. Mr. Smalley, finding he had unconsciously been
sarcastic, looked confounded, and tried to get out of it by suddenly
finding out that when Miss O'Reilly laughed she was very like her
brother. But Mr. Trim was on him directly. He, as every one knew, was as
blind as a bat; but how did it happen that Smalley, who wore glasses, and
pretended to have weak eyes, could yet see well enough to discover
likenesses? He put the question with an air of injured candour. Mr.
Smalley protested that his eyes were weak; but Mr. Trim proved to him so
clearly that he was physically and mentally as sharp-eyed as a lynx, that
his friend gave in, a convicted impostor, and took refuge in the
Dorsetshire curacy to which he was proceeding, and of which he gave an
account that might have answered for a bishopric. But thither too, Mr.
Trim pursued him, and broadly hinted at the selfishness of some people,
who could think of nothing but that which concerned them. Upon which Mr.
Smalley, looking at Kate, declared in self-defence that it was not
through indifference, but from a sense of discretion, he had not inquired
in what branch of literature, science, or art, her brother was now
distinguishing himself. Miss O'Reilly reddened, and looked indignantly at
Mr. Trim, who, with his eyes shut and his hands on his knees, had
suddenly dropped into a doze by the fire-side. Then she drew up her
slender figure, and said stiffly--
"My brother is a clerk, Sir."
Mr. Smalley looked at her with mute and incredulous surprise.
"Don't you remember I told you?" observed Mr. Trim, wakening up: "we were
turning the corner of Oxford-street."
Mr. Smalley remembered turning the corner of Oxford-street, but no more.
"Yes, yes," confidently resumed Mr. Trim, "we were turning the corner of
Oxford-street, when I said to you, 'Is it not a shame a scholar, a genius
like O'Reilly, should be perched up on a high stool in a dirty hole of an
office--'"
"It was his own choice," interrupted Kate, and she began speaking of the
weather.
Five struck; I stole out of the room, went to the garden, and opening the
door, stood on the threshold to watch for Cornelius. I soon saw him, and
ran out to meet him.
"Mr. Trim is come," I said.
"Is he?" was the careless reply.
"And Mr. Smalley, too."
Cornelius uttered a joyful exclamation, and hastened in, leaving me the
door to close. The greeting of the two friends was not over when I
entered the parlour. They stood in a proximity that rendered more
apparent Mr. Smalley's feminine slenderness as contrasted with the erect
and decided bearing of Cornelius, who, although much younger, had, as if
by the intuitive remembrance of their old relation of protector and
protected, laid his hand on the shoulder of his former school-fellow,
looking down at him with a pleased smile.
"Don't you think he's grown?" asked Mr. Trim.
"More than you," was the short reply.
"How much _you_ are altered!" said Mr. Smalley, surveying his friend with
evident admiration.
"And so are you," replied Cornelius, glancing at his clerical attire: "I
congratulate you."
The Reverend Morton Smalley coloured a little, and, with a proud and
happy smile, replied, gently squeezing the hand of Cornelius--
"Thank you, my dear friend; I have indeed obtained the privilege of
entering our beloved Church--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Mr. Trim, peering around, "Smalley always liked
the ladies,--ha! ha!"
Mr. Smalley reddened and looked hurt, like a lover who hears his mistress
slighted. Cornelius, who still stood with his hand on the shoulder of his
friend, slowly turned towards Mr. Trim, to say, in a tone of ice--
"Did you speak, Trim?"
Mr. Trim opened his eyes with an alarmed start, as if he rather expected
a sort of sequel to "the little affair" of their early days.
"Why, it is only a joke," he hastily replied; "I like a joke, you know;
but who minds _me?_"
Before Cornelius could answer, Miss O'Reilly closed the discussion by
ringing for tea. Mr. Trim, who now seemed gathered up into himself, like
a snail in his shell, drank six cups in profound silence, then went back
to the fireside, where, shutting his eyes, he indulged in a nap. Miss
O'Reilly was as silent as a hostess could well be. I sat near her,
unnoticed, but attentive.
Both during and after the meal the conversation was left to Cornelius and
his friend. They spoke of Mr. Smalley's prospects; of the Dorsetshire
curacy, on which he again dwelt _con amore;_ they talked of old times,
laughed over old jokes, and exchanged information concerning old
companions and school-fellows, now scattered far and wide.
"What has become of Smith?" asked Cornelius.
"He is in the army."
"And Griffiths in the navy. You know that Blake is a physician, at
Manchester?"
"Yes, and Reed has turned gentleman-farmer--is going to marry--"
"And lead a pastoral life. I am glad they are all doing well."
"Smalley!" observed Mr. Trim, wakening up, "tell O'Reilly you think it a
shame for a fine fellow like him to poke in an office."
"_Et tu Brute!_" exclaimed Cornelius, turning round to Mr. Smalley, who
replied, a little embarrassed--
"I confess I was surprised--"
"What did you expect from me?"
"Well, remembering your argumentative powers and flow of speech--"
"The law! Smalley, do you, a clergyman, advise me to set unfortunate
people by the ears?"
Mr. Smalley looked startled, and took refuge in the healing art.
"The medical profession affords opportunities of benevolence--"
"And of being called up at two in the morning, to the relief of
apoplectic gentlemen and ladies in distress."
"Shall I then suggest the army?"
"Would you advise me to make fighting a profession?"
"I fear the navy is open to the same objection," gently observed Mr.
Smalley; but he suddenly brightened, laid one hand on the arm of
Cornelius, and, raising the forefinger of the other, to impress on him
the importance of the discovery, he said earnestly, "My dear friend, how
odd it is that you should have forgotten the wide world of science,
literature, and art, for which you are so wonderfully gifted!"
"Am I?" carelessly replied Cornelius. He sat on the hearth, facing the
fire; he stooped, took up the poker, and began to drive in the coals,
much in his sister's way.
"Why, you are a first-rate scholar."
"Learning is worthless now. Besides, cannot I enjoy my old authors
without driving bargains out of them?"
"But science?"
"I have no patience for it; then it is hard work, and I am indolent."
"And literature?"
"Bid me become one of the builders of the Tower of Babel," hastily
interrupted Cornelius. "No, Smalley, the office, with its paltry salary,
moderate labour, and, heaven be praised for it, its absence from care, is
the thing for me." He laid down the poker, and reclined back in his chair
with careless indolence. Mr. Smalley slowly rubbed his forehead with his
forefinger, and looked at Cornelius through his glasses and over his
neckcloth, with a gently puzzled air. Then he turned to Miss O'Reilly,
and said simply--
"Your brother's philosophy puts me to shame, Ma'am: yet I used to think
him ambitious, and I remember that once--I mean no reflection--one of the
older boys having doubted his ability to--to do something or other--our
dear friend being somewhat hasty, pushed him so that he fell."
"Say I knocked him down," replied Cornelius, reddening and trying to
laugh. "Well, those days are gone, and with them the knocking-down
propensity, as well as the ambition: I have become as meek and lowly as a
lamb."
He threw back his head with the clear keen look of a hawk, and a curl of
the lip implying no great degree of meekness.
"Yes," quietly said Kate from her corner, "the child is not always father
of the man."
Cornelius bit his lip; Mr. Trim, who was again napping, woke up with a
Ha! ha! Then, standing up to look at the clock on the mantelpiece, asked
Mr. Smalley "if he called this Christian conduct."
"You know," he added with feeling reproach, "that we have that
appointment at seven with Jameson, that I am half blind, the most
unfortunate fellow for dozing and forgetting, whilst you always have your
wits about you, and are quite a telescope for seeing. Oh! Smalley!" He
shook his head at him, peering around the room with eyes that looked
smaller than ever. Mr. Smalley attempted a justification on the score of
not remembering that the appointment had been made; but Leopold Trim
hinted that it was too much to expect him to believe that; though, having
been always more or less victimized and imposed upon by Smalley, he was
getting used to it. Mr. Smalley expressed his penitence by rising at
once, and this brought their visit to an abrupt close. The door was
scarcely shut on them, when Miss O'Reilly, poking the fire with great
vigour and vivacity, looked up at Cornelius and said--
"I don't believe in Trim; I don't believe in his voice; in his bark and
whistle laugh: in his eyes or in his dozing: I don't believe in him at
all."
"But Smalley?"
"He is a good young man," she replied impressively.
"Cornelius is a great deal better," I put in, quickly; "he fought for Mr.
Smalley, who never fought for him."
"Did you ever hear such a conclusion!" exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, laying
down the poker; "fighting made the test of excellence! You naughty girl!
don't you see Mr. Smalley was a Christian lad, and Cornelius a young
heathen?"
"I like the heathens," was my reply, more prompt than orthodox: "they
were always brave; Achilles was, and so was Hector," I added, with a shy
look at Cornelius, whom I had secretly identified with the Trojan hero.
Hector laughed, and told me to bring the books for the lessons. I
remember that I answered him particularly well,--so well, that his sister
asked if I was not progressing.
"Very much," he carelessly replied. "Kate, what has become of that 'Go
where Glory waits thee'?"
"I really don't know. Child, what are you about?" I was on my knees,
hunting through the music, ardent and eager to find the piece he wanted.
He allowed me to search, and sat down by his sister.
"Cornelius, here it is," I said, standing before him with the piece of
music in my hand.
"Thank you, put it there. Kate, Smalley is smitten with you!"
"Nonsense, boy, go and sing your song."
He laughed; rose and kissed her blooming cheek. He had never so much as
looked at me. Whilst he sang, I sat at the end of the piano as usual;
when he closed the instrument and went to the sofa, I followed him and
drew my stool at the foot of the couch. There he indolently lay for
awhile; then suddenly started up, and walked, or rather lounged about the
room, looking at the books on the table, at the flowers in the stand, and
talking to his sister. I rose, and, unperceived as I thought, I followed
him quietly; walking when he walked, stopping when he stopped, and
waiting for the favourable moment to catch a look and obtain, perhaps, a
negligent caress.
"It is most extraordinary," exclaimed Miss O'Reilly, who had been
watching me.
"What is extraordinary, Kate?"
"How that child persists in sneaking after you, as if she were a little
spaniel and you were her master!"
"Is she not gone to bed yet?" asked Cornelius, turning round to give me a
surprised look.
"She is going," replied Miss O'Reilly, rising and taking my hand: "early
to bed and early to rise. By the bye, Cornelius, do try and get up
earlier. It is too bad to keep breakfast as you do until near nine every
morning, with the tea not worth drinking, and the ham getting cold with
waiting."
She spoke with some solemnity. He laughed, and promised to amend,
throwing the whole fault on "that dreadful indolence of his."
But he did not amend; for though the next morning was bright and sunny as
an autumn morning can be, eight struck, and yet Cornelius did not come
down, to the infinite detriment of tea and ham. This was but the
repetition of a long-standing offence, until then patiently endured; but
Miss O'Reilly now put by patience; she looked at the clock, gave the fire
a good poke, and, knitting her smooth brow, exclaimed--
"I should like to know why it is that Cornelius will persist in getting
up late!"
She was not addressing me; it was rather one of her peculiarities--and
she had many--to soliloquize, and I was accustomed to it; but I now
raised my eyes from the grammar I was studying, and, looking at her, I
listened. She detected this.
"Did you ever see anything like it?" she emphatically observed,
questioning that unknown individual with whom she often held a sort of
interrogative discourse; "why, if that child were fast asleep, and you
only whispered my brother's name, she would wake up directly. Oh! Midge,
Midge!" She shook her head as though scarcely approving a feeling so
exclusive, and gave the fire a slow meditative thrust. The clock, by
striking half-past eight, roused her from her abstraction.
"Daisy," she said very seriously, "go and knock at the door of Cornelius,
and tell him the hour." I obeyed; that is to say, I went upstairs; but I
found the door standing wide open, and the room vacant, so I proceeded to
the little study, thinking Cornelius might perhaps be there. I knocked at
the door and received no answer; I knocked again with the same result.
Then I perceived that the door was not quite shut, but stood ajar; I
gently pushed it open and looked in. The little table was not in its
usual place; it stood so as to receive the most favourable degree of
light; before it sat Cornelius in a bending attitude, and, as I saw at a
glance, drawing from one of the plaster casts.