On the following morning, Kate sent me up my breakfast as usual, and
accompanied it with a message that I was not to think of rising before
twelve. But I felt strong again; besides I was eager to surprise
Cornelius; I hastily donned the ragged attire of the Stolen Child and ran
up to the studio. I entered abruptly, then stood still.
In the centre of the room stood Miriam, clad in strange attire. A white
robe fell to her feet; a blue cashmere scarf was wrapped around her fine
person; her fair hair was braided back from her face; her arms, as
beautiful as those of an antique statue, were as bare. Cornelius stood
looking at her with eager delight, and never noticed my entrance.
"I am not sure," he said, "that the costume is correct, but I know I
never saw even you look so beautiful!"
She smiled, and sank down on the low couch, with negligent grace. One arm
fell loosely by her side, the other supported her cheek.
"Do not stir," eagerly cried Cornelius: "that is the very attitude! Oh!
Miriam, what a glorious picture it will make!" and walking round her, he
surveyed her keenly.
"You think of nothing but your pictures," she said, impatiently.
"Why do you tempt me? Just allow me to move your left arm."
With chilling indifference, she passively allowed him to move her
beautiful arms at his pleasure.
"There!" he said, drawing back, "it is perfect now."
"Outstretched! theatrical!" she replied ironically.
"Can you mend it?" asked Cornelius, looking piqued.
She did not answer, but by just drawing in a little, and bending more
forward, she threw into her face, into her look, attitude, and bearing, a
strange intensity of eager watchfulness, that made her fixed gaze seem as
if piercing the depths of an invisible horizon. Cornelius looked at her
with wonder and admiration.
"That is indeed Medora," he frankly said at length: "Oh! Miriam, never
tell me, after this, you do not care for Art! and now be merciful, let me
sketch you thus."
"And the stolen child, who is waiting?" she said, glancing at me.
"What, Daisy!" he exclaimed, seeing me for the first time.
Miriam attempted to rise; he eagerly turned back to her, and entreated
her so ardently to remain thus, that she yielded. When he had prevailed,
he turned to me.
"Daisy," he said gaily, "you are a good little girl, but you may take off
your picturesque attire."
Alas! so I might: the sorceress had conquered me in my last stronghold!
At first Miss Russell would not hear of sitting for anything more
finished and elaborate than a sketch in crayons, but from the sketch to a
water-colour drawing, and from this again to an oil painting, the
progression was rapid: at length the Stolen Child was wholly set aside
and replaced on the easel by Medora. I had before lost Cornelius in the
evening, in his moments of leisure and liberty, I now lost him at his
labour; the intruder stepped in between him and me on the very spot where
I thought myself most secure, and I had to look on and see it, for Miriam
objected, it seems, to sitting to Cornelius alone; Kate had something
else to do than to keep them company: the task was left to me.
That Miriam should sit to Cornelius instead of me, was the least part of
my grief; I had never expected that he would always paint little girls:
the sitting in itself was nothing, but it led to much that it was acute
misery for a jealous child like me to witness.
I was not accustomed to be much noticed by Cornelius in the studio, but
if he had a look to spare from his picture, a word to utter in a pause of
his work, he gave both look and word to the child who sat to him, or
silently watched him painting, and now this was taken from me! I was to
my face robbed and impoverished, that another might be enriched with all
I lost. For two years I had reigned in that studio, of which not even
Kate shared the empire; for two years Cornelius had there spoken to me of
his art, of his future, of everything that was linked with this proud aim
and darling ambition of his life; and now another listened to his
aspirations; another heard every passing thought and feeling which,
though a child, it had once been mine to hear, and I had to look on and
see it all.
But it was not all.
I did not merely see Miriam enjoying whatever I had once enjoyed; I saw
her loved as I had never been loved, possessed of a thousand things which
had never been mine to lose. Miriam was a woman, an intellectual,
educated woman; she could do more than listen to Cornelius, she could
converse with him; she did do so, and constantly she showed me the
immense superiority which her knowledge and her years gave her over a
mere child like me. She had also become converted to Art, and if not so
fervent a disciple as I had been, she was certainly a far more
discriminating critic. Her sense of the beautiful was keen and peculiar.
She seldom admired it under its daily external aspects, but she could
detect it where it seemed invisible to others, and was by them unsought
for. She never agreed with Cornelius about what he considered the merits
of his pictures; but then, by showing him other real merits of which he
had remained unconscious, she charmed more than she ever provoked him.
With his fair mistress to sit to him, to look at and talk to--what could
Cornelius want with me? It was natural that involuntary and unconscious
carelessness should creep into his kindest words and caresses; that,
exclusively absorbed in Miriam, he should often forget my presence; that
his look, perpetually fastened on her, should seldom fall on me; that
every word he uttered should be directed to her: it was natural; but to
see, feel, know this, not once in a time, but daily, not for an hour in
the day, but all day long, was a torment that acted on me as a slow
fever.
But it was not all.
Though Cornelius had been, was still, very fond of me, he had never of
course been in love with me. He was in love with Miriam, and if he had
enough self-control and self-respect not to show more of the feeling than
it was becoming for a child like me to see, he loved too ardently not to
be for ever betraying himself to jealous and watchful eyes like mine. His
look rested on her with a tenderness and a passion, his voice addressed
her in lingering accents, of which he was himself unconscious. His very
tones changed in uttering her name, just as the meaning of his face
became different when he looked at her. If I had known the frail and
fleeting nature of human feelings, I might not have trusted these first
signs of a first passion; but all I knew of love was what the fairy tales
had told me, and in them I had never read but of loves that had no
ending, and were not less ardent than enduring. That Cornelius might one
day be less absorbed in Miriam, less oblivious of me, was a thought I
never knew nor cherished. The future, when I could forget the present
enough to think of the future, had but one image--Cornelius eternally
loving Miriam, eternally forgetting me.
But even this was not all.
Miriam was in all the beauty of womanhood; Cornelius in all the fervour
of man's young love. She was with him almost all the day long, not alone,
but with the check of a constant presence that irritated the fever
liberty and untroubled solitude might have soothed to satiety; and this,
or I am much deceived, she knew well. He had to repress himself
perpetually, in a way which must have been wearying and painfully
irksome. His temper was too generous to wreak itself upon me, but I
became conscious of a most galling and yet most inevitable truth: in that
studio where I had won my place by so much perseverance; where I had
shown to Cornelius a faith so entire and unshaken; where I, a child, and
restless as all children are more or less, had been the patient slave of
his art; where Cornelius had always welcomed me with a greeting so
sincere and so cordial in its very homeliness; yes, there, even there, I
was no longer welcome. Daily, hourly, I read in his face, in his eyes, in
his voice, that my presence was burdensome, my absence a release. I knew
it, and I had to endure it; I had to be ever drinking this last sickening
drop of a cup that was never drained. I was jealous: and the word sums up
all my miseries. I was also what is called a precocious child, and
perhaps I felt more acutely than many; I say _perhaps_, for jealousy is
an instinct,--is not the dog jealous of its master?--assuredly it is not
a feeling that waits for years or knowledge. It is the very shadow of
love; and who yet watched the birth of love in a human heart?
I loved Cornelius as an ardent and jealous daughter loves her father, and
I was miserable because he bestowed on another that which I neither could
wish for, nor even imagine the wish to claim. As was my love, so was my
jealousy, filial and childlike: a jealousy of the heart, in which not the
faintest trace of any other feeling blended. It was sinful, but it was
pure. I did not suffer because Cornelius was in love with Miriam, but
because he loved her. If, at twelve, I could have understood and
separated feelings that blend so strangely in the heart, I know that I
would not have envied Miriam one spark of the passion, but I know that I
would still, as I did bitterly, have grudged her every atom of the
tenderness. If I did not feel jealousy in that mysterious intensity which
has stung so many hearts to madness. I felt it in its calmer bitterness
and more patient sorrow. The peculiar agony of this tormenting passion
seems to me to lie in the blending of two most opposite feelings: love,
from which it springs, and hatred, which it engenders; it has thus the
warmth of one and the fierceness of the other, and there also lies the
evil and the danger. I loved Cornelius, I detested Miriam. My only
salvation from what might have been the utter ruin of my soul, heart,
mind, and whole nature, was that I loved him infinitely more than I hated
her; woe to me had it been otherwise!
But even as it was, I suffered--and justly--from my sin as well as from
my sorrow; and most unhappily I brooded over both unsuspected. Cornelius
had detected my jealousy, treated it as a jest, and forgotten it; Kate
had, I believe, vaguely conjectured its existence, but I was little with
her and on my guard; the only one who really knew what I suffered and why
I suffered, was the one who had first inflicted and who now daily
embittered the wound. Yes, Miriam knew it: I saw it in her look, in her
speech, in her manner; and, if anything could render me more unhappy, it
was the consciousness that my miserable weakness lay bare for her to
triumph over.
Thus, and more than thus, I felt. Our true life lies in our heart; from
within it, according as we feel with force or weakness, we rule the
outward world in which we are cast. Strange and dramatic incidents make
not the eventful life: it borrows its charm or tragic power from the ebb
and flow of feelings. There never was a child who led a more sheltered
existence in a more sheltered home; whose life was less varied by
adventure beyond the routine of daily joys and sorrows; and yet to all
that I felt then I may trace the whole of my future destiny. When I look
back on the past, I feel that but for that which preceded, the plain
incidents that are to follow would seem, even to me, tame and trifling;
but the stakes make the game, and when happiness has to be lost or won
the heart will leap at each throw of the dice, and beat fast or slowly
with the faintest alternations of hope and despair.
I remember well one day at the close of winter. They both felt tired, and
sat on the low couch where I had so often sat by him or watched him
sleeping; he now exerted himself to amuse her as he had once done for me;
I sat at a table by the window; a book lay open before me, but I could
not read; I seemed all eyes, all ears, all sense for them.
"You must sit to me some day for a Mary Magdalene," said Cornelius.
"You spoke of a Juliet the other day," she replied, with a careless
smile; "what am I not to be?"
"Say, what should I not be if Cornelius O'Reilly had the power?"
"And why should not Cornelius O'Reilly have the power?"
Her tone was scarcely above indifference, and yet hard to witness and to
know; Cornelius had never looked half so delighted when I boldly assigned
him a rank among the princes and masters of his art, as he now seemed
with these few ambiguous words of his mistress. He started up to work
like one who has received a fresh stimulus to exertion.
"I am still tired," coldly said Miriam.
"I do not want you yet."
"Why work then?"
"Oh! Miriam, must not my beautiful Medora progress?"
"Your beautiful Medora!" she echoed, with something like scorn passing
across her face, and as if she thought that Medora interfered with the
rights of Miriam.
Cornelius was standing before the easel; I saw him smile at the image it
bore.
"She is beautiful," he said in a low tone, "though I say it that should
not, and though I know you will never grant me that she is."
She smiled a little ironically as he turned round to her.
"I will grant you anything," she replied; "Medora is not my portrait, but
an ideal woman for whom you have borrowed my form and face."
"What will not an artist attempt to idealize?" asked Cornelius with a
touch of embarrassment.
"Oh!" she observed very sweetly, "I do not mean to imply it was not
required. Only if this were a portrait, I should object to having Daisy's
eyes and brow given to me."
Cornelius became crimson, and felt that the artist had made the lover
commit a blunder. He tried to pass it off carelessly.
"Ah!" he said, "you think that because I gave too dark a tint to the
eyebrows, and in attempting to make the eyes look deep, rendered them
rather grey--"
She smiled and rose.
"You are not going?" he asked with surprise.
"Why not, since you do not want me."
"No, do not; pray do not!" he entreated; he looked quite uneasy, and in
his earnestness took both her hands in his. She withdrew them with an
astonished and displeased air, and a look that fell on me.
"Daisy," impatiently said Cornelius, "have you nothing to do below? no
lessons to learn?"
He could not have said "You are in the way" more plainly; I did not
answer, but rose and left them.
"What brings you down here?" asked Kate, as I entered the parlour, where
she sat alone sewing.
"Cornelius said I was to learn my lessons."
"Then take your books upstairs."
I objected to this; but Miss O'Reilly was peremptory.
"I am sure Cornelius wanted to get me out of the way," I said at length,
to explain a refusal that naturally surprised her.
"Oh, he did!" indignantly exclaimed Kate.
"Indeed he did, Kate."
"I don't care a pin about that," was her decisive rejoinder, "but I am
determined that he shall not lose his days as he loses his evenings: go
up directly."
I obeyed with deep reluctance; even when I reached the door of the
studio, I paused ere I opened it, then stood still and looked.
They had not heard me; how could they?
Miriam, no longer intent on going, had resumed her place; Cornelius sat
at her feet, one elbow resting on the edge of the couch, his eyes
intently fixed on her face. She bent over him; her cheeks were flushed,
her lips slightly parted; one of her hands was buried in her own fair
hair which fell loosened on her neck, the other slowly unravelled the
dark locks of Cornelius.
"It is not at me, but at Medora, you are looking," she said impatiently.
"Are you jealous of her?"
"Jealous! when I begin it shall be with Daisy."
"Jealous of Daisy! as if you could be!"
And he smiled. I entered; Miriam looked up, saw me, and smiled too;
Cornelius turned round and, reddening like a girl--she had not blushed--
he rose hastily. I came forward, closed the door, and, as if I had seen,
had heard nothing, I sat down and opened my books; but the words of
Cornelius, "Jealous of Daisy!" seemed printed on every page; the smile,
with which he had uttered and she had heard them, was ever before me. He
cared so little for me that I could not be, it seems, an object of
jealousy. Miriam staid for about two hours more, then left; scarcely had
the door closed on her, when I rose to go: but as I passed by Cornelius,
he laid his hand on my shoulder, and arrested me with a reproachful--
"Are you, too, deserting me?"
I stood before him with my books in my hand; I looked up into his face;
there were no tears either in my eyes or on my cheek, but he must have
seen something there, for, looking surprised--
"Why, child," he asked, "what is the matter?"
He did not even know it!
"Does your head ache?" he continued, with the most irritating
unconsciousness.
"No, Cornelius," I replied in a low tone.
"Are you feverish, then?" and he felt my pulse.
This time I did not answer.
"Lie down for awhile," he said kindly. He made me sit down on the couch;
placed a pillow under my head; told me to sleep, and returned to his
easel.
Alas! it was not the sleep of the body that I wanted, but the calm peace
which is to the mind what slumber is to the senses. His kindness
irritated more than it soothed me. I watched him painting; I saw that the
eyes of Medora were going to change their hue, and I remembered the time
when Cornelius would not have given a stroke of the pencil, more or less,
to please mortal creature. I tossed about restlessly; he heard me, and
thinking me unwell, he came to me.
"Poor little thing!" he said compassionately, and stooping, he left a
kiss on my forehead; but this pledge of old affection had lost its charm;
I felt betrayed, and involuntarily turned away. Cornelius smiled with
astonishment.
"Why, what have I done?" he asked, gaily.
His unfeigned ignorance humbled me to the heart. Without answering, I
started up, and ran away to my room, where I could at least cry in
liberty.
If Cornelius guessed by this what was the matter with me, he certainly
did not show it. He treated me exactly as usual; he did not appear to
notice that I now never returned his morning or evening caress, nor even
that, as soon as he was obliged to put by Medora for the more profitable,
though less interesting occupation of copying bad drawings, I scarcely
went to the studio. This was perhaps good-humoured forbearance, but I
took it as a proof of carelessness and indifference, which strengthened
me in my jealous resentment, more felt, however, than expressed. This had
lasted about a week, when Cornelius, one evening, came down to tea,
looking so pale and ill that his sister asked at once what ailed him. He
sat by the table, his brow resting on the palm of his hand; he replied
that his head ached.
"Do you go out this evening?" inquired Kate after awhile.
"No," he answered, without moving.
Kate looked surprised, but made no comment. I sat by her, as usual, but,
being lower down, I could see his face better than she did; it was rigid,
and ashy pale; he neither moved nor spoke. I rose, went to the table, and
tried to catch his eye; but his glance fell on me, and saw me not. I
asked if the lamp annoyed him; he made a sign of denial. I stood before
him, and looked at him silently.
"Sit down, child," impatiently said Kate.
I obeyed by pushing my stool near Cornelius, and sitting down at his
feet; then seeing that this did not appear to displease him. I softly
laid my head on his knee.
"You obstinate little thing," observed Kate, "why do you annoy
Cornelius?"
"She does not annoy me," he said, and his hand mechanically sought my
head, and rested there, in memory of an old habit, of late, like many
another, laid aside and forgotten.
After awhile Kate sent me up to her room for a book; whilst looking for
it, I heard the door of Cornelius open and close again; his headache had
compelled him to retire several hours earlier than usual. It was worse on
the following day, for he did not come down; once I fancied I heard him
stirring, and I said so to Kate.
"Not he, child; he will remain in bed all day, so you need not start and
listen every second."
But her back was no sooner turned than I slipped upstairs. I had not been
mistaken; Cornelius was up, and in his studio, but not at work; he stood
before his easel, gazing on Medora, and looking so pale and ill that I
felt quite dismayed.
"What do you want?" he asked, coldly but not unkindly.
"Nothing, Cornelius; am I in the way?"
"You may stay."
I sat down by the table; he began to pace the narrow room up and down;
once he stopped short to say--
"There is no fire; the room must be cold; you had better go down."
"I am not cold; pray let me stay."
He did not insist; resumed his promenade, then threw himself down on the
couch, with an impatient sigh and a moody face. I rose, stepped across
the room, and sat down by him. Encouraged by his silence, I passed my arm
around his neck. I had meant to say something, to tell him I was grieved
for his pain or trouble, whichever it might be, but when it came to the
point, all I could do was to kiss his cheek. Cornelius made a motion to
put me away impatiently; but when his eyes, looking into mine, saw them
filled with tears, he checked the movement.
"Poor little thing!" he said, with a sad smile; "you put by your childish
anger the moment you think me in pain."
"Oh! Cornelius," I exclaimed, with much emotion, "though you should like
another ever so much, and me ever so little, I shall never be so naughty
again. Ah! if you knew how miserable I felt last night when I saw you
looking so ill!"
"And came and laid your head on my knee like a faithful spaniel--yes,
child, I know _you_ like me."
He said it with some bitterness. I replied warmly--
"Indeed I do, Cornelius, and always shall, even though you should not
care for me at all."
"Would you?" he answered, his thoughts evidently elsewhere.
"Why, how could I help it?" I asked, astonished at the question.
He started like one whose secret thought has received some sudden sting.
"Ay," he said, "one cannot help it; to wish to leave off, and wish in
vain; there is the torment, there is the misery."
"But I don't wish to leave off," I exclaimed, almost indignantly, and
clinging to him, I added, a little passionately perhaps, "I could not if
I would, and if I could I would not, Cornelius."
There was a pause; as I looked at him, something like a question debated
and solved seemed to pass across his face. Then he pressed me to his
heart with some emotion, as he said, rather feverishly--
"Daisy, you are wiser than those who sit down and write books or preach
sermons on self-subjection, as if it were not the very hardest thing in
this world. Let them!" he added, a little defiantly, "the very children
rebuke them and know better."
If children reflect little and imperfectly, their faculty for observation
is marvellous. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been unconsciously
pleading for one whom I had little cause to love; the thought was both
sweet and bitter. I looked at Medora, then at Cornelius, and said in a
low tone--
"Why did she vex you, Cornelius?"
He gave mc a distrustful look, and putting me away--
"The room is cold," he observed, "go down, child."
I would rather have stayed and learned more; but his tone, though kind,
exacted obedience.
When Cornelius came down to tea, his sister asked how his head felt; he
said first, "Much worse," then immediately added, "Much better." His
movements, like his words, were irresolute; he rose, he sat down; he
stood by the table; he went to the hearth; suddenly he went to the door.
"And your headache!" observed Kate, seeing he was going out.
"Never mind the headache, Kate!" he replied impetuously: he was gone,
slamming the door behind him.
Kate laid down her work with an astonished air.
He came in as I was going up to bed. I stood on the first steps of the
staircase and turned round to look at him: his face was flushed; his eyes
sparkled; he looked excited--more excited, I thought, than joyous or
happy. In passing by me he took me so suddenly in his arms that he nearly
made me fall, then begged my pardon, and finally kissed me two or three
times so tenderly that Kate, who saw us from the parlour, looked quite
jealous, and uttered an emphatic "Nonsense!"
"Can't a man kiss his own child?" asked Cornelius, putting me down with a
gay short laugh.
"Cornelius," said Kate, "your headache was a quarrel with Miriam--confess
it."
He reddened and looked disconcerted.
"I knew it," she observed triumphantly.
"No, Kate," he replied quietly, "you did not know it; you mistook; I can
give you my word that I have never had the slightest difference with
Miriam; by the bye, she sends her love to you."
With this he entered the parlour and closed the door. I thought it odd,
and yet I knew not how to disbelieve Cornelius. At the end of the same
week Miriam again came to sit for Medora. If there was a change in his
manner to her, it was that he seemed to be more enamoured than ever.
Cornelius had not attached sufficient importance to our tacit quarrel to
alter in the least after our tacit reconciliation. A young man of twenty-
two, passionately in love with a beautiful woman of twenty-six, was not
likely to care much whether a little girl of twelve sulked and would not
kiss him. I liked to think the contrary--that he had been angry with me,
and that I should show my penitence. This proved a most unfortunate
mistake. Since she had wholly superseded me, Miriam had allowed me to
remain in peace; but when I endeavoured to render myself useful or
agreeable to Cornelius, she resented it as an insolent attempt to divert
even a fragment of his attention from herself. She was sitting to him as
usual one afternoon, when he suddenly exclaimed--
"How provoking! I cannot find it; I can scarcely get on without it."
"It will give you time to rest," quietly said Miriam.
A little reluctantly he sat down by her, but said he must return to his
work at three.
It was a sketch, which he wanted for the foreground of Medora, that
Cornelius could not find. We had vainly looked for it the whole morning.
I thought I would have another search. A deep shelf, well stored with
art-rubbish, ran round the room. Unperceived by Cornelius, I got up on
the table, reached down an old portfolio, opened it, and found at once
the missing sketch. Overjoyed at my success, I stepped down too hastily;
my foot slipped, I fell; in no time Cornelius had picked me up.
"Are you hurt?" he cried, in great alarm.
I was too much stunned to reply at first; when I could speak, my first
words were--
"Here it is, Cornelius!"
I picked up the sketch from where it had fallen, showed it to him, and
enjoyed his surprise.
"Oh! you naughty child!" he said, with kind reproof. He sat down again on
the couch, made me sit by him, and tenderly pressed his lips on my brow.
"I should suggest brown paper and vinegar for a bruise," observed the
chilling voice of Miriam.
"Are you bruised, my darling?" anxiously asked Cornelius.
I laughed, and kissed him. He turned towards Miriam, smiled, and with the
generous and imprudent candour of his character, he said--
"I am very fond of that little girl, Miriam."
And lest she should doubt it, again he caressed me. She sat at the other
angle of the couch with drooping eyelids; I know not if she looked at us,
but as the church clock struck three, she said, sweetly--
"Yes, I consider your affection for that child a touching trait in your
character, Cornelius."
She had never in my presence called him by his name; as she ottered it, I
saw his hand seeking hers, which she drew not away.
"Cornelius," I said quietly, "it is three o'clock."
"I had forgotten all about it," he cried, starting up, and relinquishing
the hand of Miriam, who darted at me a covert irritated glance of her
green eyes.
He went back to his easel; I returned to my books.
"Daisy," he said, "you must not study after such a fall."
"Let me finish my lessons," I replied eagerly; "you know you have half
promised to examine me this evening."
"Poor little thing!" kindly said Miriam, "I dare say it is too much study
has lately made her look so much more sallow than usual."
I felt my face glow. I was sallow; but was I to be ever reminded of it?
"Or perhaps it is biliousness," she continued: "her face and hair are
almost of the same hue; true that is light, nearly straw-coloured. Be
careful, Mr. O'Reilly, do not let her work so much."
"Daisy, put by your books," anxiously said Cornelius.
"Not to-day," I replied imploringly.
"She is so industrious," he said admiringly.
"Like all children who cannot rely on the quickness of their
perceptions."
"Oh! Daisy is very quick," he answered rather hastily; "she has answers
that often surprise me."
"I should like to be surprised. Do you mind answering a few questions of
mine, Daisy?"
I did mind. I mistrusted her; I did not want to acknowledge her as an
authority, still less to be exposed by her to Cornelius.
"Thank you," I replied, "Cornelius is to examine me this evening."
"I like to judge for myself," she answered smilingly.
I did not reply.
"Daisy, did you hear?" said Cornelius.
"Yes, Cornelius."
"Then why not answer? Do you object to being examined now?"
"Not by you."
"But, my dear, it is Miss Russell who wishes to question you."
I remained mute; he gave me a severe look. No more was said on the
subject. With waning daylight Miriam left us. I expected a lecture or a
scolding, but Cornelius never opened his lips to me. I had a presentiment
that this silence boded me no good, and indeed it did not. After tea, I
brought out my books for examination; Cornelius looked at me coldly.
"I am astonished at your confidence," he said. He rose, took his hat, and
walked out.
For a week I had looked up to this evening, worked hard for it, and
thought with pride of the progress of which I could not but be conscious,
and which Cornelius could not but perceive. As the door closed on him, I
burst into tears.
"What is all that about?" asked Kate, astonished.
I threw my arms around her neck and told her, weeping all the time. She
reproved and yet comforted me.
"It was wrong," she said, "wrong and foolish to be rude to Miss Russell;
but do not fret, child, though Cornelius may be vexed, he is fond of you
in his heart."
"Not as much as he once was, Kate."
She did not contradict the bitter truth.
"It will never be the same thing again," I continued.
"As if I did not know it!" she exclaimed, involuntarily perhaps.
I looked up into her face. She too had seen and felt that Cornelius was
not to us what he once had been. She smiled sorrowfully as our looks met,
pressed me to her heart and kissed me. Woman-grown though she was, and
child though I might be, there was between us the bond of the same secret
pain and sorrow.