neighbourhood. It stood in the centre of lovely pleasure-grounds--a white
and elegant abode, filled with all that could charm the fancy and attract
the eye. Pictures, statues, books, furniture, simple yet costly, were
there, without that profusion which mars the effect of the most beautiful
things. Mrs. Brand perceived my admiration, and led me from room to room
with careless ostentation. At length, we came to a small gallery, filled
with exquisite pictures.

"There are not many," she said, negligently, "but they are good. All
modern, and almost all English. The blank spaces which you see will, I
dare say, be filled up from this year's Academy."

My heart beat fast. I thought at once of Cornelius, and I saw his three
pictures already hung up in my cousin's gallery.

"And so you like Poplar Lodge," observed Mrs. Brand, taking me back to
the drawing-room. "Well, it is a pretty place. And don't you think," she
added, sighing as she glanced around her, "that Edward's wife will be a
happy woman?"

"I don't know, Ma'am; but I know she will have a lovely house, and
delightful chairs, too," I added, sinking down, as I spoke, into a most
luxurious arm-chair.

"My dear, she will have what one who speaks from experience can assure
you is far above such worldly comforts--a devoted husband."

Mrs. Brand's cambric handkerchief was drawn forth, unfolded, and raised
to her eyes in memory of the departed.

"And Mrs. Langton and this place will suit one another so well," I said,
looking round the luxurious drawing-room. "I can fancy her wandering
about those grounds as lovely as a lady in a fairy tale, or passing from
one beautiful room to another, like a princess in her palace. She will be
the crowning piece of perfection of Mr. Thornton's dwelling."

Mrs. Brand hastily removed her handkerchief, and assured me:

"That was over--quite over; a most unfortunate affair. It had once been
her darling wish to see her friend and her brother united; but even she
had felt it was impossible. They had felt it themselves, and had agreed
to forget the past."

I smiled at the idea of this hollow truce.

"Besides," pensively continued Mrs. Brand, "I have strong reasons to
believe his affections are engaged elsewhere. I hear him coming in; you
will notice at once how pale and low-spirited Edward looks."

The entrance of Edward prevented my reply. He started with astonishment
on seeing me, and greeted me with a mixture of embarrassment and tender
courtesy that surprised me a little. He asked after Mr. Thornton's
health.

"I hope he is well," I replied, smiling; "but I am your neighbour now. Is
it not delightful?"

I meant delightful to be again with my friends; to my amusement he smiled
and bowed.

"Miss Burns has been admiring your pictures," said Mrs. Brand.

Mr. Thornton was happy if anything at Poplar Lodge had afforded me
pleasure.

"Anything!" I echoed, "why it is everything. From his appearance I could
not have believed the late Mr. Wyndham had such exquisite taste."

Mrs. Brand laughed, and informed me the place was bare in Mr. Wyndham's
time. Mr. Thornton's modesty, alarmed at the indirect compliment he had
received, induced him to change the subject of discourse by showing me a
handsome collection of drawings. We were engaged in looking over them,
when Mrs. Langton, who was also on a visit to her dear Bertha, entered.

"Those two are always so fond of drawings!" said Mrs. Brand, rising to
receive her.

I looked up, and saw the beautiful Edith glancing at us across the table.
She had left by her weeds, and looked wonderfully lovely in a robe of
changing silk. She stood with her hand clasped in that of her friend, and
her beautiful arm partly left bare by her falling sleeve. Her face was
turned towards us; her dark hair, braided back from her fair brow, wound
in a diadem above it; her cheeks were flushed like roses; her blue eyes
were full of light and softness. "Mrs. Brand," I thought, "you may do
what you like, your Edith shall reign here yet."

She graciously expressed her pleasure at seeing me again; and gently
sinking down on a divan, looked lovely, until we went down to dinner.

I spent the next day, Saturday, shopping in town with Mrs. Brand, and
thought it rather hard work. Sunday I claimed and obtained to pass at the
Grove. I came upon Cornelius suddenly, as he sat in the back-parlour by
the open window; his elbow on the sill, his brow resting on the palm of
his hand. Before he knew of my presence, my arms were around his neck,
and my lips had touched his cheek. He started, then returned the embrace
with lingering tenderness; and Kate, who came in, laughed at us both, and
said one might think we had been years apart.

It was foolish to be glad to see him again after so short a separation; I
knew it, but could not help it. He, too, seemed glad; I had never seen
him in better spirits; and seldom had I spent even with him, a pleasanter
day. With regret, I saw approach the hour that should take me back to
Poplar Lodge. Cornelius said he would accompany me by the lanes. They
looked very lovely on that mild spring evening, and we talked pleasantly
and happily as we walked along. At length we reached the end of a long
lane that brought us to a grated iron door--the back entrance of Poplar
Lodge.

We stopped short; the place and the moment stand before me like a picture
still.

The lane was lonely, and hushed rather than silent. The heavy clouds of
night were gathering slowly in the lower sky. In its serener heights, the
full moon had risen, and now looked down at us between two of the large
poplar trees that had given its name to my cousin's abode. I stood by
Cornelius, one arm passed in his, his other hand clasping mine.

"When will you come back?" he asked, bending over me.

"Next Saturday, I hope."

"Not before?"

"No, Cornelius, I could not, you know."

"Can't you try?"

"Indeed, Cornelius. I am afraid I cannot. You know I long to be back with
you and Kate."

"Very well, then; Saturday let it be. And yet, Daisy, why not Friday?"

"Cornelius, I assure you I think it would be taken amiss if I were to
leave on Friday."

He submitted, gave me a quiet kiss, and rang the bell. A white figure
emerged from a neighbouring avenue, and Mrs. Langton, recognising me
through the iron grating, took down the key that always hung by the door,
and admitted me, smiling. I introduced Cornelius somewhat awkwardly. He
stood with the light of the moon full on his face and figure. I caught
Mrs. Langton giving him two or three rapid and curious looks, but she
only made a few civil and commonplace remarks. He answered in the same
strain, bowed, and left us.

"And so, Miss Burns," softly observed Mrs. Langton, as she closed and
locked the gate, "that is your adopted father--as Mr. Edward Thornton
calls him, I believe."

"Yes," I said, quietly, "Cornelius is, indeed, my adopted father; but he
does not like me to consider him so."

"Indeed!"

"Oh, no: he does me the honour to hold me as his friend."

Mrs. Langton suppressed a rosy smile, and talked of the beauty of the
evening as we walked through the grounds to the Lodge.

Mr. Thornton was out, and Mrs. Brand whispered confidentially that my
absence might be the cause. He came in, however, sufficiently early, and
as I sat apart rather silent, his sister felt sure I suffered from low
spirits, and gave him the duty of enlivening me. He smiled, bowed, and
settling himself in a comfortable arm-chair by me, entered on the task.
But I remained obstinately grave, until, from topic to topic, he came to
the Academy.

My cousin gave me the tidings that it was to open in two days. He hoped I
would accompany Mrs. Brand. He knew my judgment was excellent, and felt
anxious to have my opinion of several pictures he had already secured,
and of others he intended purchasing.

"Oh, I shall be so glad!" I exclaimed, with an eagerness that made him
smile.

I reddened at the thought that my motive had been detected, and tried to
repair my blunder; but do what I would, I could not help betraying my
pleasure. I laughed, I talked, I was not the same.

"Have I really succeeded so well?" whispered my cousin.

The spirit of mischief is not easily repressed at seventeen. I looked up
at him, and answered saucily--

"Better than you think."

Mr. Thornton laughed, and declared I was the most delightfully original
and _naive_ girl he had ever met with.

It rained the whole of the following day, which we spent at Poplar Lodge,
to the great disgust of the slave of the world. But the next morning rose
lovely and serene. At an early hour we were at the doors of the Royal
Academy. I knew that the pictures of Cornelius were accepted; on that
head I therefore felt no uneasiness, yet my heart beat as we ascended the
steps of the National Gallery. A glance at the catalogue dispelled all
lingering fear. As my cousin placed it in my hands, he accompanied it
with a pencil case, and a whispered entreaty to mark the pictures I
approved. I looked up at him, smiling to think he had chosen a judge so
partial. We had no sooner entered the first room than Mrs. Brand was
overpowered with the heat. When she recovered, she thought she should go
and look at the miniatures with her dear Edith. She knew we did not like
the miniatures, and requested that we should go our own way. She and her
dear Edith would go their own way. We resisted this a little, but Mrs.
Brand was peremptory, and at length we yielded and parted from them.
Absorbed in the engrossing thought "Are they well hung?" I performed my
critical office very inaccurately; but having been so fortunate as to
single out two of the pictures Mr. Thornton had purchased, I escaped
detection, and received several warm compliments on my good taste. He was
informing me how much he relied upon it, when we suddenly came to the two
Italian pieces of Cornelius.

"What do you think of these?" I said carelessly.

"Poor, very poor," he replied, and passed on.

I heard him mortified and mute; all my hopes dispelled at once by all
this sweeping censure. The pictures of Cornelius poor! Those two
beautiful Italian things, which would have filled so well the blank
spaces in the gallery! I was astonished and indignant at Mr. Thornton's
bad taste. He might mark his own pictures now, I would have nothing more
to do with him; he was evidently conceited, impertinent, insolent, and he
had neither heart nor soul, for he could not appreciate the beautiful.

Unconscious of my feelings, my cousin went on criticising.

"What are they all looking at?" he said, drawing near to where a crowd
had gathered around one of the lower paintings.

"At some stupid picture or other," I replied, impatiently. "It is always
the stupid pictures that the people look at."

He smiled at the petulant speech, and, spite of my evident indifference
made way for me through the crowd of gazers; but I turned away, I would
not look. With an ill-repressed smile of contempt, I listened to the
"exquisite," "beautiful," "a wonderful thing," which I heard around me.

"Yes," I thought, scornfully, "much you know about it, I dare say."

"I really think we must mark this one," whispered my cousin. "What do you
say?"

I looked up ungraciously, but the book and pencil-case nearly dropped
from my hands as I recognized "The Young Girl Reading."

"Don't you like it?" asked Mr. Thornton, smiling.

Oh! yes, I liked it! and him whose genius had created it, and whose
master-hand had fashioned it; ay! and for his sake I liked even those who
gazed on it, in a fast increasing crowd; and as if I had never seen it
before, I looked with delighted eyes at the work of Cornelius. There was
something in the admiration it excited I could not mistake. It was
genuine and true. He was at length, after seven years of toil, known and
famous. Sudden repute must have something of a breathless joy, but it
cannot possess the sweetness of a slow-earned and long-coming fame. I
felt as if I could have looked for ever; but the crowd was pressing
eagerly behind us: my cousin led me away.

"I see you will not mark it," he gaily said, taking the catalogue from
me.

"Do you really like it?" I asked, stammering.

"Do I like it? Why it is a wonderful picture! the most perfect union I
have ever seen of the real and ideal. It is not sold, is it?"

I replied I thought not. He said he hoped not; that he should be quite
concerned to miss it; and he proceeded to pay the genius of Cornelius
very high and handsome compliments. I heard him with beating heart and
swimming eyes; I felt too happy; it was not more than I had expected ever
since the return of Cornelius from Italy; but for being anticipated, his
triumph was not to me less glorious and delightful. I could think of
nothing else; my eyes saw, but my mind could receive no impressions.
Whatever picture I looked at became "The Young Girl Reading" with the
crowd around her.

Mr. Thornton thought the heat affected me, and proposed joining his
sister. We soon found her with Mrs. Langton. They looked dull and tired.
As we entered the carriage, Mrs. Brand asked, with her air of _ennui_,
how I liked the pictures, and if I had been amused.

"More than amused," I replied, warmly.

Mr. Thornton half smiled, and looked into the street; Mrs. Brand shut her
eyes, and reclined back with an air of satisfaction, and Mrs. Langton
flushed up like a rose. I looked at the three, and thought them odd
people.

On the following evening, the slave of the world was to receive and
entertain her master; in other words, to give a party. I had virtuously
resolved not to be amused, and not to enjoy the pleasure I could not
share with Cornelius; but when the time came, I forgot all about it. It
was my first party, and what a party! The rooms were always beautiful,
and when lit up, looked splendid. Then this constant rolling of coming
and departing carriages; this pouring in of fashionable, well-dressed
people; their flow of easy speech, greetings and smiles, gave the whole
something so luxurious and seducing, that I felt enchanted.

Mrs. Langton, who looked exquisitely lovely in white silk--I wore my blue
dress--kindly took me under her patronage. She was a world-known beauty,
and whenever she went out, drew crowds around her. We were soon
surrounded with adorers. All could not reach the divinity, and a few
condescended to offer up incense at my humbler shrine. Two young
Englishmen, rosy and bashful; a Dane as pale as Hamlet, and a Spaniard,
fell to my stare. We also had an occasional dropping of grave gentlemen
in spectacles, or dashing, military-looking men, whiskered and
mustachioed, with an apparition of fair ladies, duly attended, who smiled
and nodded at Mrs. Langton as they passed smelling bouquets or fanning
themselves, but who took care not to linger in such dangerous vicinity.

I felt amused and entertained; but my real pleasure began with the
daucing. I was fond of it, and I had plenty of pleasant partners. As I
once came back to my seat, flushed as much with enjoyment as with the
exercise, Mrs. Langton, who would not discompose her beauty by dancing,
stooped over me, and gently whispered:--

"You little flirt, one would think you had received world incense all
your life. Look opposite," she added, in a still lower tone. I followed
the direction of her gaze, and saw in the embrasure of a door, standing
and looking at me, with sorrowful attention, Cornelius.

"He has been there these two hours," said Mrs. Langton, smiling, "and you
never even saw him, which I hold very unkind to me; for, thinking you
would like to meet your friend, I asked a card from Bertha, and did not
mention the name to her, lest you should not enjoy the surprise. And here
am I actually obliged to tell you all about it."

I know not what I said to her, I felt so disturbed. I knew that I had
surrendered myself rather freely to the pleasures of the evening, and he
had seen it all, I had never even perceived him. I looked at him across
the crowd that divided us. He caught my eye, and turned away abruptly. I
rose, and gliding swiftly through the guests, I tried to join him; but he
eluded me. I went from room to room, without being able to reach him. At
length, I lost sight of him altogether, and gave up my useless search. I
had reached the last room, a pretty little French sort of boudoir,
adorned with exquisite Dresden ornaments, and thence called "Dresden" by
Mrs. Brand. It was now quite solitary. I sat down, sad and dispirited, on
a low couch, and was immediately joined by Mr. Thornton, who had been
following me all the time, and gently rallied me on the chase I had led
him. He sat down by me, and informed me that he had been wanting to speak
to me the whole evening; but I had been so surrounded, that he had found
it quite impossible to get at me. I coloured violently: if he had noticed
it, what would Cornelius think?

"I wanted to tell you," confidentially observed Edward Thornton, drawing
closer to me, "that I have secured 'The Young Girl Reading.' She is
mine," he added, with rather a long look of his fine blue eyes.

"You have bought it," I exclaimed joyfully.

"And paid for it," he answered smiling.

"How delightful!" I said, "I mean that you have bought it," I added,
fearing I had exposed the poverty of Cornelius by the hasty remark.

He smiled again, and passed his slender fingers in his brown hair.

"Where will you hang it?" I asked eagerly.

"In the long vacant place of honour, between my Wilkie and my Mulready."

For these two great artists, Cornelius felt a warm and enthusiastic
admiration. I thought of his pride and triumph when I should tell him
this, and I glowed with a pleasure I cared not to conceal.

"Mr. Thornton!" I exclaimed, turning on him flushed and joyous, "you have
made me as happy as any crowned queen."

"Why have I not a crown to lay it at your feet?" he very gallantly
replied, taking my hand, and pressing it gently as he spoke.

At that moment, through the door which Edward Thornton had left partly
open, I thought I caught sight of Cornelius for an instant; the next he
had disappeared in the crowd. I snatched my hand from my cousin, started
up, ran to the door, opened it wide, and looked eagerly; but Cornelius
had again vanished. I returned much disappointed to Mr. Thornton, who
seemed amazed at my precipitate flight.

"I had seen Mr. O'Reilly," I said, apologetically.

"Mr. O'Reilly! Ah, indeed."

"Yes; and I wanted to speak to him. It was for that I came here, you
know."

My cousin gave me a puzzled look, then suddenly recovering, said hastily:

"Of course, it was. Mr. O'Reilly, as you say."

"I am sure, you think it odd," I observed uneasily.

He denied it with a guarded look. I thought it worse than odd, and my
eyes filled with involuntary tears. Mr. Thornton rose and sympathised
respectfully.

"My dear Miss Burns," he whispered drawing nearer to me, "I am truly
grieved; but your kindness, your frank condescension, made me presume--
indeed, I am grieved."

I heard him with surprise. "Decidedly," I thought, "we are all wrong,"
and aloud I observed gravely:

"Mr. Thornton, is there not some mistake? I am talking of Mr. O'Reilly."

"And so am I," he answered promptly.

"And I should like to see if I could not find him."

He offered me his arm with a polite start, and an air of tenderness and
homage that perplexed me; but though we went all over the rooms,
Cornelius was not to be found. As the guests began to thin and depart I
lost all hope, and releasing my cousin from duty, sat down in one of the
nearly deserted rooms. Mrs. Langton at once came up to me, and asked if I
had seen my friend. I replied that I had caught sight of him from the
little Dresden room, when I was there with Mr. Thornton.

"In the Dresden room," she said, looking astonished; "and do you really,
a fair maiden of eighteen, venture to remain alone in a Dresden room?
alone with so gay and gallant a gentleman as Edward Thornton? Don't you
know, dear?" she added, edging her chair to mine, and lowering her voice;
"he is quite a naughty man! Did you never hear of him and Madame
Polidori, the singer--no?--nor of Mademoiselle Rosalie, nor of Madame?--"

I stopped the list by gravely hoping she was mistaken. She assured me she
was not, and wanted to resume the subject, but it was one in which I took
neither pleasure nor interest; and I listened so coldly, that she
reddened, bit her lip, and left me.

The guests were all gone. As she bade the last adieu, Mrs. Brand sank
down in a chair by the open window, and sighed to her brother:

"Ah! Edward, as our own English Wordsworth so finely says:

   'The world is too much with us--'"

The rest of the sonnet was lost, I suppose, in the whisper that followed.
Mr. Thornton seemed to pay it but faint attention; his look was fixed
with intent admiration on Mrs. Langton, who stood by a table turning over
the leaves of an album with careless grace.

"What a night!" resumed Mrs. Brand; "with that moon and that starry sky,
one might forget the world, the vain world for ever, Edward."

Edward still looked at the beautiful Edith, and seemed inclined to make a
move in her direction, out of the reach of the moon and the starry sky.
But his sister looked at me, and whispered something. He bowed his head
in assent, and came up to me. He seemed for some mysterious reason to
think it incumbent on himself to be very kind and sympathetic, and to
speak to me in a tender and soothing tone. Wrapped up in thinking of
Cornelius, I paid his words but faint attention; but as my cousin stood
with his hand on the back of my chair, I saw Mrs. Langton look at us over
her shoulder in silent scorn. I looked at her, too, and as she stood
there in all her wonderful beauty, I marvelled jealousy could make her so
blind, as to lead her to fear for a moment a plain, humble girl like me.

CHAPTER XVI.

Although I had not thought it necessary to mention to Mrs. Brand how soon
I meant to return to the Grove, she took complete possession of me for
the whole of the next day; but, the following morning, I prevented the
possibility of her doing so again, by starting out of Poplar Lodge before
she had opened her aristocratic eyes. I wanted to see Cornelius, and make
him explain his strange conduct.

I went by the lane where we had parted. It was a very beautiful lane--
green, secluded, and overshadowed by dark trees. It looked fresh and
pleasant on this May morning. The dew glittered on grass, tree and wild
flower; the thrush carolled gaily on the young boughs, and the robin red-
breast looked at me fearlessly with his bright black eye, as he stood
perched on the budding hawthorn hedge. A grievous disappointment waited
me at the end of my journey. The blinds were down--the house was closed
and silent. I rang, and received no reply. I went to the front, with the
same result. For an hour and more I wandered about the lanes; but every
time I came back, I found the house in the same state. At length, I
returned to Poplar Lodge, where my absence had not been perceived.

Mrs. Brand's party had given her a headache. She lay on the drawing-room
sofa the whole day long, and would evidently consider it very barbarous
to be forsaken. I remained sitting by her until dusk, which brought Mrs.
Langton, and relieved me from my duty. I went out on the verandah for a
little fresh air. I had not been there long, when a rustling robe passed
through the open window. It was the beautiful Edith.

"Are you not afraid of taking cold?" she asked aloud; then whispered,
"Say no."

As "no" chanced to be the truth, I complied with Mrs. Langton's wish.

"Oh! that exquisite old thorn!" she sighed; then added, in a low rapid
key: "I have been so angry. I heard such strange things about you and Mr.
Thornton. All the Dresden room."

I laughed.

"What are you two chatting about?" asked the voice of Mrs. Brand from
within.

"I am only telling Miss Burns to mind Captain Craik," coolly replied Mrs.
Langton, "he was quite attentive the other night."

"Really, Mrs. Langton," I observed impatiently, "you forget the gentleman
you allude to could be my father, and is, after all, a middle-aged man."

"A middle-aged man!" echoed Mrs. Langton, looking confounded. "You are
hard to please, Miss Burns; a most elegant and accomplished gentleman--a
middle-aged man!"

"If he were an angel, he is not the less near forty."

"Still talking of Captain Craik," rather uneasily observed Mrs. Brand,
joining us, "Edith, dear, are you not afraid of the tooth-ache?"

"No, Bertha, dear."

"But I am for you. You must come in."

Mrs. Brand slipped her arm within that of her friend, and made her re-
enter the drawing-room. But something or some one called her away, for in
a few minutes, Mrs. Langton was again by me. She came on me suddenly,
before I could efface the trace of recent tears. The evening was light
and clear. She looked at me and said:

"I could have spared you this, Miss Burns. Mr. Thornton--"

"Indeed, Ma'am," I interrupted, "I am not thinking of Mr. Thornton; but I
fear Mr. O'Reilly is vexed with me: that is the truth."

I thought this would rid me of her tiresome jealousy, but it did not.

"Poor child!" she said compassionately, "I see you know nothing. Perhaps
it is scarcely right to betray Bertha to you; but can I help also feeling
for you? Do you know the play of Shakespeare entitled 'Much Ado about
Nothing'?"

"Yes, Ma'am, I know it."

"Do you remember the ingenious manner in which two of the characters are
made to fall in love with one another? Benedick thinks Beatrice is dying
for him, and Beatrice thinks the same thing of him."

"That was vanity, Ma'am, not love."

"Ay, but vanity is a potent passion, and 'Much Ado about Nothing' is a
play still daily enacted on the scene of the world."

I heard her with some impatience; I thought her discourse resembled the
play of which it treated. She saw plain speech alone would make me
comprehend her meaning.

"Our dear Bertha," she sighed, "has quite a passion for match-making. For
instance, she will teaze me about Captain Craik, and says he is mad about
me. I don't mind it, provided she does not say the same thing to him."

"Oh!" I replied, quite startled, "that would be too bad."

"So it would; but I fear it. Captain Craik has been very peculiar of
late."

I felt uncomfortable. It was not to end with Captain Craik we had
travelled over the slow ground of this ambiguous discourse.

"Now do you know." resumed Mrs. Langton, "I cannot help fancying that
Bertha has been indulging in the same little pastime with you and her
brother."

"Not with me," I said, eagerly; "she never even hinted it."

"You are slow at taking hints," replied Mrs. Langton with a sceptical
smile.

"But why should she think of me?" I asked, incredulously; "I am not a
beauty," I added, looking at her, "I have no wealth--no position. Why
should she wish to marry me to her brother?"

"To make a good sister-in-law," answered Mrs. Langton, quietly.

I felt there was something in that, and remained mute with consternation.

"And do you think," she resumed, laughing softly, "he has been quite so
slow to take the hint? Why, child, you have scarcely said a word that he
has not modestly converted into a proof of your passion for him. Remember
how sympathising he was on the evening of the party; he thought: 'Poor
little thing! I must be kind. It is plain she is fretting herself away
for my sake.'"

She spoke with evident conviction. I remembered words and looks, and I
grew hot and faint.

"Oh, Mrs. Langton!" I exclaimed desperately, "what shall I do? how can I
undeceive him?"

"Leave the house at once," she promptly replied.

"Will it not be better to stay for another day or so, just to be cool
with him?"

"He will think it shyness."

"And despair if I run away. No, I must stay to undeceive him."

"And to give him time to inform you in his civil, gentlemanly way, how
deeply he feels for you."

"Then I can show him I don't want his sympathy."

"He will think it pride or pique. Take my advice, Miss Burns. You are in
a false position. Retreat."

She laid her hand on my arm and spoke impressively. But youth is rash; I
scorned the idea of flight. Besides I had no faith in her advice. With
the frank indignation of my years, I felt how meanly my candour and
inexperience had been imposed upon. "So, Mrs. Brand," I thought
resentfully, "you had me here, because you thought I might make a
manageable sister-in-law! Much obliged to you, Mrs. Brand; you will have
your dear Edith, yet. But to go and tell or imply to her brother that I
was in love with him, with a man who might be my father!

"Besides, even if it had been true, how barbarous to betray me! And you,
too, Mrs. Langton," I thought, looking at her, "you too have not thought
it beneath your pride to deceive me: talking ill to me of the very man
you love--as much as you can love--accusing him of profligacy! Then, so
piqued because I said he was middle-aged!--and so kindly anxious to make
me look foolish by running away! Go! no indeed! It is very odd if I
cannot finesse a little in my turn, and, without committing myself, get
out of this spider's web into which, like a foolish fly, I have got
entangled; and it is very odd, too, if I cannot change the web a little,
before I spread out my wings and take my flight back to the home foolish
flies should never leave."

I was thoroughly piqued, and walked restlessly from one end of the
verandah to the other. I set my wits to work; thought rapidly followed
thought; schemes were made and rejected with every second; at length,
both mentally and bodily, I stopped short. "I have it," I thought,
triumphantly; "I am not so dull but that I have noticed certain passages
between a fair lady and a certain gentleman; I have always thought they
would end by marrying; I am certain of it now. I shall act on that
belief; say something; no matter what; he likes my _naivete_--to prove to
my dear cousin that I consider Edith as good as Mrs. Edward Thornton. Let
him like it or not, I shall take his vexation as excellent sport, glide
out of it with a laugh, then beg pardon, apologize, and show him he may
marry the Queen of Sheba, for all it matters to Daisy Burns."

I felt confident of success; and, elated with my scheme, I turned to Mrs.
Langton, and said, gaily:--

"I have such a good idea!--only I cannot tell you. But you shall see how
it will work."

She bit her lip, and gave me a mistrustful look.

"I have warned you," she said; "I warn you again; do not think yourself
equal to Bertha. If she chooses to convince her brother that you are in
love with him, I consider it out of the question that you can prevent
her."

"I shall see that," I replied, indignantly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Langton, "you will have that satisfaction."

"Then what should I gain by running away?" I asked, a little tartly. "The
best thing I can do is to stay, look on, and learn how these matters are
managed."

Mrs. Langton gave me another mistrustful look, and withdrew. I saw she
did not believe in my sincerity; perhaps she did not think it possible to
resist Edward Thornton, and repented having been so frank. Her thoughts
did not trouble me. The more I reflected on my scheme, the better I liked
it. I enjoyed, in advance, the manner in which my cousin would open his
fine blue eyes. I was not vexed with him; but I remembered the Dresden
room, and was determined he should be as fairly undeceived as ever he had
been deluded. Absorbed in these thoughts, I remained on the verandah,
looking at the beautiful garden and grounds beneath. A visitor came, was
received by Mrs. Langton, stayed awhile, left, and still I did not re-
enter the drawing-room, where Mrs. Brand and her friend now sat, working
and talking by lamp-light. At length, scarce knowing why, I began to pay
a vague attention to their discourse.

"I think we are going to have a storm," said the soft voice of Mrs.
Langton; "it will clear the air, perhaps. Doctor Morton says the weather
has been so unhealthy; typhus so prevalent amongst the poor. He mentioned
the case of a labourer who has just died, leaving a widow and nine
children."

"Very sad, indeed," composedly replied Mrs. Brand; "but then you know, my
dear, typhus is generally confined to the poor--which is a sort of
comfort."

"It is not always the case," said Edith; "there have been several deaths
amongst tradespeople."

"Ah! poor things, they have to deal with the poor, you see; but what I
mean is, that it seldom goes higher up; which is a great comfort, you
know; for what good would it do the poor that those above them should
die?"

"None, of course. The doctor also mentioned another case--very sad too--
such a fine young man, he had been told, an artist, I think; but he did
not know his name, who is lying ill--all but given up."

"Really," said Mrs. Brand, "this gets quite alarming. Do you know
whereabouts that unfortunate young man lives?"

Until then, I had listened to them as we listen to speech in which we
take no interest. I was young, full of health; the evening air felt
pleasant and fresh about me; and standing on that cool verandah above a
fragrant garden, I recked not of the fevered dwellings where the poor
perish, and of the sick chamber where even the rich man may be reached by
death; but when Mrs. Langton spoke of the young artist who lay given up,
I felt touched. When Mrs. Brand asked to know where he dwelt, I just
turned my head a little to catch the reply of the beautiful Edith. She
gave it carelessly.

"In a place called the Grove, I believe; is it far off?"

"Two miles away at least," complacently replied Mrs. Brand.

I know not how I entered the room; but I know that the two ladies
screamed faintly, as they saw me stepping in, through the open window.

"Miss Burns, is the house on fire?" exclaimed Mrs. Brand.

"'T is he!" I said, with that dead calmness which many find in their woe.
"I know it is. We live in the Grove, and there is not another artist in
it."

"I am not sure he is an artist," said Edith, rising. "I now think it was
an architect."

"There is no architect in the Grove," I replied; "not one."

"My dear," observed Mrs. Brand, soothingly taking my hand, "it is all a
mistake, depend upon it."

I looked at her, and shook my head.

"The house was close and silent; the blinds were drawn down. I know why
now--lest the contagion should reach me."

Mrs. Brand dropped my hand rather hastily.

"I shall send and inquire at once," she observed. "Pacify yourself, my
dear."

She stretched out her hand to ring the bell.

"You need not," I said, "I am going."

"Oh! but you must not!" cried Mrs. Brand, "think of the danger."

I laughed drearily in her face.

"Of the contagion, my dear?"

"Do not fear, I shall come back, Ma'am," I replied, turning to the door.
She followed me.

"My dear, you must have the carriage."

"I shall go by the lanes," I said impatiently. The carriage was, I knew,
the delay of at least an hour.

"By the lanes, at this hour? I cannot allow it, Miss Burns."

I turned round upon her.

"But I will go," I said, and even in that moment, I wondered the woman
could be so blind as to think her will had the power to detain me.

Without heeding her astounded look, I ran up to my room, took down my
cloth cloak, drew it around me, and drawing the hood over my head, I
hastened down stairs to the garden. As I passed underneath the verandah,
the voice of Mrs. Langton seemed to call me back, but the wind drowned
her words, and I ran fast along the avenue. I had soon reached the iron
gate; I took down the key, opened the door, and entered the lane. As 1
turned my back on Poplar Lodge, I caught a last glimpse of it rising
against a dark sky, with a faint speck of light glimmering from the
drawing-room window.

No other light shone on my path; the sun had set bright and glorious, the
evening had set in clear and serene; but a sudden eclipse had come; one
vast gloom shrouded sky and earth; I never saw summer night like this for
intense, for dreary darkness. I knew the way well; I walked straight on,
swiftly and without pause, meeting no obstacles, fearing none, like one
who passes through vacant space.

Once I thought I heard a voice calling on me faintly in the distance
behind; but I heeded it not, I did not answer, I did not look round; I
went on as in a dream. Raised beyond the body by the passion of my grief,
I felt not the ground beneath my feet; all I felt was that the wind as it
swept by me with a low rushing sound, seemed to bear me on through that
sombre and melancholy night, as a spirit to its viewless home. At length,
the air became of a dead stillness; it was as if I had suddenly entered a
silent and sultry region in which there was no breathing and no life. I
stopped short; I looked round to see that I had not mistaken the way; a
streak of fiery lightning passed through the darkness of the sky; for a
moment I caught sight of an open space, in which I stood, and saw before
me two long lanes diverging from a half ruined gateway, and vanishing
into depths of gloom whence seemed to come forth the peal of far thunder
that died away in low faint echoes.

I knew the spot well; I had not missed the right path; I was half way on
my journey.

But as if this first flash had only been a signal, the brooding storm now
broke forth. Before it fled at once the silence and the gloom of the
hour. A low, wild murmur ran along the ground, then rose and lost itself
in the wide and desolate hollow of the night; trees tossed about their
dark boughs, and groaned lamentably like vexed spirits. As the sound of a
loosened flood came the rushing rain, the wind rose ever deepening in its
roar; and above all rolled the full thunder, louder than the deafening
voice of battle, whilst, cleft with many a swift and silent flash, the
dark sky opened like a sea of living fire, below which stretched a long,
low moving shore of livid clouds.

I stood still and looked; not with fear--to love and fear for what we
love, is to be raised beyond all dread--but I felt dazzled with the
ceaseless lightning, and dizzy with the tumult of the tempest; the heavy
rain beat full in my face and blinded me; the strong gale rose against me
in all its might. I could not move on; I could not turn back, seek
shelter, or proceed; for a moment I yielded to the burst of the storm,
and let the elements wreak their fury on my bowed head. But a thought
stronger than even their power, more fearful than their wildest wrath,
was on me. I drew down my hood, wrapped my cloak closer around me, and
again went on drenched with the pouring rain, and often arrested, but
never driven back by the impetuous blast.

The storm was violent and brief. Soon the wind fell; the rain grew less
heavy; the lightning less frequent and vivid; the thunder slowly
retreated; the sky cleared, and melted into soft clouds, behind which,
for the first time, shone the watery moon. She looked down on me with a
wan and troubled face, boding sorrow; her dim light filled the path I now
followed; on either side, like gloomy giants, rose the dark trees; the
rain had ceased, but as I passed swiftly beneath the dripping boughs,
they seemed shaken by an invisible hand to dash their chill dew-drops in
my face. The smell of the wet earth rose strong on the humid air; in the
ditch by me, I heard water flowing with a low, gurgling sound, and every
now and then I came across a shallow pool lit with a pale and trembling
moonbeam.

The storm had not terrified me, but now my courage sank. This chill calm
after the fury of the tempest; this sound of water faintly flowing,
following on tumult so loud, seemed to me to speak of sorrow, death and
utter desolation. The nearer I drew to the end of my journey, the more my
heart failed me. As I turned down into the lane that led home, the
church-clock struck twelve; every stroke sounded like a funeral knell on
my ear; then a dog began to howl plaintively. I turned cold and sick--as
a child, I had heard that this was a token of death. Oh! with what slow
and weary steps, I drew near that door towards which I had hastened
through all the anger of the storm, and which my heart now dreaded to
reach. As I stood by it, my limbs trembled, my very flesh quivered, my
blood seemed to have ceased to flow, my heart to beat, cold dew-drops
gathered and stood on my brow, and something, an inward struggle, an
agony without a name rose to my lips, and made one gasp for breath, but
could not pass them. Twice I stretched out my hand to ring, and twice it
fell powerless. I sank down on my knees; I uttered a passionate prayer: I
asked--what will not the heart ask for?--for an impossible boon. "Even if
he is to die. Oh God, do not let him die; even though he shall be dead,
do not let him be dead!"

I rose and rang. "Now," I thought, "I shall know it all at once in the
face of Kate or Jane, whichever it may be that opens to me." I nerved
myself to meet that look, as I heard a door opening within, then a step
on the wet gravel, and caught a glimmer of light through the chinks of
the door. I heard it unbarred and unbolted, then it opened partly; and
standing on the threshold with the light of the upraised lamp in his
face, I saw Cornelius.

CHAPTER XVII.

I think I could endure years of trouble and toil for the joy of that
moment. My heart overflowed; I looked at Cornelius, then threw my arms
around his neck, and burst into tears. My hood fell back, and with it my
loosened hair.

"Daisy!" he cried, for he had not recognized me till then. "Good God!" he
added with sudden terror, "has anything happened to you?"

"Nothing, Cornelius; but I am too happy--too happy--that is all."

He drew back a little; looked at my drenched garments and bare head, as
he closed the door, and led me in.

"Daisy," he asked, anxiously, "what has brought you here at such an hour,
in such a plight?"

"I thought you were ill, dying, Cornelius! I felt beside myself, and ran
home to you like a wild thing."

We stood beneath the porch. Cornelius still held the lamp; its light fell
on his pale, troubled face. With the arm that was free he drew me towards
him, and looked down at me with mingled grief and tenderness.

"Oh, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "whilst I sat within, sheltered and
unconscious, have you, indeed, been exposed to the fury of this pitiless
storm--and for my sake?"

I shook back the hair from my face, and looking up into his, smiled.

"Cornelius," I said, "if weary miles had divided us; if rivers had flowed
across the path; if I should have walked bare-footed over sharp stones, I
would have come to you to-night. I could not have kept away; I feel that
my very heart would have flown to you, as a bird to its nest."

"For Heaven's sake, go up to your room at once," he observed, uneasily.
"Here is the light."

I took it, and gaily ran up-stairs. I felt light with gladness--a new
life flowed in my veins, a new vigour beat with my heart. I blessed God
with every faculty of my being: as sincerely as if the miracle I had
asked for, had been accomplished. I had soon changed my things, and went
down very softly, not to waken Kate. The door of the back-parlour was
ajar, and there I found Cornelius, standing by a newly-kindled fire. As I
gently closed the door, I said, smiling:

"I have made no noise. Kate never woke--how is she?"

"She complains of a head-ache. The heat of the day, I suppose."

"Yes," I replied, sitting down, taking his hand, and making him sit down
by me on a little couch which he had drawn before the fire. "Yes, every
one was out this morning, when I called and found the house shut up. Oh,
Cornelius! how I thought of that with terror and dismay, as I came along
the lanes."

"The lanes!--you came by the lanes?" cried Cornelius, turning pale:
"alone along that desolate road, where a cry for aid never could be
heard! Daisy, how dare you do such a thing? How could they allow it?"

"Cornelius, who would be out on such a night to harm me? As to daring, I
would have dared anything. Mrs. Brand remonstrated, and sent, I believe,
a servant after me; but I outstripped him easily. Terror lent me her
wings."

"I thought you felt no fear?"

"No fear of man, but a most sickening cowardly dread of fever. Oh,
Cornelius! if I had found you ill, or in danger of death, what should I
have done, what would have become of me?"

The mere thought was a torment that again sent the freezing blood to my
heart. I shivered, and drew close to him.

"There! you are quite pale again," said Cornelius, anxiously. "Oh, Daisy!
do you then love me so much--so very much?"

I looked up, and smiled at the question. But his face was burning, and
expressed mingled pleasure, doubt, and pain.

"Oh!" he continued, taking my hands in his, and speaking hesitatingly,
"what am I to think of the girl who forgets her friend?"

"I knew you were vexed and angry about the party," I interrupted. "I saw
you."

"And then, on the first false alarm, who returns to him so kindly, on a
stormy night, by a dreary way, fearless though alone."

"Now, Cornelius, what have I done that a good sister, or friend, or
daughter, would not do?"

Cornelius dropped my hands, and said, abruptly: "Do you not feel chill?"

"Not with that fire. Do you know, Cornelius, now I am here again with you
and Kate, I don't see why I should go back to Poplar Lodge. Suppose you
ask me to stay. Well, what are you doing?"

He had stood up, and was pouring out a glass of wine, which he handed to
me.

"Take it," he said.

"To please you, Cornelius: but I do not want it. The sight of your face
at the door was more reviving than wine to me."

I just tasted the wine, and handed him the glass. He drank off its
contents. His hand, in touching mine, had felt feverish, and he looked
rather pale.

"You are unwell," I said, uneasily.

"Unwell!" he echoed, gaily. "I never felt better."

He poured himself out another glass of wine, but I took it from him.

"You must not!" I exclaimed, imperatively. "Oh, Cornelius! be careful," I
added, imploringly.

He laughed at my uneasiness; but there was something dreary in the sound
of his laughter, which I did not like.

"I tell you I am well--quite well," he persisted; "but I feel uneasy
about you, Daisy. How this night will fatigue you! I dare not tell you to
go to your room, lest it should be too chill; but will you try and sleep
here?"

"On condition that, when I am asleep, you will go up, and take some rest
yourself."

He promised to do so; and, to please him, I laid my head on the pillow of
the couch. He removed the lamp from my eyes, but in vain I closed them,
and tried to sleep. Every now and then I kept opening them again, and
talking in that excited way, which is the result of over-wrought emotion.

"Cornelius," I said, "I am now quite resolved to stay with you. I should
feel too miserable to be even a day away. Always thinking about typhus,
you know."

"Sleep, child," was his only reply.

I tried; but awhile afterwards I was again talking.

"And the Academy!" I said, "and 'The Young Girl Reading'! Are the other
pictures sold?"

I half-rose on one elbow to look at Cornelius, who sat a little behind
me. Without answering, he made me lie down again, and laid his hand on my
eyes and brow. He possessed, perhaps, something of mesmeric power, for
unconsciously I fell asleep; but mine was not a deep or perfect slumber.
I was aware of a change that I could not understand or define. I felt,
however, some one bending over me, and a long and lingering kiss was
pressed on my brow.

"It is Cornelius going up-stairs," I thought even in my sleep, but
without awakening. My next remembrance is that I looked up with sudden
terror, and that I found myself face to face with Kate, who sat by the
table weeping bitterly. I looked for Cornelius and saw him not.

"Kate, Kate!" I cried, starting to my feet, "where is he? What has
happened?"

She shook her head and never replied.

I crossed the room and opened the door of the front parlour; it was empty
and in confusion; I ran to the front door, opened it, and looked down the
moonlit street.

"Cornelius!" I cried, "Cornelius!"

I paused and listened; all I heard was the sound of a carriage rolling
away in the distance. My voice died on my lips in broken accents; my arms
fell by my side powerless and dead. He was gone! gone without a word of
explanation or adieu. In this one circumstance I read a remote journey
and a long absence, and yet I would believe in neither. I re-entered the
parlour where Kate still sat in the same attitude. I went up to her.

"So he is gone to Yorkshire to see Mr. Smalley?" I said agitatedly.

"He is gone to Spain," she briefly answered.

My heart fell.

"To Spain! for a few months, I suppose?"

"For years!"

"I don't believe it!" I cried, angrily; "he could not, would not do such
a thing. You want to frighten me, Kate, but I don't believe you; no, I
don't."

"You do; in your heart you do; in your heart you know it."

I did know it; for I gave way to a burst of passion and grief, and spoke
to Kate as I never before had spoken.

"Gone! gone to Spain, and for years! Kate! how dare you let him go and
not tell me?"

She looked up at me; her eyes flashing through her tears.

"And how dare you speak so to me, foolish girl? Is Cornelius anything so
near to you as he is to me? Did you rear him, sacrifice your youth to
him, and then find yourself cast aside and forsaken, as I am this day?"

"He reared me," I cried, weeping passionately. "Claim him by all you have
sacrificed to him, my claim is all he has been to me! Oh! Kate, why did
he go?"

"What right have you to know?" she asked, with a jealous bitterness that
exasperated me.

"Every right," I replied, indignantly. "What have I done to be so
treated?"

"What have you done? Why, you have done that I believe there is nothing
so dear to him as you are; that his last request was, that instead of
going with him, I should stay with you and wait your wakening; that his
last kiss was that which he gave you as you slept. If you want to know
more, here is a letter for you. Ask me not another question; I shall not
answer. I have no more to say, and I have enough of my own grief."

She handed me a folded paper. I opened it and read:--

"Forgive me, Daisy, if I forsake you thus by stealth; but partings are
bitter things. I wished to spare you some pain, and myself a severe
though useless trial. I had promised to leave you and Kate no more; but
you must have noticed how restless my temper has been of late; indeed,
there is in my blood an unquiet fever which only liberty and a life of
wandering can appease. Good bye, Daisy, God bless you! May you be happy,
ay, even to the fullness of your heart's wishes."

Kate need not have asked for my silence. I laid down her brother's letter
without a word, not a syllable could I have uttered then; I was hurt;
hurt to the very heart. Cornelius had forsaken me cruelly; he had done to
the girl what pity would never have let him do to the child; he had left
me in my sleep, without one word of adieu.

I felt the shock and bitterness of this sudden separation, and more
bitterly still the desertion. How could I, after this, think that
Cornelius cared for me? He had liked me, amused himself with me, but I
had never been to him that living portion of the heart which we call a
friend. I could bear his absence, but that he should not care for me,
that he should have been trifling with me all along, I could not bear. I
paced the room up and down, vainly trying to keep in my sobs and tears.
As I passed by the table, a folded paper caught my attention, I seized it
eagerly with that vague hope which clings to everything. In this case it
was not deceived.

"Oh! Kate, Kate!" I cried, throwing my arms around her neck in a
transport of joy too deep not to make me forget the few sharp words that
had passed between us.

"Well, what is it?" she asked, amazed.

"He'll come back; he'll come back; he has forgotten his passport. Oh! I
am so glad! so happy; he can't travel without it, you know. I defy him to
go to Spain now."

I laughed and cried for joy. She sighed.

"And if he does come back," she said, "it will be to go away again."

"We shall see that," I replied indignantly. "I will not let him, Kate. He
has accustomed me to have my way of late, and in this I will have it."

She shook her head incredulously; but I was confident and did not heed
her; a low rumbling sound down the street had attracted my attention.

"There he is!" I cried joyfully; and with a beating heart I ran to the
street door. I opened it very softly, and keeping it ajar, I listened.
The sound had ceased, and for a moment all I heard was the voice of Kate
whispering in my ear--

"Daisy, if you let him go this time, I shall never forgive you. Do not
mind what I said; keep him; you can if you wish."

I had not time to think on her words or ask her for their meaning; a
quick and well-known step was coming up the Grove--the garden gate
opened--no bell rang, but a hand tapped lightly at the parlour shutters.
I opened the door wide and Cornelius, for it was he, came up to me.

"I have forgotten my passport," he said, in a low tone; "it is on the
table in the back-parlour. Is she still asleep?"

Before I could reply, the moon, that had kept hid behind a dark cloud,
came forth bright and undimmed; her light fell on my face; I saw him
start.

"Will you not come in, Cornelius?" I said quietly. But he stood there at
the door of his own home, mute and motionless as a statue. "Well then," I
continued, "I must go out to you; perhaps before you cross the seas
again, standing on the threshold of your dwelling, you will not refuse to
grant me what you did not think fit to give me within it--the luxury of a
last adieu--of a last embrace!"

I stepped out to him as I spoke; but he made me re-enter the house, and
followed me in.

"Daisy," he said, with a sigh, "I wished to leave whilst you were away,
and fate brought you back; I stole away whilst you were asleep, and I was
compelled to return and find you awake. I thought to spare us both some
pain. I cannot; be it so; you shall have your wish."

His voice plainly said: "Your wish, and no more."

"Very well," I replied, quietly; for though I was resolved he should not
go, I knew better than to startle him.

We re-entered together the back parlour; Kate had left it; but the lamp
still burned on the table. Cornelius sat down by it; his face was pale,
watchful, determined. I saw he was fully on his guard, and prepared to
resist unflinchingly to the last. I was as determined to insist and
prevail. Oh! daily life, that art called tame and reproved as dull, how
is it that to me thou hast ever been so full of strange agitating dramas,
I sat down by Cornelius; I passed my arm within his, and looking up into
his face, I said:

"When, a few hours ago, I felt so glad to see you safe, Cornelius, I knew
not I was looking my last for a long time."

He did not answer; I continued:

"Oh, if I had known we were going to part, how differently I should have
spent this evening! I would not have talked away so foolishly, but have
asked you so many questions--settled so many things! whereas now I have
only a few minutes, and can think of nothing save that you are going
away, Cornelius."

He quailed, but only momentarily; if his lip trembled a little, his
unmoved look told of unconquerable resolve.

"You, it seems," I resumed, "had nothing to say to me, Cornelius, or you
could not have wished to go away thus?"

He drew forth his watch, and said, briefly:

"I must go soon, Daisy."

"Kate says you are to be years away--is it true?"

His silence was equivalent to an assent.

"Well then, give me the farewell of years," I said, passing my arms
around his neck, and compelling his face to look down at mine.

He seemed a little troubled, and made a motion to rise. I detained him.

"A little longer," I entreated; "I have thought of some things about
which I wish to question you."

"Pray be quick, Daisy."

"Why do you go to Spain?"

"For change."

"You are tired of us?"

"I am tired of a quiet life."

"Go to France, Cornelius."

"Why so?"

"It is nearer."

"Daisy, I must really go now."

"A little longer; I have something else to say."

"What is it?"

"I have forgotten; but give me time to remember."

I laid my head on his shoulder as I spoke.

"Daisy," he asked, "what have you to say?"

I wept without answering; but saw his eye vainly looking over the table
in search of something.

"I have it," I said aloud, "I have it, and I will not give it to you,
Cornelius, for you must not, no, you must not go."

"I knew it," he resignedly exclaimed, "I knew it would come to this; and
yet," he added, looking down at me rather wistfully, "it is of no use,
Daisy; I must go, and I will go too."

"No, Cornelius, you will not; you never could have the heart to do it.
Besides, why go?"

"For change."

"Change! what is change? If I were an artist I would make variety enough
in my own mind to be the charm of daily life; and whilst I painted
pictures, I would not care a pin for Spain or Italy. If I were an
ambitious spirit, I would not go just when my fame was beginning, when
glorious prospects were opening before me. If I were a brother, and had a
good sister, who loved me dearly, I would not forsake her. If I were a
kind-hearted man, and had adopted a poor little orphan girl, reared her,
indulged her, made her my friend, and promised not to leave her, I would
not break her heart by running away from her; but when she said to me:
'Stay, Cornelius!' I would just give her a kiss, and say: 'Yes, my pet,
by all means!'"

But in vain. I looked up into his face; he did not kiss me; he did not
call me his pet; his lips never parted to say, "Yes, by all means!" His
head was sunk on his bosom; his arms were folded; his downcast look never
sought mine. I left my place by him to sit down at his feet and see him
better. I read sorrow on his face, great sorrow, but no change of
purpose. I took one of his hands in mine, and gazing at him through
gathering tears:

"Cornelius," I said, "are you still going?"

He did not reply.

"Are you still going?" I asked, laying my head on his knee.

He remained silent.

"Are you still going?" I persisted, rising as I spoke, and pressing my
lips to his cheek. He never moved; he never answered. The blood rushed to
my heart with passionate force. I threw back rather than dropped his
hand; I stepped away from him with wounded and indignant pride. "Go
then!" I exclaimed, with angry tears, "go, here is your passport; take it
and with it take back your broken promise and friendship betrayed."

"Betrayed!" he echoed, looking up.

"Yes, betrayed; I do not retract the word. Want of confidence is treason
in friendship, and you have had no confidence in me--why in this house,
where as a child I had obeyed you, and could have obeyed you all my life,
why did you of your own accord raise me to an equality which was my boast
and my pride, when in your heart you meant to treat me as a child to be
cheated into a parting? You gave me an empty name; I will have the
reality or I will have nothing, Cornelius."

I turned away from him as I spoke; he rose and followed me.

"Daisy," he said, "what do you mean?"

I looked round at him over my shoulder, and replied, reproachfully:

"I mean that you do not care for me."

"I do not care for you!"

"No; you have secrets from me; William never had any secrets; he liked me
more than you do, Cornelius."

An expression of so much pain passed across his face, that I repented at
once.

"You cannot believe that?" he replied at length; "you would not say it if
you were not very angry with me, Daisy, and yet you know, oh! you know
well enough I cannot bear your anger."

"Can't you bear it, Cornelius?" I answered turning round to face him,
"then don't go; for if you do, I shall be so angry--indeed, you can have
no idea of it!"

"None, whilst you speak and look so very unlike anger. Oh, Daisy! which
is easier: to part from you in wrath or in peace?"

"Why part at all? why go?" I replied passing my arm within his, and
looking up at his bending face in which I read signs of yielding.

"Why remain?"

"Because I wish it," I said, making him sit down.

"Is that a reason?"

"The best of all--for it will make you stay."

He did not say yes; but then, he did not say no.

"Stay! stay!" he repeated with an impatient sigh. "What for? You do not
want me."

"Indeed, I do," I replied, triumphantly, "I want you much, very much,
just now."

"What for?"

"To advise me about Mr. Thornton."

"Ah! what of him?" exclaimed Cornelius, with a sudden start.

"Nothing," I replied, sorry to have said so much.

He gave me a look beneath which I felt myself reddening.

"He too!" he said, biting his lip and folding his arms like one amazed,
"he too! And I was going, actually going, actually leaving you to him."

He laughed indignantly and rose; I eagerly caught hold of his arm.

"Oh, I am not going," he exclaimed impetuously, throwing down his hat as
he spoke. "Catch me going now. No, Daisy," he added, resuming his place
by me, and laying his hand on my arm as he bent on me a fixed and
resolute look, "though I was fool enough to let him have the picture, he
shall not find it quite so easy to get the original."

"Oh, Cornelius!" I exclaimed, feeling ready to cry with vexation and
shame, "that is not at all what I mean."

"Another," he continued with ill-repressed irritation, "it is the
strangest thing, that young or old, boys in experience, or worn and
wearied with the world, they all want you."

"Cornelius, how can you talk so! it is Mrs. Langton whom Mr. Thornton
likes."

"Mrs. Langton!"

"Yes, Mrs. Langton, the great beauty."

"So much the better," he replied with a scornful and incredulous laugh,
"for he shall not have you, Daisy."

"He does not want me," I said desperately; "but if he did, it would be
time lost. For I am sure I don't want him."

"You do not like him!" observed Cornelius, calming down a little.

"Very much as a cousin. Not at all, otherwise."

"And you will not have him, will you, Daisy?"

He spoke with lingering doubt and uneasiness.

"I tell you I shall not have the chance," I replied impatiently. "Oh,
Cornelius! will you never leave off fancying that everybody is in love
with me?"

I could not help laughing as I said it.

"Yes, laugh," he said reproachfully, "laugh at me, because like the poor
man of the parable told by the Prophet to the sinful King, 'I have but
one little ewe lamb; I have nourished it up, it has eaten of my meat,
drank of my cup, lain in my bosom, and been unto me as a daughter.' Laugh
because I cannot help dreading lest the rich man's insolence should wrest
her from me!"

"No, Cornelius, I shall laugh no more; but indeed you need not fear that
sort of thing at all. Neither for Mr. Thornton, nor for any other member
of his sex do I care, and when I say that," I added, reddening a little,
"you know what I mean."

"Too well!" he replied, in a low, sad tone. "Good bye, Daisy. God bless
you!"

I remained motionless with surprise and grief. He rose; Kate entered the
room.

"Oh, Kate!" I cried desperately, "after all but promising to stay, he is
going. Speak to him, pray speak to him!"

She shook her head and stood a little apart, looking on with quiet
attention.

I silently placed myself before her brother, but he looked both sad and
determined.

"You cannot have the heart to do it: you cannot!" I exclaimed, the tears
running down my face as I spoke; "you cannot!"

"Daisy," he replied, in a tone of mingled pain and reproach, "where is
the use of all this? If I could stay, indeed I would; but though I love
you so much, that every tear you now shed seems a drop wrung from the
life blood of my heart, believe me when I declare that though you should
ask me to remain on your bended knees, I should still say no."

"Then I shall try!" I exclaimed, despairingly; but before I could sink
down at his feet, he had caught hold of both my hands, and compelled me
to remain upright. Hope forsook me.

"Cornelius," I said, weeping, "will you stay?"

"No!"

"Cornelius!" I exclaimed, more earnestly. "Will you stay?"

This time he did not answer, but his half averted face showed me a
profile severe, resolute, and inexorable.

"You cannot weary me," I said again; "will you stay?"

He turned upon me pale with wrath.

"Oh! blind girl--blind to the last!" he cried, his white lips trembling.
"You ask me to stay--to stay!"

"Yes, Cornelius, again and again!"

All patience seemed to forsake him. His eyes lit, his features quivered;
he grasped my hands in his with an angry force, of which he was himself
unconscious.

"Come," he said, striving to be calm, "do not make me say that which I
should repent. Let us part as it is--do not insist--do not provoke me to
forget honour and truth."

I could see that Cornelius was angry with me; that my obstinacy provoked
him beyond measure; but his wrath was the wrath of love; it could not
terrify me. I even felt and found in it a perilous pleasure, that made me
smile as I replied:

"But I do insist, Cornelius."

His lips parted, as if to utter some vehement reply; then he bit them
with angry force, and knit his brow like one who subdues and keeps down
some inward strife. Kate quietly stepped up to us.

"The knot that will not be unravelled must be cut," she said. "He will
stay, Daisy, if you will be his wife."

The words seemed sent, like a quivering arrow, through my very heart.
Cornelius looked confounded at his sister, who only smiled; then he
turned to me, flushed and ardent. As I stood before him, my hands still
grasped in his--his face still bent over mine, half upraised--his look,
overflowing with passion, reproach, love, anger, and tenderness, sank
deep into mine, with a meaning that overpowered me. And yet, as if spell-
bound by the strange and wonderful story thus, at once revealed to me, I
could not cease to hear it. Kate had not spoken--she still spoke in words
that echoed for ever. To speak myself, look away, return once more to the
daily life beyond which that moment stood isolated, were not things in my
power. I felt like one divided from Time by that immortal Present.

"Oh, Daisy!" vehemently exclaimed Cornelius, "how you linger! 'No' should
have been uttered at once; 'yes' need not tarry so long. Speak--answer.
Must I stay or depart?"

He spoke with the feverish impatience that will not brook delay.

"Stay!" broke from me, I knew not why nor how; but with the word, my head
swam; my limbs failed me; there was a chair by me, I sank down upon it.
Cornelius turned very pale, dropped my hands, and walked away without a
word. Kate came to me.

"Daisy," she said, taking my hand in her own, "what is it? Are you faint?
Have this," she added, handing me the glass of wine which, at once, her
brother had poured out.

"No," I replied, "water."

She gave me some. I drank it off, but it did not calm the fever which she
took for faintness. I clasped my brow between my hands, to compose and
concentrate thought; but my whole being--my mind, faculties, soul, body,
and heart, were in tumult and insurrection. I could hear, see, feel--know
nothing of that inward world of which I called myself mistress. I rose,
terrified at the sudden storm which had broken on my long peace.

"Daisy, do not look so wild!" said Kate; and taking me in her arms, she
wanted to make me sit down again; but I broke from her. I passed by her
brother without giving him a look, ran up to my own room, and locked
myself in like one pursued.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A faint streak of grey was breaking in the east, through the low and
heavy clouds of night. I went up to the window, opened it, and kneeling
down by it, I looked at that still dark sky, and surrendered myself to
the swift current that was bearing me away.

There is a rapture in strong emotions that has subdued the strongest; a
perilous charm to which the wisest have yielded. What the storm is to our
senses--something that raises, appals and lifts up our very being by its
sublimity and terror--the strife of the passions is to the soul. They are
her elements, from whose conflicts and electric shocks she derives her
strength, her greatness, the knowledge that she is. And for this, though
they so often blight her fairest hopes, she loves them.

It is hard, indeed, to be ever striving against those rebellious
servants--to feel torn asunder in the struggle; but sweeter is that
bitter contest than a long, lifeless peace. The danger lies not so much
in the chance of final subjection, as in that of learning to love the
strife too well. More perilous than the sweetest music is its tumult;
more endless than are all the delights of the senses, and far more
intoxicating is its infinite variety. The soul, in her most blissful
repose, has nothing to equal the burning charm of her delirium.

My youth had been calm as an ice-bound sea, over which sweep breezes
sweet though chill, but that knows neither the storm nor the sunshine of
the ardent south. And now the storm had suddenly wakened, and from
northern winter, I passed to the glowing tropics. I thought not of love
or passion, of bliss or torment; I felt like one seized by foaming
rapids, and swept far beyond human ken, with the sound of the rushing
torrent ever in my ears. I yielded to a force that would not be resisted.

"Let it," I thought, my heart beating with fearless delight; "I care not
whither it sends me; let the eddies cast me adrift--or bear me safely
on--I care not--this is to live!"

I strove not against the current; I sought not to know where I was, until
of itself the stream flowed more calm, until its mighty voice died away
in faint murmurs, and I found myself floating safe in still waters. Then
I looked up, and like one who after sleeping on earth wakens in fairy-
land, I beheld with trembling joy the strange and wonderful country to
which I had been borne during the long slumber of a year. Cornelius loved
me! it was marvellous, incredible, but a great and glorious thing for all
that. He loved me! my heart swelled; my soul rose; I felt humble, exalted
and blest far beyond the power of speech to render. I had no definite
thought, no definite wish, but before me extended the future like an
endless summer day; beneath it spread life as an enchanted region which
Cornelius and I paced hand in hand, bending our steps towards that golden
west where burned a sun that should never set.

"Yes, he loves me!" I repeated to myself as I remembered every token
unheeded till then. "And do I love him?" oh! how swift came the
irresistible reply: "with every power of my soul, with every impulse of
my being, with the blood that flows in my veins, with the heart that
beats in my bosom." The answer both startled and charmed me. I did not
understand it rightly yet, and like one suddenly taken captive, I looked
at my bonds and saw incredulously that the liberty of thought, heart and
feeling had departed for ever; that an influence as subtle as it was
penetrating had taken possession of my being. One moment I rebelled; but
after a brief struggle for freedom, I owned myself conquered; with
beating heart and burning brow lowly bent, I confessed my master.

Filial reverence, sisterly love, friendship, what had become of ye then?
Like weak briars and brambles swept away by a swift stream, ye perished
at once on the path of passion. I wondered not that ye should be no more.
I only wondered ye had ever been: vain words by which I had long been
deluded.

I looked back into my past. Since I had known him, I could not remember
the time when the thought of Cornelius had not been to me as the daily
bread of my heart. There had been familiarity in my deepest tenderness,
and lingering passion in my very freedom. I had felt intuitively that I
could not make my love for a man, young and not of my blood, too sacred
and too pure, and that love ever craving for a more perfect, more entire
union, had caught eagerly at these shadows of what it sought. I had said
to myself, to him, to all, that my affection was that of a child for its
father, of a sister for her brother, of a friend for her friend, because
it had not occurred to me that a closer tie might one day bind us; and
what I had said, I had believed most sincerely.

I was very young and very innocent. Of love I had read little, and seen
less. So long as it came not to me in visible aspect; so long as I felt
not within myself some great change, I dreamt not of it. There is a love
that lies in the heart unconscious of itself, like a child asleep in its
cradle--and this I had never suspected. There is a love which grows with
onr years, until it becomes part of our being; which never agitates,
because it has no previous indifference, no remembrance of the time in
which it was not, against which to strive; which has purer and deeper
signs than the beating heart, the blushing cheek, the averted look--and
all this I knew not. Where there is no resistance, there can be no
struggle; but because there is no struggle shall any one dare to say--
there is no victory? Reduce to logic the least logical of all passions,
and argue with a feeling that smiles at argument, and disdains to reply.

Had I then loved Cornelius even as a child? loved him with that purer
part of affection which needs not to wait for the growth of years? God
alone knows. Love is a great mystery; it is easy to remember the time of
its discovery, but wise, indeed, are they who can tell the hour and
moment of its birth.

I had the wisdom not to ask myself so useless a question. The past
vanished from my thoughts; it was all future now. I looked at the eastern
sky; it was reddening fast, and grew more bright and burning as I looked.
With the superstition of the heart, I watched the dawn of that day, as
that which opened my new existence, and for all of the past that it
revealed, and I had never seen; for all of the future that it promised,
and I had never hoped. I gave thanks to God.

I know not how long I had been thus, when a tap at my door disturbed me.
I rose, opened, and saw Kate. She made me turn my face to the light, then
half smiled, and said:

"Cornelius wants to speak to you; he is quite in a way. Pray come down."

I followed her down stairs in silence. She opened the back parlour door,
closed it, and left me. I stood still; all the blood in my frame seemed
to have rushed to my beating heart. It was one thing to be alone with
Cornelius, my friend, and another to find myself thus suddenly brought to
the presence of Cornelius, my lover.

He sat by the open window; beyond it rose the green garden trees tinged
with a rosy light, and above them spread the blushing sky. A fresh breeze
came in bearing soft sounds of rustling leaves and twittering songs of
wakening birds. He too had watched the dawning day; but there seemed to
have been at least as much sorrow as love in his vigil. He looked pale,
weary, and slowly turned around as I entered. He saw me standing at the
door, rose, and came up to me without speaking. I looked at him like one
in a dream. He took my passive hand in his, and gave me a troubled
glance, then suddenly he passed his other arm around me, looking down at
me with the saddest face.

"And is it thus indeed, Daisy," he said, in a low tone, "you are pale as
death, but as silent; your hand lies in mine chill as ice, but not
withdrawn; you yield, mute and meek as a poor little victim to the arms
that clasp you! No tears! No words to rouse remorse or sting pride.
Nothing but entire sacrifice, and that silent submission."

He spoke of paleness; his own face was like marble, his eyes overflowed,
his lips trembled, he stooped to press them on my brow. Involuntarily I
shunned the embrace.

"Do not shrink," he observed, with evident pain, "I mean it as the last.
Yes! the last. I never intended putting you to such a trial. Never,
Daisy," he continued, giving me a wistful look, "anger at your blindness,
and the irresistible temptation of a sudden opportunity, did indeed make
me forget, in one moment, the dearly-bought patience of a year; passion,
roused to tyranny after her long subjection, and sick of restraint, did
indeed vow she would and should be gratified, no matter what the cost
might be; but I never meant it. You are young, generous, and devoted.
Months ago, if I had spoken, I know--and I knew it then--that I could
have had you for the asking. But I could not bear to have you thus. When
your grandfather placed so great a trust in my honour, and showed so
little faith in my generosity, I laughed at his blindness, for I thought
age had cooled his blood, and made him forget the language which is not
speech. But alas! I found that I who had taught you many things, could
not teach you this lesson. How could I? when what is held the easiest of
all, the letting you see what you were to me, I could never accomplish.
Do, say, act as I would, the sacredness of your affection ever stood
between us. I tried every art, and love has many, but when I spoke so
plainly, it seemed as if a very child must have understood me. You looked
or smiled with hopeless serenity. I vowed once that cost me what it
might, I would not speak until I had made you love me as truly, as
ardently as I loved you myself. I waited months, I might have waited
years. Well, no matter, it is over now. Be free, forget the trouble of an
hour in the peace of a life-time. Be happy, very happy, and yet, oh! how
happy, it seems to me, your friend could have made you, if you would but
have let him."

He released and left me. Touched with his sorrow, I could not restrain my
tears.

"Weep not for me," he said, with a sad smile; "I shall do. It is true
that when I came back from Italy, I secretly boasted that I had escaped
both the follies of youth and the dangers of passion. But though Fate,
which I braved abroad, has, like a traitor, lain in wait for me in my own
home, know, Daisy, that like a man, I can look her in the face, stern and
bitter as she wears it on this day, too long delayed, of our separation."

"Then you do mean to go?" I exclaimed, troubled to the very heart.

"Can you think I would stay?" he replied, vehemently. "Oh! Daisy, tempt
me not to call you cold and heartless, to say those things which a
lifetime vainly repents and never effaces. Is it because I have passed
through a year of the hardest self-subjection ever imposed on mortal;
through a year of looks restrained, words hushed, emotions repressed; a
year of fever and torment endured, that not a cloud might come over the
serenity of your peace--is it for this, Daisy, that you think my heart
and my blood so cold as to wish me to stay; as not to see that between
complete union or utter separation there can now be no medium?"

His look sought mine with a troubled glance; there was fever in his
accent, and pain in the half smile with which he spoke.

"But why go so soon?" I asked, in a low tone.

"Why? Daisy, you ask why? Because endurance has reached her utmost
limits, and cannot pass them; because the rest is an abyss over which not
even a poor plank stretches; because the thing I have delayed months must
be done now or never: because, hard as is your absence, your constant
presence is something still harder to bear."

He spoke with an ill-subdued irritation I knew not how to soothe.

"Cornelius!" I said in my gentlest accents, "if you would but stay and be
calm."

"Stay and be calm!" he replied impetuously, and pacing the room with
hasty steps, that ever came back to me; "why, I have been the calmest of
calm men! When, one after another, they attempted to woo and win under my
very eyes the only girl for whom I cared, she whom I looked on as my
future wife; as the secret betrothed of my heart: when, to add taunt to
taunt, as if I were not flesh and blood like them; as if I had not known
you more years than they had known you weeks; loved you, when they cared
not if you existed, they allowed me with insolent unconsciousness to
behold it all, did I not subdue the secret wrath which trembled in every
fibre of my being? What more would you have me do? Wait to see in the
possession and enjoyment of one more fortunate than the rest, that which
should have been my property and my joy; whilst I looked on, a robbed
father, a friend forsaken, a lover betrayed, and behold my child,
companion, friend and mistress the prize of a stranger!"

"Do you think then," he added, stopping short, and speaking with calmer
and deeper indignation, "do you think then that I have severed you from
the lover of your youth, guarded you from my own friends, watched over
you as a miser over his gold, suspected every man who looked at you,
sickened at the thought, 'Is it now I am to be robbed?' breathed and
lived again at the reply, 'Not yet'--to stay and wait until some other
comes and reaps the fruit of all my vain watchfulness."

His eyes flashed, and his lips trembled with jealous resentment. Borne
away by the force of his own feelings, he had spoken with a vehement
rapidity, that left him no room for pause, as they left me no room for
interruption. At length he ceased. I looked at him; he had spoken of his
patience with feverish anger, of his calmness with bitter indignation;
the passionate emotions had left their traces on his brow slightly
contracted, on his pale and agitated face, in his look that still burned
with ill-repressed fire; but there was sweetness in his reproaches, and a
secret pleasantness in his wrath.

"Another," I said quietly, "and suppose there is no other. Suppose no one
cares for me."

"No one!" he echoed, drawing nearer, and taking my hand in his, with a
sudden change of mood and accent, "No one, Daisy! Oh! you know there will
always be one. One who sat with you by a running stream for the whole of
a summer's noon, and at whom your face seemed to look from the clear
waters until it sank deep and for ever in his heart. One who waking or
sleeping, has loved you since that day, and for whom it is you, Daisy,
who care not."

I said I did care for him.

"But how, how?" he asked, with an impatient sigh, "you mean old
affection, habit, friendship, and I, you know well enough, mean none of
those things. I love you because do what I will, you attract me
irresistibly. If I had met you in the street by chance, I should have
said, 'this girl and none other I will have;' I would have followed you,
ascertained your dwelling, name and parentage, ay, and made you love me
too, Daisy, cold as you are now."

"I am not cold, Cornelius."

"Alas, no," he replied, a little passionately, "and there too is the
mischief. Oh! Daisy, be merciful! Give nothing if you cannot give all. Be
at once all ice, and torment me no more with the calm serenity which is
never coldness. Do you know how often you have made me burn to remind
you, that though I was no one to you, you might be some one to me; that
you have made me long for the sting of indifference and pride; for a
familiarity less tender, for a tenderness less dangerous? Do you know
that if your affection has been too calm for love, it has been very
ardent for mere friendship; that it has possessed the perilous charm of
passion and purity; passion which would be divine if it could but be
pure; purity which, if it were but ardent, would be irresistibly
alluring. You have tormented me almost beyond endurance, then when I gave
up hope, you have suddenly said and done the kindest things maiden ever
said or did. You have deserted me and returned to me, embraced me with
the careless confidence of a sister, spoken with the tenderness of a
mistress, and perplexed me beyond all mortal knowledge. But why do I
speak as if this were over? Daisy! you perplex me still. This very
evening have you not declared that you care for no other, then almost as
plainly said you cared not for me. Have you not heard me tell you how
warmly I love you, yet have you not asked me to stay here in this house
ever near you? Nay, though I speak now from the very fulness of my heart,
do you not stand, your hand in mine, listening to me with patient, quiet
grace? I dare not hope, I will not quite despair; I can do neither, for I
protest, Daisy, that you are still to me a riddle and a mystery, and that
whether you love him or love him not, is more than Cornelius O'Reilly can
tell."

Cornelius had said all this without a pause of rest: he spoke with the
daring rapidity of passion which tarries not for words, but with many an
eloquent change of look, tone, and accent. I had heard him with throbbing
bosom and burning brow. For the first time I was addressed in the
language of love, and the voice that spoke was very dear to me. Answer I
could not. I stood before him, listening to tones that had ceased, but
that still echoed in my heart. When he confessed, however, that he did
not know whether or not I loved him, an involuntary smile stole over my
face, and this he was very quick to see; his look, keen and searching,
sought mine; his face, eager and flushed, was bent over me.

"Look at me, Daisy," he said, quickly.

I looked up, smiling still; for I thought to myself, "I love him, but he
shall not know it just yet." But as I looked, a change of feeling came
over my heart. I remembered the past, his long goodness, his patient,
devoted love, and I could not take my eyes away.

"Well," he said, uneasily, "why do you look at me so strangely? My face
is not new to you, Daisy. You have had time to know it all these years."

Ay, years had passed since our first meeting; and what had he not been to
me since then? My adopted father, my kind guardian, my secure protector,
my faithful friend, my devoted lover! As I thought of all this, and still
looked at him, his kind, handsome face grew dim through gathering tears.
"I will tell him all," I thought; "I will be ingenuous and good; tell him
how truly, how ardently I love him." The words rose to my lips, and died
away unuttered. Is the language in which woman utters such confessions
yet invented? Oh! love and pride, tyrants of her heart, how sharp was
your contest then in mine! He was bending over me with strange tormenting
anxiety in his face. I bowed my head away from his gaze. He half drew me
closer, half pushed me back; his hand sought, then rejected, mine. He saw
my eyes overflowing.

"Oh, Daisy, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?"

"Guess," was my involuntary reply.

"Do not trifle with me," he said, in a tone of passionate entreaty--"do
not."

"Trifle with you! Could I, Cornelius?"

"Prove it then."

He stooped and looked up; for a moment my lips touched his cheek, whilst
his lingered on my brow. Many a time before had Cornelius kissed me; but
this was the first embrace of a love, mutual, ardent, and yet, God knows
it, very pure--ay, far too religiously pure to trouble. And thus it was
all understood--all known--all told--without a word.

When I felt that the unconscious dream of my whole life was fulfilled;
that I was everything to him who had so long been everything to me; when
I looked up into his face, met his look, in which the affection of the
tried friend, and the love of the lover, unequivocally blended, and knew
that no other human being--not even his sister--could claim and fill that
place where my heart had found its home, and that as I loved so was I
loved,--I also felt that I had conquered fate; that I triumphed over by-
gone sorrow, and could defy the might of time. I cried for joy, as I had
often cried for grief on that kind heart which had sheltered my forsaken
childhood and unprotected youth.

"Tears!" he said, with a smile of reproach; and yet he knew well enough
they were not tears of sorrow.

"They will be to me what the rain has been to the night, Cornelius; a
freshening dew."

I went up to the open window; I leaned my brow on the cool iron bar; the
morning air came in pure, chill, and fragrant. I shivered slightly.
Cornelius, who had followed me, saw this, and wanted to close the window.

"Do not," I said; "this cool, keen air is delightful. Then I like to
watch the rising of that sun that thought to see you far on your journey,
and that shall find you here. Besides, bow beautiful our little garden
looks!"

"Then come out into it for awhile."

He took my arm. I yielded. We went down into the garden and paced its
narrow gravel path without uttering a word. There came a slight shower;
we stepped under the old poplar trees; they yielded more than sufficient
shelter. The sun shone through the sparkling drops as they fell, and
whilst the fresh rain came down, the birds overhead sang sweetly under
the cover of young leafy boughs, as if their song could know no ending.
Yes, sweet and near though I knew it to be, it sounded to me as coming
from the depths of some dreamy forest far away. I do not think our garden
had ever looked so fresh, so pleasant, or been so fragrant as when that
shower ceased. The rain-clouds soft and grey, had melted into the vapoury
blue of upper air; the warm sunshine tempered the coolness of the breeze,
the green grass was white and heavy with the dew of night, and bright
with the rain of the morning; the wet gravel sparkled, the dark trunks of
the trees trickled slowly, the brown moss clung closer to the old sun-
dial, the fresh earth smelt sweet, stock, mignionette, wall-flower,
furze, and jessamine yielded their most fragrant odours. Rhododendrons
beaten down by the last night's storm trailed on the earth their gorgeous
masses, whilst sparkling fox-gloves, with a dew-drop to every flower,
still rose straight and tall. We were again walking on. Cornelius
suddenly stopped short, and for the first time spoke.

"Daisy," he said, earnestly, "you are quite sure, are you not?"

"Look at that flower," was my only reply.

It was a crimson peony, heavy with rain. I bent it slightly; from the
delicate petals, from the heart which seemed untouched by a breath, there
poured forth a bright shower of liquid dew.

"What about that flower, Daisy?"

"It is a peony, Cornelius."

"Let it."

"Well, I don't think you can prevent it from being one. Peonies will be
peonies."

"Who wants to interfere with their rights? and what have peonies to do
with our discourse, unless that you look very like one just now? Oh,
Daisy! are you sure you like me well enough to marry me?"

"Don't think, if ever I do such a thing, it shall be for liking,
Cornelius."

"What for, then?"

"To prevent you from marrying any one else."

He still looked uneasy, and yet he might have known that, though it is
sometimes very hard to know where love is, it is always wonderfully easy
to know where he is not.

"What would you have?" I asked, a little impatiently. "Is it the love,
honour, and obey that troubles you? Well, I have loved you all my life,
or very nearly. I honour you more than living creature; as for obedience,
I could obey you all the day long, Cornelius."

"Do you mean to turn out a Griseldis?" he said, uneasily. "What put such
ideas into your head?"

"Remembrance of the time--"

"I knew you would grow filial again," he interrupted, looking provoked,
"instead of answering my question, which was--"

"Concerning your wife," I interrupted, in my turn; "what about her? She
ought to be a proud woman, and it will be her own fault if she is not
happy--ay, a very happy one."

He stroked my hair, and smiled quite pleased.

"I hope so," he said. "And yet you do not know what I mean to do for her,
Daisy. I will paint her pictures that shall beat all the sonnets Petrarch
ever sang to his Laura. I will win her fame and money: I will dress her
as fine as any queen, until my field-flower shall outshine every flower
of the garden. Above all, I will love her as knight of chivalry, or hero
of romance, never loved his lady."

He spoke with jesting, yet very tender flattery. Love can take every
tone, and bend any language to its own meaning.

I know not how long we lingered together in that garden. I was the first
to become conscious of time.

"Where is Kate?" I asked.

"Forgotten," replied her low voice.

She stood beneath the ivied porch; her head a little inclined; one hand
supporting her cheek. She looked down at us with a smile happy, yet not
without sadness.

"Don't think I envy you the pleasant time," she resumed more gaily; "I
like to see people enjoying themselves. When I meet couples in the lanes,
I either get out of the way, or, if I cannot do that, I give them
internally my benediction. 'Go on,' I think to myself, 'go on; you will
never be happier, nor, perhaps, better than you are now. Go on.'"

"We want to go in," said Cornelius, as we ascended the steps.

As I passed by her, Kate arrested me by laying her hand on my shoulder,
and saymg:

"Look at that child! She has not slept all night, and there is not a rose
of the garden half so fresh. It's a nice thing to be young, Cornelius."

She sighed a little, then led the way in to the front parlour, where
breakfast was waiting.

"Already!" said Cornelius.

"Yes, already," she replied, sitting down to pour out the tea: "whilst
you were in the clouds, the world has gone on just the same. Midge, why
don't you sit near him as usual? you are not ashamed of yourself, are
you?"

Ashamed! Oh, no! There is no shame in happiness; and God alone knows how
happy I felt then sitting by him whom I loved, and facing her whom I
loved almost as well. I do not know how I looked, or Cornelius either;
for I did not look at him; but I know that Kate was radiant; that every
time her bright eyes rested on us, they sparkled like diamonds, and that
it touched me to the heart to read the generous, unselfish joy painted on
her handsome face.

We were no sooner alone, than with her habit of continuing aloud whatever
secret train of thought she chanced to be engaged in, Miss O'Reilly said
to me in her most positive manner:

"I am very glad of it."

"Are you, Kate?" I replied, passing my arm around her neck and kissing
her.

"Yes, you coaxing little thing; for he is devotedly fond of you, and I
believe you like him with your whole heart, though it took you so long to
find it out. What would you and  he have done without me."

"I don't know, Kate, but how came you to let him think of going?"

"Ah! he quite deceived me in that matter; I never dreamt of it until it
was all settled. It was no use my telling him that if you only knew he
liked you, you would be glad to have him, as indeed any girl in her
senses would. He said you only liked him in a sisterly sort of way, and
would be off. I thought I would find out when he was gone, what sort of a
way it was, but I had not the trouble."

I smiled. She gave me a wistful look and said:

"Ah! you don't want to be his niece now, do you?"

"No, indeed," I promptly answered.

"And I don't wish it either," she replied with a stifled sigh, "time was
when I fretted and repined; when I wished I had been the wife of Edward
Burns, and that his child had been my child; but that is over. I am glad
now that my heart was denied that which it craved so eagerly; that my
youth was cold and lonely; that my sorrow which past, purchased him and
you a happiness which will I trust endure. Oh, Daisy! this is a good
world after all, and with a good God over it; don't you see how the grief
of one is made to work the bliss of another; how because your father and
I were severed, the two children we loved so dearly can be united?"

"I see, Kate," I replied looking up into her face, "that Cornelius is
good; that I, too, am what is called a good girl, and yet that we are two
selfish creatures; that you alone are truly good and noble."

She shook her head with humble denial.

"I am an idolator for all that," she replied, her lips trembling
slightly, "and you are blind if you do not see it. When I lost my lover,
I set my heart on a child--for what are we to do with our hearts, if we
don't love with them?--and he has kept it, and if God, to chastise me,
were to take him from me to-morrow, I feel I should love him as much in
his grave as I do on earth. If it be a sin, I trust to His mercy to
forgive it. Sometimes, when my heart fails me, I cling to the
recollection of His humanity. He who felt so much tenderness for his dear
mother; who loved His brethren so truly; who cherished the beloved
disciple; who wept by the grave of Lazarus, will surely not be very
severe on a poor woman to whose whole life he thought fit to grant but
one delight and one happy love. Do you think he will, Daisy?"

I was too much moved to reply.

"Now, child," she said gaily, "don't cry, or Cornelius, whom I hear
coming down after you, will think I have been scolding my future sister-
in-law."

"And would you not have the right to do so?" I asked, kissing her with
mingled tenderness and reverence.

As she returned the embrace, Cornelius entered, and from the threshold of
the door, looked at us with a delighted smile.

CHAPTER XIX.

How Mrs. Langton explained her conduct towards me, is more than I know;
but it cannot have been to the dissatisfaction of Edward Thornton; for
within two or three weeks they were married. They went to Italy on a
matrimonial tour, and there they have resided ever since, leaving Mrs.
Brand in happy and undisturbed possession of Poplar Lodge.

They thought not of us, and we thought not of them, nor of mortal
creature, save Kate. The present effaced the past, and absorbed the
future. Familiar affection may not have the romance and mystery of the
passion which has given one soul and one heart to beings hitherto
strangers; but it has a deeper tenderness and far more sacred purity.
Love now sat with us at board and hearth; something unknown lingered at
twilight-time in the shadow of the room, and morn and eve a charmed
presence haunted every garden-path and bower.

Kate allowed us to dream away a few days, then suddenly startled us one
evening, by saying quietly:

"Cornelius, when do you mean to write to Mr. Thornton?"

Cornelius started, and turned a little pale; my work dropped from my
hands, and I sank back on my chair. Upon which he looked distracted, and
seemed ready to quarrel with Kate for having started such an unwelcome
subject.

"Nonsense!" she said gaily, "don't you see it is all right."

We looked at her, she smiled kindly.

"You have written to him?" anxiously observed Cornelius.

"I have seen him this very day. You need not open your eyes. What are
railroads and express trains for? Why should I not go via Thornton House,
and give a look to Rock Cottage; for I trust you do not mean to follow
the foolish cockney fashion of associating your honeymoon with hotels and
long bills. I shall never forget the impression I received, when Mr.
Foster said to his wife with whom he ran away: 'Don't you remember, dear,
how they cheated us at that Hotel des Etrangers?' 'Yes, dear,' she
replied, 'but you know they were twice as bad at the H?tel d'Angleterre.'
Poor things, it was ten years ago, but they had not forgotten it yet."

"Kate," interrupted Cornelius, "what about Mr. Thornton."

"Why nothing save that he seemed inclined to be merry, and said if he had
reflected there was a woman in the case, he could have foretold at once
what would become of the secret. Don't you see, you foolish fellow, that
he only meant this as a bit of humiliation and punishment for you. But
that if he did not want you to marry Daisy, he would not have allowed her
to be here. For my part I like him, and did not find him so very grim. He
showed me his books, instruments, and when I left, hoped he should see me
again."

"That is more than he ever did for any one," I said astonished; "Kate,
you have made a conquest."

She looked handsome enough for it, and so Cornelius told her. She laughed
at us, and bade us mind our own business. More she did not say then, but
it came out a few days later that Mr. Thornton had told her the sooner
Cornelius and I were married, the better he would be pleased. As this was
precisely the feeling of Cornelius and Kate, I yielded.

We were married very quietly one sunny summer morning; then we bade Kate
adieu for a fortnight, which we were to spend in Rock Cottage. It was her
darling wish that we should go there, and we gratified her.

I remember well how strangely I felt when we reached my old home, now
ours. It was not a year since I had left it, but it seemed ages.
Everywhere we found touching tokens of the recent presence of Kate, and
of her thoughtful tenderness. The sun was setting; we watched it from the
beach beneath the pine trees, and never--so at least it seemed to me, and
it cannot have been a fancy of mine, for Cornelius said so too--never had
the sun set more gloriously, or the sea looked more beautiful than on
this the eve of our marriage day.

As in the visions of olden prophets, the cloudless heavens before us
seemed to open, revealing depths of blazing light with long golden rays
that, as they departed from the sun, grew paler until they faded into the
deep evening blue. From the cliff whence we looked down, we saw the heavy
billows of the sea rolling away towards the far horizon, and touched with
a changing light that seemed both alive and burning.

The glowing heavens were still; the voice of the ocean was murmuring and
low; the land breeze was silent, and thus, looking at the two vast
solitudes of sea and sky, we forgot earth beneath and behind us, as we
sometimes forget life in the contemplation of eternity. I do not think I
ever felt existence less than I did then, though so near to him whom I
yet loved with every faculty of my being. But there is in true happiness
something sublime that raises the soul far beyond mortality.

If I felt anything in that hour, it was that the glorious ideal world
which lay before us was not more lovely or more ideal than the new world
which I now entered; and where in this life and the next, I hoped to
dwell for ever with Cornelius. For to those who love purely, love is its
own world, its own solitude, its own new created Eden, green and pleasant
where they abide, a new born Adam and Eve, without the temptation and the
fall, their hearts filled with tenderness, their souls overflowing with
adoration.

I know at least that sitting thus by Cornelius, my hand in his, my eyes
like his watching that broad, tranquil sun slowly going down to rest, I
had never felt more deeply religious, more conscious of God in my heart.
As the bright disk dipped in the long line of the cool looking sea, then
sank rapidly, and at length vanished beneath the deep wave; as dark
clouds advanced across the sky, and the beautiful vision was lost in the
purple shadows of coming night, I felt that the earthly sun might set,
but that within me dwelt the peace and loveliness of an eternal dawn.

When the chill sea breeze began to sweep down the coast, Cornelius made
me rise. Through the green garden we walked back to the house. He stopped
before the stone steps and said:

"It was here I found you lying eight years ago: do you remember, Daisy?"

"Yes, Cornelius, I was very wretched, very lonely when you came and sat
down by me, took me in your arms, kissed me and consoled me."

"God bless you for having remembered it so long!"

"As if it were likely I should forget it! Cornelius, I do not think we
have ever sat on those stone steps since that day; let us do so now, and
talk of all that has happened since then."

We did so. It was the pure twilight hour, when earth and all she bears
lie dark and sleeping beneath a vast clear sky, to which light seems to
have retreated. For awhile we talked, but of its own accord speech soon
sunk into silence. What we said I do not remember now; but I still
remember how solemnly beautiful was that eve; how the calm moon rose
behind the house and looked down at us from her lonely place above; how,
as the sky darkened, it grew thick with stars; how the pine-trees bowed
to the sea-breeze at the end of the garden; how the waves broke at the
foot of the cliff with a low dash, pleasant to the ears, and how as I sat
by Cornelius I felt I was no longer a poor orphan child, but a happy and
loved woman; no longer an object of pity and sorrow, but the proud
companion of his life, and the chosen wife of his heart.

Home, realm of woman, pleasant shelter of her youth, gentle dominion
granted to her life, I can say that thou hast yielded me some of the
purest and deepest joys.

Before leaving Leigh, we saw my grandfather, who received us kindly, and
bade Cornelius be fond of me. We have now been married three years. He
declares he is more in love with me than on the first day, and I believe
it. Kate says "nonsense!" but I know well enough she likes us to be so
fond of one another. She, too, is very happy; for though she agrees with
me that Cornelius has not yet obtained the position he deserves to have,
yet, as he is universally acknowledged to be a genuine artist, as his
pictures are prized, and sell well, she assures me that, spite of
professional jealousy, he will one day be held second to none. I tell her
I am sure of it. Cornelius laughs at us, and thinks the very same thing
in his heart, for he works harder, and, though he will not confess it, is
more eager and ambitious than ever.

We are, as we have always been, a good deal together; for we have no
children to divert my attention. This is the only sore point with Kate.
It seems such a thing never happened before in the O'Reilly family, and
she cannot make it out. But Cornelius and I do not mind; we are young,
happy and leave the future to Providence.

It was last year, when Cornelius went to Spain--for he did go after all,
but only for a few months, and I did not like to leave Kate, who seemed
to me rather unwell--that I began this narrative. I had just received a
letter from William Murray, who wrote to tell me that he was married and
happy. My past life seemed to rise before me; so, to recal it, and divert
my mind from dwelling too much on the absence of Cornelius, I one evening
wrote a few pages, to which, day after day, more were added.

Oh my husband! my handsome, gifted husband! I love you much, very much,
more than I shall ever tell you, and far more than I have dared to write
even here; but if you should some day chance to see that which I never
meant to be seen, know, at least, that to your wife, there never was a
pleasanter task than thus to record the story of her long love for you,
as child, girl, and woman.

THE END.

PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.

Typographical errors silently corrected:

Volume 1

Chapter 5 : =you no lessons.= replaced by =you no lessons?=

Chapter 11 : =in a lone tone= replaced by =in a low one=

Chapter 11 : =was it not Mr. O'Reilly= replaced by =was it not, Mr.
O'Reilly=

Chapter 13 : =Well, what is it?= replaced by ="Well, what is it?=

Chapter 14 : =examined now.= replaced by =examined now?=

Chapter 15 : =it I saw= replaced by =if I saw=

Chapter 19 : =rocks at Leigh,= replaced by =rocks at Leigh,"=

Volume 2

Chapter 1 : =hastily checked,= replaced by =hastily checked.=

Chapter 2 : =knew me not."= replaced by =knew me not.=

Chapter 6 : =I forget it= replaced by =I forgot it=

Chapter 6 : =thing. I am satisfied= replaced by =thing, I am satisfied=

Chapter 6 : =creature you are?= replaced by =creature you are!=

Chapter 6 : =with that you know= replaced by =with that, you know=

Chapter 6 : =answering that question.= replaced by =answering that
question?=

Chapter 9 : =bouquet, I meant= replaced by =bouquet I meant=

Chapter 9 : =recal= replaced by =recall=

Chapter 10 : =There reigns= replaced by ='There reigns=

Chapter 10 : =do you advise.= replaced by =do you advise?=

Chapter 10 : =Yung-Frau= replaced by =Jung-Frau=

Chapter 12 : =trumbler= replaced by =tumbler=

Chapter 12 : =You don't Cornelius= replaced by =You don't, Cornelius=

Chapter 12 : =next day, day Cornelius= replaced by =next day, and
Cornelius=

Chapter 13 : =not an artists= replaced by =not an artist=

Chapter 16 : =about Nothing?'"= replaced by =about Nothing'?"=

Chapter 16 : =poor you see= replaced by =poor, you see=

Chapter 17 : =Girl Reading!'= replaced by =Girl Reading'!=

Chapter 18 : ="Ashamed= replaced by =Ashamed=