"If I had asked him to stay up awhile, he would not have said "No:" he would have said, "Yes, Margaret, my dear, it is only ten; you may stay up another quarter of an hour.""
"Well then, stay," replied Cornelius, unable to repress a smile, "but you will make a nice exacting daughter."
"A spoiled one," said Kate.
"Let her," he replied; then laying his hand on my head, he kindly added, "Kate, this child is the only boast and good deed of my life. She makes me feel venerable and paternal, and, like a good Papa, I"ll work hard to give her a marriage portion some day."
"I don"t want to marry," I observed pettishly; "I don"t want to leave you, Cornelius."
"Nonsense!" drily said Kate, "you"d do like your Mamma, run away, if one attempted to keep you."
I denied it indignantly; she insisted. I was beginning to utter a most vehement protest against the mere idea of ever forsaking Cornelius, when he interfered, and informed me that his paternal pride and feelings would be wounded to the quick at the idea of my remaining an old maid. He appealed to my sense of filial duty; I generously sacrificed myself, but not without making some preliminary conditions.
"He must be an Irishman," I said.
"Ah!" observed Cornelius, stroking his chin, "he must be an Irishman!"
"Yes, and an artist."
Cornelius looked uncomfortable, but he merely echoed--
"An artist!"
"Yes, and his name must be Cornelius."
Cornelius looked disconcerted.
"Nonsense!" sharply said Kate, "what are you talking of? an Irishman--an artist--name Cornelius? nonsense!"
"Then I won"t have him at all," I replied, rather provoked: "I did not want him, Kate, and you know it too. I want to stay with Cornelius."
"Mrs. O"Reilly may have a word or two to say to that," very quietly observed Kate.
I felt Cornelius start like one who receives the sting of a sudden pain, but he did not contradict his sister. Mrs. O"Reilly! the mere name was hateful to me. I did not reply; Kate continued--
"You look quite charmed at the idea of your Papa marrying."
"No girl ever liked a stepmother yet," I answered, reddening.
"Then you will be an exception, I am sure," very gravely said Cornelius.
I was not at all sure of that; but I did not dare to say so. He saw very well that I was anything but cured of my old jealousy; and though I believe nothing was then further from his thoughts than marriage, he insisted on this point, to warn me, I suppose, of the necessity of self- subjection.
"You must be the governess of the children," he said.
"Yes, of course she must," decisively said Kate.
I turned on her triumphantly:
"Then don"t you see," I said, "that if I am the governess I shall always stay with him?"
Cornelius looked both annoyed and amused.
"There is a wonderful degree of obstinacy in that child," he observed; "she always comes back to her idea of staying with me."
"Because there is nothing she likes half so well," I said, looking up into his face.
"Ah! Mignon! Mignon!" sighed Kate.
"Who is Mignon?" I asked, struck with the name which I heard for the second time.
"It is more than a quarter past ten," was the reply Miss O"Reilly gave me.
I looked at Cornelius, but he showed no wish to detain me; so I submitted and left them.
From that day there was a very marked change in his manner towards me. He was as kind, but by no means so familiar, as he once had been. He was always calling me his little daughter, yet I no sooner availed myself of this imaginary relationship to claim more freedom and tenderness, than he seemed bent on repelling me by the most pertinacious coldness. He received my caresses with chilling indifference, often with an annoyance he could not conceal; he seldom returned them, and when he did so, it was not with the friendliness and warmth to which he had accustomed me for years. When I felt this, and became dispirited and unhappy, Cornelius looked distressed, and, in his anxiety to restore me to cheerfulness, returned to his free and kind manner, in which he persevered until some remark of his sister, or some action of mine too fond and endearing, again rendered him cool and guarded.
I could not imagine then the reason of all this. I could not imagine why, when I showed Cornelius how much I loved him, he looked so wretched; I could not understand why, when Kate once said to him, in her most ominous tones, "Cornelius, that child won"t always be a child," he started up and began to walk up and down the room like one distracted. Still less could I make out how, when he seemed more attached to me than ever he had been, more anxious for my welfare, more bent on improving me by every means in his power, he was so provokingly cool and reserved.
At length I could stand it no longer.
"You don"t like me," I once said to him, a little angrily,--"you know you don"t; you never kiss me now--you know you never do." And I began to cry.
Cornelius looked almost ludicrously perplexed. He hit his lip; his upraised eyes sought the ceiling; he tapped his foot; he sighed profoundly, then hung down his head, and looked melancholy.
"I wish you would always remain a little girl of thirteen or so," he said ruefully, "it would be a great deal more convenient and comfortable."
I was piqued with the wish, and checked my tears to inform Cornelius I hoped I should not remain a little girl; indeed I was sure of it, and that though he did not care about me at all, he should not prevent me from caring about him. He smiled, but not cheerfully; then he made an effort, and said,--
"Never mind, Daisy, you shall be happy, let it cost what it may; only don"t tell Kate."
"What must I not tell her, Cornelius?"
"Never mind; but don"t tell her."
"But, Cornelius, I must know in order not to tell."
"You are very inquisitive," was his short answer.
I did not know what to make of him. He looked as oddly as he spoke, and I had not the faintest idea of the generous sacrifice he resolutely contemplated, at an age when most men are dead to all, save the gratification of their own vehement pa.s.sions.
Since then I have understood both what Cornelius feared and what he intended to do. I have admired his generosity and wondered at his rashness in forgetting what was not merely likely to happen, but what really did happen; namely, that he was to love again.
This imprudent resolve had however the result of giving him momentary peace, and, perhaps because its realization was still so distant, of banishing from his mind all thought of the future.