"No."
"But, Cornelius, when will you begin?" I inquired, rather disappointed.
"Now."
"Now!" I exclaimed, delighted.
"Why did you not tell me sooner that you wished for it?" he asked, reproachfully. "I thought you liked the walks, and put off talking of work from day to day."
I had a confused impression at the time, that there was something odd in this speech, but in my joy at having succeeded, I forgot it.
"It is quite early yet," I said, "you can begin at once. Which shall it be, Cornelius, the women praying, or the children by the fountain?"
"Neither one nor the other for the present," he replied, "that is to say I hope not. I have thought of another subject to begin with."
"What is it, Cornelius?" I asked, much interested.
"I saw a young girl once," he said in a thoughtful tone, like one who looks back into memory, "and she brought to my mind"s eye a full and charming picture. She sat within the meditative shadow of an ill-lit room, reading by an open window--well, why do you look at me so?"
"I only think that I was sewing that day--you know, not reading; therefore you cannot mean me."
"Logically concluded. To resume: the room was gloomy, but the open window gave a sense of s.p.a.ce, and admitted the light, high and serene, of a pale evening sky. The book lay open on the lap of her who read, one hand rested upon its pages; the other supported her cheek; the eyes were rapt and thoughtful; the silent lips met and closed with a charming and austere grace; the att.i.tude was meditative, even down to the garment"s quiet and gathered folds. The slender figure told of early youth, but there was the calmness of an immortal spirit on the brow, and something beyond time in the bearing and the mien. I remembered the Greek"s meditating muse, and Corregio"s divine Magdalen reading in the wilderness, and I thought though Pagan times be gone and art may have lost her early faith, she still can tell the story of earnest spirits that live and move within the shadow of our own homes, yet ever seem to dwell serene in their own heights. That is the subject, Daisy, and there is a speech for you."
"Is that all, Cornelius?"
"All. It will stand in the catalogue, as "A Young Girl Reading," and many, unable to see more in it, will give a brief look and pa.s.s on. If a few linger near, even though they scarcely know why; if to them it embodies thought, meditation, or some such thing, I am satisfied. Daisy.
Well, what do you think of it?"
"Nothing for the present; I am thinking whether Jane will do."
"What for?" he asked promptly.
"To sit for you. She is very pretty, you know."
"And she looks very meditative, with her bright black eyes ever open, and her cherry lips ever parted."
"I wish you had seen Miss Lindley. She is tall, graceful, and dresses with so much taste. Then she has a pale olive face, and looks very lady- like."
"And a lady-like Meditation--who dresses well too--would be the very thing."
"But Cornelius," I said, rather perplexed, "how will you manage? I can do for the figure pretty well, I dare say, but the face?"
He gave me an odd look, and answered:
"Yes, there is a puzzle."
"How thoughtless of you."
"Very."
"Then how will you manage?"
"Really," he said, turning round to confront me, "is it possible you do not guess whose face I want, Daisy?"
"Mine!" I exclaimed, much astonished.
"Yes, yours," he replied, taking my hand in his. "I once saw you reading--"
"Sewing, Cornelius."
"No [!] reading--do you think I never looked at you but that one time?-- and I liked it, for I saw it would make a very charming picture. The att.i.tude is one in which you often fall unconsciously--simple, true, and graceful. I like it. I like, too, the exquisite colour of your hair, and the meditative light of your gray eyes. Dark eyes may be for pa.s.sion; blue, for love and sweetness; gray, less beautiful, perhaps, but also less earthly, are for meditation and spiritual thought."
"And the meaning of hazel eyes?" I said, looking up at his.
"Sincerity," he replied, biting his nether lip to repress a smile. "If, for instance, a person with hazel eyes ever tells you "you are truly pretty, Daisy, though you do not seem to know it," believe that person, Daisy."
"I shall see about that when the time comes. In the meanwhile, I wish you would begin."
He called me a little tyrant, but it was a tyranny he liked, for he yielded to it with an ardour and alacrity that betrayed him. He placed me in the att.i.tude he wanted--sitting by the window, with a book on my lap-- and began at once. I saw he was quite in his element again; and when, after a long sitting, we both rested, I said to him, a little reproachfully:
"You like it more than ever, Cornelius. I see it in your face."
"It does not annoy you?" he asked, giving me an uneasy look.
"Annoy me, Cornelius! Have you forgotten Daisy?"
"Ah! but she was a sickly child: and for the merry young girl to be shut up--"
"She does not mind being shut up the whole day long, provided it be with Cornelius."
"Who, when once he is at his easel, has scarcely a word or a look to give her."
"She does not want him to give her words or looks. She wants him to paint a fine picture, than which, she thinks, there is nothing finer; and to become a great painter, than which, she believes, there is nothing greater."
"Indeed, then, there is not," he replied, laughing and reddening, and his brown eyes kindling with sudden, though lingering light. "Oh, Daisy!" he added, after a pause, laying his two hands on my shoulders, and looking down at me intently, "what a fine, generous little creature you are!"
"Because I do not mind sitting," I replied, smiling. "You forget.
Cornelius, I always liked it. Let us return to it, and surprise Kate."
Miss O"Reilly was certainly surprised when she came up--much more surprised than pleased--to see the historic style put aside; but when her brother gently informed her that Mary Stuart was not quite a masterpiece, she waxed wroth, indignantly said he would never do better, and only hoped he would do as well. Cornelius heard her quietly, and smiled at me with the security of conscious power.
As he went on with his "Young Girl Reading," I was struck with the wonderful progress he had made--it more than fulfilled the promise of the Italian sketches. I expressed my admiration without reserve, and I could not but see in his face, how much it gratified him. The time that followed was, indeed, a happy time, as happy as the past, with much that the past had never known. Cornelius looked engrossed and delighted. He worked either with the impa.s.sioned ardour of a lover, or with a lingering tenderness as significant. He dwelt _con amore_, over certain bits, or stood back and looked at the whole fondly, through half-shut eyes, drinking in, with evident delight, that sweet intoxication which lies in the contemplation of our own work, when we can behold in it the fulfilment of some cherished idea. But, at the end of a fortnight, there came a change. He looked gloomy, misanthropic, and painted with the air of an angry lover, who has fallen out with his mistress. Ardour had become scorn--tenderness was changed into sullen languor. I guessed that one of his old desponding fits was on him, and, at length, I spoke. It was on a day when, spite of all his efforts, I could see that he scarcely worked. I left my place, and went up to him. For a while, I looked at the picture; then said:
"How it progresses."
"Wonderfully."
"I wish you would not be ironical, Cornelius."