Cornelius reddened; she resumed--
"One is as earnest as the other is indifferent."
"Indifferent!" he interrupted; "well, you know I do not think so highly of Medora as of this; yet Kate, who is no partial judge, confesses that there is earnestness in the look and attitude of the figure."
"Yes, but rather cold, that is to say, calm," quietly replied Miriam; "do you not yourself think so?"
He said, "Yes," and smiled a somewhat forced abstracted smile, continued his work for some time without speaking, then suddenly leaving it by, he went and fetched Medora.
"Come, where is that great difference?" he asked resolutely.
"I feel it," was her quiet answer.
He looked at her, and, without insisting, put away the painting.
The matter seemed dismissed from his mind, but the next morning, when I went up to the studio a little after breakfast, I found Medora on the easel and Cornelius looking at it intently. Without turning to me, he called me to his side.
"Now Daisy," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, "tell me frankly, candidly, if you think Medora so very inferior to the other one."
"No, indeed, Cornelius," I replied eagerly.
"She is always abusing it." he continued in an annoyed tone; "yesterday evening in the garden she hoped I would not think of finishing and exhibiting it."
"What a shame!" I exclaimed indignantly.
"No, my dear; Miriam does well to give me her candid opinion; I hope it is what you will always do."
"But, Cornelius," I ventured to object, "do you think Miss Russell knows much about painting?"
"To tell you the truth," confidently answered Cornelius, "I do not think she does. She has natural taste, but no experience. Now you," he added, turning to me with a smile, "you, my pet, though such a child, know of painting about ten times as much as she does, and, although it would not do to say so to her, I could trust to your opinion ten times sooner than to hers."
I was foolish enough to be pleased with this.
"I hope," continued Cornelius, "to be able to improve her taste; in the meanwhile, I think, like you, Daisy, that Medora is almost equal to the Stolen Child."
I had never said anything of the kind, but Cornelius was evidently convinced I had, and I knew not how to set him right.
"Yes," he resumed, looking at the picture, "it improves as you look at it. That little bit of rock-work in the foreground is not amiss, is it, Daisy?"
"It is just like the rocks at Leigh," I replied.
"Is it though?" exclaimed Cornelius, chucking my chin, a sign of great pleasure, "I am glad of it; not that I care about the rocks, not a pin; but it is always satisfactory to know that one is true to nature, even in minor points. And so there were some like them at Leigh! Well, no matter; I gave of course my chief attention to the figure, and that I think is pretty well."
He looked me in the face with the simplicity of a child; listened to my enthusiastic praise with evident gratification, and, with great _na?vet?_, confessed "that was just his own opinion." We were interrupted by the unexpected entrance of Miriam, who came earlier than usual.
"There!" triumphantly exclaimed Cornelius, "the case is decided against you; I have appealed to Daisy, and like me she does not see so very great a difference between Medora and the Stolen Child."
"Does she not?" carelessly replied Miriam, as she sat down without looking at the picture.
"I see what it is," he said in a piqued tone, "you think I have not done you justice."
"Nothing of the kind," she answered smiling.
"Ah! if I did not fear to injure your health," reproachfully continued Cornelius, "I would soon show you that Medora could be made not quite unworthy of Miriam."
"But really," she replied in her indolent way, "I only said it was a little calm."
"Cold, Miriam. Ah! if you would only give me as a sitting the hour you spend here daily, how soon I could improve that cold Medora."
She flatly refused; she could not think of letting him lay by his Stolen Child, that promised so well for so inferior a production as Medora. It was only after half an hours hard begging and praying, that Cornelius at length obtained her consent. He set to work that very instant,--she sat not one hour, but two; I looked on with the vague presentiment that Cornelius and I were very simple.
Of course, though not at once, the Stolen Child was again laid aside for Medora. Cornelius said it made no difference, since he could finish the two pictures with ease for the ensuing year's Exhibition. Kate made no comment, but quietly asked if the smell of the paint had ceased to affect Miss Russell.
"Oh dear, yes, quite," replied her brother with great candour.
Cornelius was both good and great enough to afford a few unheroic weaknesses, such as paternal fondness for his pictures, and too generous a trust in the woman he loved, for him to suspect her of seeking to influence him by unworthy arts. I believe it was this simple and ingenuous disposition that made him be so much loved, and rendered those who loved him so lenient to his faults. He had his share of human frailties, but he yielded to them so naturally, that he never seemed degraded as are the would-be angels in their fall. Even then, and though youth is prompt and severe to judge those whom it sees imposed upon, I never could respect Cornelius less, for knowing him to be deceived.
My old life now began anew in many of its trials, though not perhaps in all its bitterness. Miriam tried to deprive me of the teaching of Cornelius, and he, without even suspecting her intention, resisted it with the most provoking simplicity and unconsciousness. In vain she came in evening after evening as we sat down to the lessons, spoke to him, or disturbed me with her fixed look; the studies were not interrupted. One evening, as we sat by the open window of the front parlour, engaged as usual, Miriam, who had sat listening to us with great patience, observed, a little after Kate had left the room--
"How good and kind of you, Cornelius, to teach that child so devotedly!
Many men would disdain the task, you know."
"Think it foolish, perhaps?" he suggested.
"I fear they would."
"What fools they must be, Miriam!" he replied, smiling in her face.
"You are wise to put yourself above their opinion."
"As if I thought of their opinion!" he answered gaily. "Come, Daisy, parse me this: 'A certain great, unknown artist, once had a little girl.
He was not ashamed to unbend his mighty mind by teaching her every evening. On one occasion, it is said, he actually disgraced himself so far as to kiss her.'"
I was listening with upraised face. I got the kiss before I knew what he meant. But I was not going to be discomposed by such a trifle, and I parsed as if nothing had occurred.
"Isn't she cool?" he said, turning to Miriam.
"She improves wonderfully," replied his betrothed.
"Does she not?" exclaimed Cornelius, who took a very innocent vanity in my progress; "I am quite proud of my pupil; and I have a system of my own--did you notice?"
"Oh yes, in the parsing."
"I don't mean that," he answered, reddening a little; "I mean a general system, a method,--the want of all education, you know."
"Yes, very true."
"Well," continued Cornelius, looking at me thoughtfully, and laying his hand on my head as he spoke; "I think that, thanks to this method, I shall, four or five years hence, be able to boast that I have helped to form the mind and character of an intellectual, sensible, and accomplished girl."