"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.