"And your headache!" observed Kate, seeing he was going out. "Never mind the headache, Kate!" he replied impetuously: he was gone, slamming the door behind him. Kate laid down her work with an astonished air. He came in as I was going up to bed. I stood on the first steps of the staircase and turned round to look at him: his face was flushed; his eyes sparkled; he looked excited--more excited, I thought, than joyous or happy. In passing by me he took me so suddenly in his arms that he nearly made me fall, then begged my pardon, and finally kissed me two or three times so tenderly that Kate, who saw us from the parlour, looked quite jealous, and uttered an emphatic "Nonsense!" "Can't a man kiss his own child?" asked Cornelius, putting me down with a gay short laugh. "Cornelius," said Kate, "your headache was a quarrel with Miriam--confess it." He reddened and looked disconcerted. "I knew it," she observed triumphantly. "No, Kate," he replied quietly, "you did not know it; you mistook; I can give you my word that I have never had the slightest difference with Miriam; by the bye, she sends her love to you." With this he entered the parlour and closed the door. I thought it odd, and yet I knew not how to disbelieve Cornelius. At the end of the same week Miriam again came to sit for Medora. If there was a change in his manner to her, it was that he seemed to be more enamoured than ever. Cornelius had not attached sufficient importance to our tacit quarrel to alter in the least after our tacit reconciliation. A young man of twenty- two, passionately in love with a beautiful woman of twenty-six, was not likely to care much whether a little girl of twelve sulked and would not kiss him. I liked to think the contrary--that he had been angry with me, and that I should show my penitence. This proved a most unfortunate mistake. Since she had wholly superseded me, Miriam had allowed me to remain in peace; but when I endeavoured to render myself useful or agreeable to Cornelius, she resented it as an insolent attempt to divert even a fragment of his attention from herself. She was sitting to him as usual one afternoon, when he suddenly exclaimed-- "How provoking! I cannot find it; I can scarcely get on without it." "It will give you time to rest," quietly said Miriam. A little reluctantly he sat down by her, but said he must return to his work at three. It was a sketch, which he wanted for the foreground of Medora, that Cornelius could not find. We had vainly looked for it the whole morning. I thought I would have another search. A deep shelf, well stored with art-rubbish, ran round the room. Unperceived by Cornelius, I got up on the table, reached down an old portfolio, opened it, and found at once the missing sketch. Overjoyed at my success, I stepped down too hastily; my foot slipped, I fell; in no time Cornelius had picked me up. "Are you hurt?" he cried, in great alarm.