Cornelius perhaps remembered the threat of death suspended over my whole youth, for he observed uneasily-- "Yes--I trust--I hope--Daisy, you must not learn so much!" He drew me nearer to him with a look and motion kinder than a caress, then said to Miriam-- "She looks pale." "It is only excitement; she is so anxious to please you. When she is near committing a mistake, she is quite agitated, poor child!" Miriam had struck the right chord at last. There was some truth in what she said. My desire to please Cornelius did agitate me a little, and this he knew. "She must go back to Kate," he hastily observed; "I won't have her so pale as that; and she must not study so much," he added, with increased anxiety, "she can always make up for lost time." In vain I endeavoured to keep my teacher, he was resolute; it was some comfort that the change sprang from no unkindness, and had been effected only by working on his affection for me. But even that change, such as it was, did not last for more than a week. One evening, after listening to Kate and me with evident impatience, Cornelius swept away the books from before her, sat down between us, and, informing his sister that her method was no good, he announced his intention of taking me once more under his own exclusive care. "My method is as good as any," tartly replied Kate, "but the pupil who frets for her first teacher cannot make much progress under the second." "Have you been fretting, Daisy?" asked Cornelius. I could not deny it; he smiled and caressed me. "If it were any use remonstrating," said Kate, who looked half pleased, half dissatisfied, "I should tell you, Cornelius, that you are very foolish; not to lose time, I simply say this--you have taken Daisy from me a second time, you may keep her." "I mean it," he answered gaily. At once he resumed his office. We had scarcely begun when Miriam entered. She came almost every evening, for as her aunt was still at Hastings, Cornelius never visited her. From the door I saw her look at us, as we sat at the table, his arm on the back of my chair, his bent face close to mine, with a mute, expressive glance. "Yes," said Cornelius, smiling, as he smoothed my hair, "I have got my pupil back again. The remedy was found worse than the disease." Miriam smiled too. She gave up the point and attempted no more to deprive me of my teacher, but I had to pay dear in the daytime for what I received in the evening. Whilst she sat for Medora, I studied or sewed. She said little to me, but every word bore its sting. Cornelius never detected the irony that lurked beneath the seeming praise and apparent kindness. She tormented me with impunity. There were so many points in which she could irritate my secret wound; for I was still intensely jealous of her, and though Cornelius and Kate thought me cured, she knew better. But suffering gives premature wisdom.