He could not have put a more unfortunate question. He looked at the picture, but I knew he thought of the woman. I did not answer. He turned round, surprised at my silence. "Don't you think it beautiful?" he asked incredulously. "No, Cornelius, I do not," I answered, going back to my place as I spoke. I only spoke as I thought; I had long ceased to think Miss Russell handsome. Cornelius became scarlet, and said, rather indignantly, "It would be more frank to say you dislike her, Daisy." "I never said I liked her," I answered, stung at this reproach of insincerity, when my great fault was being too sincere. I said this, though I fully expected it would make him very angry, but he only looked down at me with a smile of pity. "So you are still jealous," he observed quietly; "poor child! if you knew how foolish, how ridiculous such jealousy seems to those who see it!" I would rather Cornelius had struck me than that he had said this; I could not bear it, and burying my face in my hands, I burst into tears. He composedly resumed his work, and said in his calmest tones-- "If I were you, Daisy, I would not cry in that pettish way, but I would give up a foolish feeling, and try and mend. Think of it, my poor child; it is an awful thing to hate." My tears ceased; I looked up, and for once I turned round and retaliated the accusation. "Cornelius," I said, "I do not hate Miss Russell half as much as she hates me." "She hate you!" he exclaimed, with indignant pity, "poor child!" "And if she does not hate me," I cried, giving free vent to the gathered resentment of weeks and months,--"if she does not hate me, Cornelius, why was she so glad when she thought me disfigured with the small-pox, that she should come up to look at me? Why did she give me a dress in which I looked so ill, that you know Kate has never allowed me to wear it? Why did she make you send me to school? Why did she come back from Hastings and make you leave by the Stolen Child? Why did she want you to discontinue teaching me? Why is there never a day but she reminds you that I am sickly, plain, and sallow?" I rose as I enumerated my wrongs; Cornelius looked at me like one utterly confounded. "You say I am jealous of her," I continued, gazing at him through gathering tears; "I am, Cornelius, but I am not half so jealous as she is, and yet I love you twice as well as she does. For your sake I would not vex her, and she does all she can to make mc wretched. I could bear your liking her much and me a little; but if she could she would not let you like me at all. If you say a kind word to me or kiss me, she looks as if it made her sick; she hates me, Cornelius, she hates me with her whole heart." Tears choked my utterance. Cornelius sighed profoundly. "Poor child," he said, with a look of great pity, "how can you labour under such strange delusions?"