"I am an artist," he replied, drawing himself up slightly. She rocked herself to and fro, looking at her brother drearily. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and said, with earnest tone and look-- "Kate, I know all you dread; there are obstacles; I see them, and I will conquer them. Obstacles! why if there were none, would anything in this world be worth the winning?" He had begun calmly; he ended with strange warmth and vehemence, throwing back his head with the presumptuous but not ungraceful confidence of youth. His look was daring, his smile full of trust; to both his sister responded by a mournful glance dimmed with tears. "You had promised--" she began. "Not to give it up for ever, Kate," he interrupted; "I have kept my promise, I have tried not to draw; I might as well try not to breathe." "I know now why you took that paltry situation; you did not mean to stop there." "No, indeed, Kate." "I always knew you were ambitious." "So I am." "A nice mistress Fame will make you, my poor brother! Oh yes, very!" "I won't make a mistress of her, Kate; she is too much used to that; she shall be my hand-maiden." "First catch her!" shortly replied his sister. He laughed good-humouredly; she gave a deep, impatient sigh. "I know I must seem harsh," she said, "but our father's death--of a broken heart--is always before me. You are very like him in person and temper; for God's sake be not like him in destiny! I know painting; once it has taken hold of a man's mind, soul and being, he must either win or perish. Love is nothing to it. I would rather see you in love with ten girls." "At a time?" interrupted Cornelius, looking shocked. "Am I a Turk?" "You foolish boy, is a Turk ever in love? I mean I would rather see you wasting, in successive follies, the best years of your youth, than see you a painter. There comes a time, when, of his own accord, a man gives up passion; but when does the unlucky wight who has once begun to write poetry or paint pictures give them up?" "Never, unless he never loved them," replied Cornelius, with a triumphant smile; "poetry or painting, which I hold to be far higher, becomes part of a man's being, and follows him to the grave. But it is a desecration to speak of it as a human passion. I am not hard-hearted; but if Venus in all her charms, or, to use a stronger figure of speech, if one of Raffaelle's divine women were to become flesh and blood for my sake, and implore me to return her passion--" "Why you would of course; don't make yourself out more flinty than you are; it would not take one of Raffaelle's women to do that either." "Hear me out: if to win this lovely creature I should give up painting, not for ever, not for ten years, nor yet five, but just for one year,-- Kate, she might walk back to her canvas." "Conceited fellow!" indignantly said Kate, divided between vexation at his predilection for Art, and the slight thrown on her sex.