"Nonsense!" he mournfully echoed, "she calls Art nonsense! Art, that is to win her brother so much honour, ay; and with this very picture!" Kate sighed deeply. "How very odd," said Cornelius, pausing in his work to look at her--"how very odd you do not see what is so clear to me, that I must succeed! I am surprised you do not see it, Kate." There was not the shadow of a doubt on his clear brow; not a sign of fear in his secure and ardent look. "Our poor father used to say just the same, Cornelius, only if one doubted, he would fly out." "Then I do not; there is the difference." "He was not bad-tempered; but disappointment--" "Kate, your manner of supporting Daisy is getting less and less maternal; pray do not forget that you are very miserable about your darling. Daisy, my pet, your doll was put there to show you are too ill to enjoy it, not to look at." The sitting was long; our attitudes were rather fatiguing: Kate lost patience. "You will be late," she said, "and Daisy is tired." "I am not tired," I observed. "Don't you know, Kate," said her brother, smiling, "that if I were to ask her to jump out of that window, she would?" "Nonsense!" shortly replied Miss O'Reilly. "There," she added, as I reddened indignantly at what I considered an imputation on my devotedness,--"there, did you see the look the little minx gave me?" "I see that, as my attitudes are spoiled, I [must] release you. Ah, Daisy is the best sitter of the two," he added, as his sister jumped up with great alacrity; and he thanked me with a caress so kind, that Kate said, in a displeased tone-- "You may make that child too fond of you, Cornelius." "And if I do, Kate, have I not the antidote? Am I not getting very fond of her myself?" He was, and I knew it; and daily rejoiced in the blessed consciousness. Spring yielded to summer; summer passed; the picture progressed; Cornelius devoted to it his brief holiday in the autumn. "You look pale and ill," said Kate; "you want rest." "I feel in perfect health; work is my holiday," was his invariable reply. And to work he fell--harder than ever. "Yes, yes," she sadly said, "the fever is on you."