The fever was indeed on him; that strange, engrossing fever to which passion is nothing; which to the strong is life, but death to the weak. He revelled in it as in a new, free, delightful existence. Pale and thin he was, but his brow had never been more serene, his glance more hopeful, his whole bearing more living and energetic. But as autumn waned, as days grew short, as leisure to work lessened, the serenity of Cornelius vanished. He rose long before dawn and paced his little studio up and down, impatiently watching the east: with the first streak of daylight he was at work, and day after day it became more difficult to tear him from his task. When he came home at dusk, his first act was to run up to his picture. I often followed him unnoticed, and found him standing before it, fastening on his unfinished labour a concentrated look that seemed as if it would struggle against fate and annihilate the laws of time. When he turned away, it was with an impatient sigh unmixed with the least atom of resignation. We were sitting dull enough in the parlour, one evening just before Christmas, when Kate said to him, in her sudden way-- "The days will get long in January." "And I shall then be a free man," he replied, with a smile. "You have been discharged!" she exclaimed, dismayed. "I have discharged myself. Now, Kate, don't look so startled! The picture shall be finished in time." "I dare say it will, Cornelius," she replied, ruefully. "Well, then, what do you fear?" "Suppose," she hesitatingly suggested, "that it cannot get exhibited!" "I do not see how that can be," composedly replied Cornelius. "Bless the boy! do they never reject pictures?" I sat by Cornelius, whose hand played idly with my hair; he stopped short to give his sister an astonished glance, then he shook his handsome head, and laughed gaily. "Reject _that_ picture, Kate!" "He is his father all over," she sighed. He smiled at her blindness, and turning to me, said-- "What do you say, Daisy?" "They shan't reject it; they dare not," was my ready reply. "It is too absurd to suppose such a thing, is it not?" he added, to teaze his sister, who disappointed him by unexpectedly veering round. "Cornelius," she said, decisively, "your energy and decision in this matter give me more hope than your enthusiasm. I like a man to act for himself; but you must go on as you have begun, and give yourself up entirely. Will you be a student at the Royal Academy? Will you study under some great master? Will you travel? Speak, I have money." "Thank you, Kate; I am glad you think I have acted rightly; but I have begun alone, and alone I must go on, with experience for my sole teacher. I must keep my originality." Kate remonstrated, but Cornelius, once in the fortification of his originality, was not to be ejected thence. "Just like his poor father!" sighed Kate; "he was always for his originality."