"There is Cornelius!" I said, with a start, as a ring was heard at the garden-door. "Hold your tongue!" indignantly exclaimed Kate. "Why should he slink in by the back way? Daisy, I forbid you to open; it is a run-away ring: Cornelius indeed!" I obeyed reluctantly; I was sure it was Cornelius, and as I had not been forbidden to look, I went to the back-parlour window. I reached it as Deborah opened the door. It was Cornelius, with his hat pulled down over his brow, and what could be seen of his face, of a dull leaden white. He passed by the girl without uttering a word, entered the house, and went upstairs at once. I heard him locking himself up in his room, then all was still. I returned to the front parlour. Miss O'Reilly was pacing it up and down in great agitation, wringing her hands and uttering many broken ejaculations of mingled grief and anger. "My poor boy! my poor boy!" she exclaimed, with a strange mixture of pathos and tenderness in her voice, like a mother lamenting over her child; then stopping short, she added, her brown eyes kindling with sudden and rapid wrath--"What a bad set they are! a bad envious set! They thought they would not let him get up and eclipse them all. Oh no!--not they--they knew better than that--crush him at once--don't give him time--crush him at once!" She laughed sarcastically, then resumed, in a tone of indignant and dignified wonder, "I am astonished at Cornelius. What else could he expect? Has he not genius, and is he not an Irishman? Why did he not put Samuel Smith or John Jenkins or Leopold Trim at the bottom of his picture?--it would have got in at once; but with such a name as Cornelius O'Reilly, it was ludicrous to expect it." "Don't they take in the pictures of Irish artists?" I asked. "Hold your tongue!" was the short reply I got. "Please, Ma'am," said Deborah, opening the door, "don't you want the tea?" "And why should we not want the tea?" asked Miss O'Reilly, giving her a suspicious look,--"can you tell me why, Deborah? Can you give me any reason?--I should like to know why?" Deborah opened her mouth in mute wonder. "Bring up the tea-tray," continued her mistress, "and henceforth don't be uppish and make remarks, for you see it won't go down with me." Deborah endured the reproof with a perplexed air, retired, and returned with the tray. Miss O'Reilly made the tea with a deep sigh. We had eaten little at dinner; but had Cornelius dined at all? He gave us no sign of existence, and Kate did not seem inclined to go near him. When the tea was poured out, she turned to me and said, in a low tone-- "Go and tell Cornelius tea is ready." I obeyed in silence. CHAPTER X.