"Nonsense! charm!--I tell you it is an indication of character--of energy and wilfulness. It is all very well for the fair, meek hair to say, 'Oh! I'm so quiet;' I say the dark, passionate brow tells me another story, and as Daisy never cries without a reason, I should like to know what she has been crying about." "Her health affects her spirits, that is all," hastily replied Cornelius; "come up with me, Daisy, it will cheer you." I obeyed reluctantly. It was some time however before Cornelius took any notice of me. He stood looking at a study for a larger picture begun during my illness. It represented poor children playing on a common, and was to be called "The Happy Time." "And don't they look happy?" observed Cornelius, turning to me with a smile. He was perhaps struck with the fact that the child he addressed did not look a very happy one, for, with the abruptness of a thing suddenly remembered, he said-- "By the bye, what did you cry for, Daisy?" I hung down my head and did not reply. "Did you hear me?" "Yes, Cornelius." "Then answer, child." I did not; he looked astonished. "Answer," he said again. I felt myself turning red and pale, but to tell him I was jealous of Miriam Russell! no, I could not; the confession was too bitter, too humiliating. "Daisy," he said, "I shall get angry." I stood by him obstinately mute. I looked up at him with a dreary, sorrowful gaze; he frowned and bit his lip. I summoned all my courage to bear his coming wrath; to my dismay he chucked my chin, and said with careless good humour-- "As if I should not be fond of you all the same, you jealous little thing!" And with the smile which he no longer repressed he turned away whistling "Love's young dream." Vexed and mortified to the quick, I burst into tears; Cornelius turned round and showed me an astonished face. "Nonsense!" he exclaimed, laughing incredulously, "you never can be crying, Daisy!" The laugh, the gay, careless tone exasperated me. I turned to the door to fly somewhere out of his sight; he caught me back and lifted me up. In vain I resisted; with scarcely an effort he mastered me and laughed again at my unavailing efforts to escape. Breathless with my recent resistance, irritated by my subjection, I lay in his arms mute and sullen. He bent his amused face over mine. "You are an odd little girl," he said, with the most provoking good- humour, looking with his merry brown eyes into mine, that were still heavy with tears, and speaking gaily, as if my jealousy, anger, and weeping were but a jest; "I suppose you object to my marrying--well, that's a pity--but it is all your fault! You know I wanted to wait for you, only you would not hear of it, so I naturally got desperate and looked out elsewhere."