The other thing, I remember, is that I had in some measure seized on the power it had pleased Cornelius to relinquish. My will was more powerful over him, than his over me. I did not seek for it; but thus it was. It is almost ever so in human affections: perfect equality between two seldom exists; the sway yielded up by one is immediately and instinctively assumed by the other. With the least exertion of his will, Cornelius could again have converted me into a submissive and obedient child; but to govern always requires a certain amount of indifference; and he seemed to have lost both the power and the wish to rule. I should not have been human if I had not taken some advantage of this. I loved him as dearly as ever; but, secure of his fondness and affection, 1 did not, as once, make his pleasure my sole law. I also remembered that we had a few differences; mere trifles they then seemed to me, and Kate herself made light of them. "Don't fidget," she invariably said to her brother; "she's but a child." "A child!" he once replied, with a sigh; "you should hear her philosophize with me!" "Well, then, she's a philosophical child." "I don't know what she is," he answered, giving me a reproachful look. "I sometimes think Providence sent her to me as a chastisement for my sins." "Poor sinner!" said Kate, smiling, "what a penance!" We were all three sitting in the parlour by the fireside. I pretended to be much concerned, and hid my face in the sofa-pillow. Cornelius gently entreated me not to take it so much to heart, assured me I was no penance, but the joy of his life, and the light of his eyes; made me look up, and saw me laughing at him again. "There," he said, biting his lip and looking provoked, "do you see her, Kate?" "She is young and merry. Let her laugh." "But why will she not be serious? Why will she be so provokingly flighty and slippery?" "Nonsense!" interrupted Kate. "Let her be what she likes now; she'll be grave enough a few years hence." He sighed, and called me his perverse darling. I laughed again, and bade him sing me an Irish song. He obeyed, and thus it ended.