He laughed again, and looked down at me as I stood by him with my hand on his arm, and my upraised face seeking his look; assured me kindly he was not at all angry, and left me. From that evening I could not say that Cornelius was less kind or seemed less fond of me, but I vaguely felt a change in his manner; something lost and gone I could neither understand nor recall. At first I was rather uneasy about it, then I attributed it to his painting, with which he was wholly engrossed. "The Young Girl Reading," had been finished for some time, and he was hard at work on his two Italian pictures. Never did he seem to have loved painting better; never to have given it more of his soul and heart. I went up to him one mild spring afternoon; I found him looking at his three pictures, and so deeply engrossed that he never heard me until I stood close by him. "Confess you were admiring them," I said, looking up at him smiling. He smiled too, but not at me. "Yes," he replied, quietly, "I see better than any one their merits and their faults; but such as they are, they have given me moments of the purest and most intense pleasure man can know." He spoke in a low abstracted tone, with a fixed and concentrated gaze. I looked at him again, and found him thin and pale. "You have been working too hard," I said, "you do not look at all well." "Don't I?" he replied, carelessly. "No. Kate made me notice it yesterday, and said 'the boy is in love, I think!' I said 'yes, and painting is the lady.' Confess, Cornelius, you like it better than anything else in this world." "Yes. Daisy, I do." "Better than me?" "Are you a thing?" "You call me a nice little thing, sometimes." "And so you are," he answered, smiling. "What do you think of that kneeling woman's attitude?" "Beautiful, like all you do, Cornelius." "It is beautiful, Daisy; and, alas! that I should say so, the only truly good thing in the whole picture. Well, no matter; with all my short- comings I am still--thank God for it!--a painter." "And what a triumph awaits you. Oh! Cornelius, how I long to see it!" He did not reply. Some imperfection in one of the figures had caught his eye; he was endeavouring to remove it, and appeared lost and intent in the task. I withdrew gently, and paused on the threshold of the door to look at him. He stood before his easel, absorbed in his labour; the light fell on his handsome profile and defined it clearly; his eyes, bent on his canvas, looked as if they could behold nothing else; no breath seemed to issue from his parted lips; he was enjoying in its fulness, the delight and the charm which God has placed in the labour dear to the artist's heart.