"Do you know, Mr. O'Reilly?" I said, taking hold of his curved chin, and looking up at him laughing. "Do you know that you are very good-looking?" He half threw back his head, as if in scorn of the compliment; but when I added, "I suppose all great artists are so!" he smiled down at me; and if his smile was somewhat conscious, it was still more fond and tender. "You like me, Daisy; don't you?" he said, bending over me a flushed and happy face. I laughed, and he laughed, too, with the security of the knowledge. "Oh! you may laugh," he said with sparkling eyes; "I know you do. I know it, but I have not deserved it," he added, remorsefully. "Oh! when I think how cold, and how careless I have been; and how you might serve me out now!" "How so, Cornelius?" He smiled, and smoothed my hair without replying. "Why it is you who might serve me out," I said. "Is it?" "Of course, for it is I who have all to gain or lose." "Are you afraid?" "No." He repressed a smile, gave me a curious look, and said I was an odd girl. "And won't the other girls be jealous of me, Cornelius?" I asked, proudly. "Jealous! What for?" "Because you are immortalizing me in a picture." "What else?" "Because you like me." "What else?" "Because I am to be always with you." "And how do you know you are to be always with me?" he asked with a mischievous look; "answer me that." I did not at first; he laughed. "Well," I said, piqued, "am I not to be always with you? Was it not agreed before you went to Italy? Am I not to be the governess?" "The governess!" he echoed, astonished. It was some time before I could make him remember what had passed between us. If I had not been positive, he would have denied it altogether. "How can you think of such nonsense?" he asked, impatiently; "the governess of what?" "Of the children; and please not to call them _what_." "_Them!_ Will you be pleased to remember that I am a poor artist." "Sceptic! Providence will send for every child a new picture to paint." "Providence is very kind. I hope her liberality will know some limits." "The first must be Cornelius or Kate, second ditto, third--" "Daisy!" "There must be a third to be called after the mother, and the fourth after one of her friends; the fifth--" "Daisy!" indignantly asked Cornelius: "do you mean to make a patriarch of me?" "Patriarch or not, there must be a fifth--mine, whom you will call Daisy, in memory of the other Daisy you brought home, wrapped in your cloak." Cornelius turned round to look at me smiling: "So you were piqued," he said, "and brought up the governess to punish me!" "Piqued!" I echoed, laughing in his face, "what about?" He looked a little disconcerted. I thought him vexed, and apologized at once for my want of respect. "Respect!" he replied seeming half astonished, half displeased, "what do I want with respect--your respect?" And he gave me a glance of mingled incredulity and uneasiness.