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On the evening of the 4th of July, Professor Valeyon and Cornelia got into the wagon, and drove off, behind Dolly, to the boarding-house. It was a warm, breathless night, and the stars looked brighter and more numerous than usual.
Professor Valeyon turned his strong-featured face away from the lamp, so that the shadow covered his expression. He could feel the heat of Sophie's cheek through his coat, as she lay heavily on his shoulder; heavily, but not half so heavily there as upon his heart. But, with the physician's instinct, his voice was on that account all the more cheerful.
You know that man they have here isn't always quite sober, especially when it's Fourth of July, or any thing of that sort; and papa is getting old." "Yes, Miss Valeyon. I'll attend to it. I'll fix the old gentleman up, like he was my own father. And you're just right about that fellow that's around here; I wouldn't trust him.
"I feel sure he will be back by to-morrow evening. Don't let your daughters fail to be here to meet him." After reading this, and without pausing to indulge in casuistry, Professor Valeyon betook himself straight to Sophie's chamber. "You've heard something!" said she, in a low, assured tone the moment he entered. "A letter? give it me I would rather read it myself."
"To tell you the truth," returned Professor Valeyon, with an emphatic deliberation of manner, "I don't think you can give her any information that she's not possessed of already. She knows as much as you do, that's certain. You'll do well to begin business nearer home than at Mrs. Vanderplanck's." Bressant lifted one hand to his beard, which he twisted about unmercifully.
Perhaps Professor Valeyon was not one of the exceptions, and was haunted by the idea that, were some certain event to come to pass, life would be more pleasant and gracious to him than it was now. Doubtless, however, an ideal aspiration of some kind, even though it be never realized, is itself a kind of happiness, without which we might feel at a loss.
"Yes; I'll come," said he, with an elastic inclination of his shoulders, and a smile. He thought himself fortunate in so good an opportunity to put his invulnerability to the proof. Abbie bowed without speaking, and moved toward the door. Having opened it, she turned round, with her hands upon the latch: "Professor Valeyon tells me you're an orphan, sir?"
But then, again, the matter had taken no definite or practical shape in his mind as yet, and things which in the abstract may wear an appearance of being highly desirable often put on quite a different look when presented in concrete form. This would be especially the case with a man like Professor Valeyon, who was half a dreamer, and half a practical, common-sensible individual.
"Is there any thing you'd like to do, papa dear?" asked she, laying her forefinger caressingly upon his bald head. "Because if there isn't, I, I should like I think I'd better go to Sophie." Professor Valeyon nodded his head, being in truth desirous of taking solitary counsel with himself.
So habitual was the woman's self-control, however, that these symptoms, whatever they betokened, were repressed and annulled, till none, save a particularly sharp-sighted person, would have noticed them. Bressant was thinking only of Professor Valeyon, and would scarcely have troubled himself, in any case, about the neuralgic spasms of his landlady.
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