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Patrick's day God bless him!" Bressant hesitated a moment, passed his hand rapidly down over his face and beard, and then, catching open the door just as the fat servant-girl was closing it, he requested her to inform Abbie, when she came back, of his return, and tell her he would like to speak with her. "I'll do it, sir; rest easy," was the encouraging reply.
Bressant had heard little or nothing of the explanation volunteered by the bearer of the message, but he at once recognized the yellow telegraph-envelope, and comprehended the rest.
Bressant to you myself," said she, with the same peculiar smile; and so left them together. The young man stood confronting the young woman, who, besides being dressed with great taste, looked, owing to the whimsical circumstances in which she was placed, every bit of beauty she had. Bressant stared at her in astonishment.
She rattled the keys in her girdle before proceeding, with a distraught, embarrassed manner: "By-the-way, you had something more than good nursing to help you to health, I heard. Is it Cornelia or Sophie?" Bressant hesitated and stammered a weakness he seldom was guilty of, especially when there was so little reason for it as at present. "It's I'm oh! Sophie!" said he.
The footing was deep and heavy, the thick fir-trees having kept the snow from being blown off the road, as in more exposed situations. Bressant was wet to his skin, for the temperature had risen, and the flakes melted as fast as they fell. Most of his glow and vigor remained, however, and he was no whit disheartened or doubtful.
This was quixotic and unpractical, if nothing worse. What other means of imparting spiritual knowledge could a young girl like Sophie have, than to exhibit to her pupil the structure and workings of her own soul? But this could not be done with impunity; neither was Bressant a cup, to be emptied and then refilled with a purer substance.
Bressant turned over on his side, and regarded him with some curiosity. "Do all people who love each other, or because they love each other, marry?" demanded he. For a moment, the professor seemed to suspect some latent satire in this question; but the young man's face convinced him to the contrary.
As they mounted the porch-steps, which creaked and crackled beneath their weight, the door was opened by Cornelia, in her travelling-dress. Her face expressed so vividly the unspeakable horror which she felt as her eyes rested on her sister's half-opened lids, that Bressant, seeing it, was stricken anew with the perception of his own misery.
Bressant had certainly been looking in her direction as she spoke; he had the opposite place to her at table; but instead of replying, even with a motion of the head, he, after a moment, turned to Professor Valeyon, who was gently oscillating himself in the rocking-chair he always occupied at meals, and asked him whether he knew any thing about a place in town called "Abbie's Boarding-house."
Bressant's eyes fastened idly upon it, but he said nothing, and did not move, Cornelia withdrew her unaccepted hand, smiled, and, turning about, walked up the path to the house with an easy and dignified grace, which was not so much natural as the inspired result of passion. Bressant looked down at the watch in his hand, and saw it marking the hour at which a dark epoch in his life began.
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