Bressant | Page 4

themselves into the utterance of the old formula? Would it not be a sad humiliation to acknowledge that the treasure he had all his life craved, did not so truly fill and occupy his heart as the mere act of yearning after it had done?
In indulging in these speculations, however, we are pretending to a deeper knowledge of Professor Valeyon's private affairs than is at present authorizable. After a while he withdrew his eyes from the hill-tops, sighed, as those do whose thoughts have been profoundly absorbed, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He began to debate within himself--for the mind, unless strictly watched, is apt to waver between light thoughts and grave--whether or no it was worth while to make a second journey into the study after more tobacco. Perhaps Cornelia was within call, and would thus afford a means of cutting the Gordian knot at once. No! he remembered now that she had walked over to the village for the afternoon mail, and would not be back for some time yet. And Sophie--poor child! she would not leave her room for two weeks to come, at least.
"I wonder whether they ever want to see any thing of the outside world?" said the old gentleman to himself, elevating his chin, and scratching his short, white beard. "Reasonable to suppose they could appreciate something better than the society hereabouts! A picnic once in a while--sleigh-ride in winter--sewing-bees--dance at--at Abbie's; and all in the company of a set of country bumpkins, like Bill Reynolds, and awkward farmers' daughters!
"It won't do--must be attended to! The good education I was at such pains to give them--it'll only make them miserable if they're to wear their lives out here. I'm getting old and selfish--that's the truth of the matter. I want to sit here, and have my girls take care of me! Pshaw!
"Sophie, now--well, perhaps she don't need it so much, yet; she's younger than her sister, and has a good deal more internal resource: besides, she's too delicate at present. But Neelie--Neelie ought to go at once--this very summer. She needs an enormous deal of action and excitement, bodily and mental both, to keep her in wholesome condition. Has that same restless, feverish devil in her that I used to have; never do to let it feed upon itself! must get her absorbed in outside things!
"But what am I to do?" resumed the professor, sitting up in his chair, and shaking out his shirt-sleeves--for the heat of his meditations had brought on a perspiration; "what can I do--eh? Sophie not in condition to travel--can't leave her to take Cornelia--no one else to take her--and she can't go alone, that's certain! Humph!"
Professor Valeyon paused in his soliloquy, like a man who has turned into a closed court under the impression that it is a thoroughfare, and stared down with upwrinkled forehead at the sole of the kicked-off slipper, indulging the while in a mental calculation of how many days it would take for the hole near the toe to work down to the hole under the instep, and thus render problematical the possibility of keeping the shoe on at all. It might take three weeks, or, say at the utmost, a month; one month from the present time. It was at the present time about the 15th of June, the 14th or the 15th, say the 15th! Well, then, on the 15th of July the slipper would be worn out; in all human probability the weather would be even hotter then than it was now; and yet, in the face of that heat he would be obliged to go over to the village, get Jonas Hastings to fit him with a new pair, and then go through the long agony of breaking them in! At the thought, great drops formed on the old gentleman's nose, and ran suddenly down into his white mustache.
But this digression of thought was but superficial, and the sense that something serious underlaid it remained always latent. The professor leaned back in his chair, and sighed again heavily. It was true that he was growing old, and now that he contemplated action, he felt that in the last nine years the inertia of age had gained upon him. Besides, he greatly loved his daughters, and though it is easy to say that the greatest love is the greatest unselfishness, yet do we find a weakness in our hearts which we cannot believe wholly wrong, strongly prompting us to yearn and cling--even unwisely--to those who have our best affection. "And what seems wise to-day may be proved folly to-morrow," is our argument, "so let us cling to the good we have."
And Professor Valeyon well knew that what time his daughters departed to visit the outer world was likely to