Bressant | Page 4

be never realized, is itself
a kind of happiness, without which we might feel at a loss. If the
professor's solitary wish had been fulfilled, and there had been no
longer cause for him to say, "If I had but this, I should be satisfied,"
might it not still happen that in some unguarded, preoccupied moment
he should start and blush to find his lips senselessly forming
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