Bressant | Page 7

any kindness. I am surprised now," he added, with a good deal of
feeling; "she's a better friend than I thought."
Cornelia remained silent for several moments, because, not in the least
comprehending what sort of ground her papa was walking on, she
feared that the questions and remarks she was anxious to advance might
jar with his mood. At length, a sufficient time having elapsed to
warrant, in her opinion, the introduction of intelligible topics, she
looked up and spoke again.
"How soon, papa--how soon did you say--am I to go?"
"First of July, Aunt Margaret says. Will that give you time enough to

make yourself fine?"
"Now, papa, you're making fun of me," exclaimed the young lady,
delighted that he should be in the humor to do so, yet speaking in that
semi-reproachful tone which ladies sometimes adopt when the other
sex makes their costume the object of remark, "I can make myself as
fine as I can be by that time, of course! But how is it about Sophie?
Won't she be able to go too?"
Papa shook his head, and combed his bristly white beard with his
fingers. "Sophie has been very ill," said he; "it wouldn't be safe to have
her go anywhere this summer. We can't take too much care of her.
Typhoid pneumonia is a dangerous thing, and though she's on the way
to recovery now, she might easily relapse. And then," added the old
gentleman, in a more inward tone, "she would recover no more."
Although he mumbled this sentence to himself, Cornelia caught his
meaning, more, probably, from his manner than from any thing she
heard; and being of an emotional and warmly-tender disposition, she
began to cry. She loved her sister very much; and something must also
be allowed to the fact that, having a great happiness in prospect for
herself, she could afford to expend more sympathy on those less
fortunate. As for the professor, he, for a second time that afternoon,
gave evidence of possessing disgracefully little control over himself.
He began another fruitless search after his handkerchief, and finally
asked Cornelia, with some heat, whether she knew what had become of
it.
"Why, it's on your head, papa!" warbled she, brightly changing a laugh
for her tears; and papa, putting up his hand in great confusion, and
finding that it was indeed so, laughed also, and this time in a perfectly
natural manner; but he blew his nose very resoundingly, for all that.
The atmosphere being serene once more, the joy of the future became
again strong in Cornelia's heart, and coupled with it, an earnest longing
to disburden herself to some one, and who but her sister should be her
confidant? So she rose from her knees, and picked up her brown straw
hat, which, in the excitement, had fallen to the floor.

"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. The letter contained a good deal more
than the invitation he had communicated to Cornelia, and he could not
feel at ease until he had more thoroughly analyzed and digested it. So
when his daughter had vanished through the door, with a smile and a
kiss of the hand, he mounted his spectacles again, and spread the letter
open on his knee.
After reading a while in silence, he spoke; though his voice was audible
only to his own mental ears.
"There was a time," said he, "when I wouldn't have believed I could
ever hear the news of that man's death, and take it so quietly! And now
he sends me his son!--as it were bequeaths him to me. Can it be as a
hostage for forgiveness, though so late? or is it merely because he knew
I could not but feel a vital interest in the boy, and would instruct and
treat him as my own? He was a shrewd judge of human nature--and yet,
I must not judge him harshly now."
Here Professor Valeyon happened again to catch sight of his slipper,
and interrupted his soliloquy to extend his stockinged toe, fork it
toward himself, and having, with some trouble, got it right side
uppermost, to put it on. And then he referred once more to the letter.
"I should like to know whether he was aware that Abbie was here, or
that she was alive at all! Margaret says nothing about it in her letter. If
he did, of course he must have written to her, or, if he was determined
to die as for these last twenty years and more he