So Cornelia knocked and entered, and the quiet, cool room in which her sister lay seemed to glow and become enlivened by the joyous reflection of her presence. Yet the effect of the room upon Cornelia was at least as marked. She hushed herself, as it were, and tried, half unconsciously, to adapt herself to the tone of her surroundings; for, although her physical nature was sound and healthy, almost to boisterousness, her perceptions remained very keen and delicate, and occasionally rallied her upon the redundancy of her animal well-being with something like reproof.
It was singular, with how few and how simple means was created the impression of purity and repose that this chamber produced! It brought to mind the pearly interior of a shell, and a fanciful person might have listened for the sea-music whispering through. The walls were papered with pale gray, relieved by a light pink tracery, and the white-muslin curtains were set off by a pink lining. A bunch of wild-flowers and grasses, which Cornelia had gathered that morning, and Sophie had arranged, stood on the mantel-piece. There were four or five pictures--one, a bass-relief of Endymion, deep asleep, yet conscious in his dream that the moon is peeping shyly over his polished shoulder, had been copied from a famous original by Sophie herself. She had painted it in a pale-brown mezzotint, which was like nothing in nature, but seemed suitable of all others for the embodiment of the classic fable. This picture hung over the mantel-piece. Opposite Sophie's bed was an illumination of the Lord's Prayer, with clear gold lettering, and capitals and border of celestial colors. The dressing-table was covered with a white cloth, on which reposed a comb and brush and a pink pin-cushion with a muslin cover, and over which hung a crayon of the cherub of the Sistine Madonna, who leans his chin upon his hand.
Within reach of Sophie's hand as she lay, were suspended a couple of hanging shelves, which held her books. There were not a great many of them, but they all bore signs of having been well read, and there was at the same time a certain neatness and spotlessness in their appearance which no merely new books could ever possess, but which was communicated solely by Sophie's pure finger-touches. On the opposite side of the bed stood a small table, on which ticked a watch; and beside the watch was a work-basket, full of those multifarious little articles that only a woman knows how to get together.
Looking around the room, and noting the delicate nicety and precision of its condition and arrangement, one would have supposed that Sophie's own hands must have been very lately at work upon it. But it was many weeks since she had even sat in the easy-chair that stood in the rosy-curtained window; and, although now far advanced in convalescence, she had taken no part in the care of her room since her illness. Why it had still continued to retain its immaculateness was one of many similar mysteries which must always surround a character like Sophie's. Every thing she accomplished seemed not so much to be done, as to take place, in accordance with her idea or resolve; and there were always, in her manifestations of whatever kind, more spiritual than material elements.
When Cornelia entered, Sophie laid down her sewing, and looked up-with a smile in her eyes, which were large and gray, and the only regularly beautiful part of her face. She had a way of confining a smile to them, when wishing merely to express good-will or pleasure, which was peculiar to herself, and very effective. Cornelia walked quite soberly up to the bedside, kissed her sister, and then stood silent for several moments.
Compared with her recent exhilaration, this was very extraordinary behavior. She had rushed up-stairs intent upon pouring into Sophie's ears the whole gorgeous tale of her hopes and anticipations for the coming summer. Yet no sooner was she within the door than her excitement seemed to die out, and her enthusiasm ebb away. Extraordinary as it appeared, it was by no means a rare occurrence. Cornelia alone could have told how common; if, indeed, she ever reflected upon the matter. She was very quick to feel a divergence of interests between her sister and herself, and always inferred that Sophie could not sympathize with any thing for which she had no personal taste. In the present instance, it had all at once occurred to her that her sister would not be likely to care half so much about the gayeties of fashionable watering-places and city-life as she did, and might therefore treat with indifference what was to her an affair of the greatest moment; and a snub being one of those things which Cornelia found it most difficult, even in the mildest form, to endure, she had resolved, on the spur of the moment, to approach the topic of her proposed departure with the same coolness which she expected Sophie to manifest when she heard about it.
"Have you kept at that sewing ever since I went away?" asked she, idly examining the work which Sophie had laid down.
"I believe so," replied Sophie, stroking her chin to a point between her forefinger and thumb. "It's so pleasant to be able to sew again at all that I should consider it no hardship to have to sew all day."
Cornelia's thoughts immediately reverted to the dresses which the next two weeks must see made.
"You wouldn't be strong enough to do that, though, would you? I mean to sew on dresses, and all that sort of thing?"
"Dresses?" said Sophie, looking up inquiringly into her sister's face. "Oh, you mean your dress for Abbie's Fourth-of-July party? I thought you were going to wear your--"
"Oh, no, not that; I wasn't thinking of that," interrupted Miss Valeyon, with a gesture as if deprecating the idea of having ever entertained ideas so lowly. "I shall hardly be in town on the Fourth," she added, reflectively, as if calculating her engagements.
Sophie looked amazed, though it would have taken a keener observer than Cornelia was at the moment to detect the slight contraction of the under eyelids, and the barely perceptible droop of the corners of the mouth. She saw that her sister had something of moment to tell her, and was, for some reason, coquettish about bringing it out. Cornelia was often entertaining to Sophie when she least had intention of being so; but Sophie was far too tender of the young lady's feelings knowingly to let her suspect it.
"Not be in town?" repeated she, demurely taking up her work; "why, where are you going, dear?"
"Oh!" said Cornelia, with one of those little half-yawns wherewith we cover our nervousness or suspense, "I didn't tell you, did I? Papa received a letter from a lady in New York, the one who wanted us to call her 'Aunt Margaret' when we were there ever so long ago--the year after mamma died, you know--asking me to come to her house there, and go round with her to Saratoga and all the fashionable watering-places. The invitation was for about the first of July, so--"
Cornelia, speaking with a breathless rapidity which she intended for _sang froid_, had got thus far, when Sophie, who had dropped her work again, and had been regarding her with a beautiful expression of surprise, joy, and affection in her eyes, stretched forth her arms, cooed out a tender little cry of happy congratulation and sympathy, and hugged her sister around the neck for a few moments in a very eloquent silence.
"Why, Sophie!" murmured Cornelia, covered with an astonishment of smiles and tears, "how sweet you are! I didn't think you'd care; I thought you'd think it foolish in me to be glad, dear Sophie!"
"My darling!" said Sophie, with another hug. She felt rebuked and remorseful; for if, as Cornelia's words unconsciously implied, her sympathy was unexpected, it would appear she had gained a reputation for coldness and indifference which she was far from coveting. It often happens, certainly, that those whom we consider intellectually beneath us, and whom, supposing them too dull to comprehend the evolutions of our minds, we occasionally use for our amusement, possess an instinctive insight far keener than that of experience, enabling them to read our very souls with an accuracy which puts our self-knowledge to the blush, and might quite turn the