This was all that could be got out of Cornelia upon the topic of Abbie, and Mrs. Vanderplauck was obliged to swallow whatever uneasiness, curiosity, or misgiving she may have felt. In the midst of an exhortation to her young guest to repeat her visit daily to the boudoir, and regale her auntie with anecdotes of the dear old, interesting people in the village, Abbie and all, some one of the young ladies knocked at the door, and hurried Miss Valeyon off, without her having asked, as she had intended, for an explanation of the puzzling, metaphorical allusions.
Mrs. Vanderplanck, left to herself, rocked backward and forward in her chair, with her hands clasped over her forehead, much in the way that an insane person might have done.
"Who'd have thought it! who'd have thought it! In the very village--in the very house--of all places in the world!--in the very house!--and he laid up--can't be moved--can't be taken away. Why didn't I know?--why didn't I find out?--careless--stupid--thoughtless! Curse the woman! couldn't I have imagined that she'd never be far away from her dear professor--and we sent him there--we hid him away--we disguised his name--college was too public for him--let him finish his education in the country--and then we could escape away--to Germany--France--anywhere--and carry all the money with us--all the money!--half for me, and half for him!--and what'll become of it now? Curse the woman! I knew she couldn't be dead. But she sha'n't have the money--no! she sha'n't, she sha'n't!
"Is it possible, now?--could it be that that girl was deceiving me? Did she know the woman's name, after all?--no, no! she hasn't the face for it--no hypocrite in her yet--not yet, not yet! Well, but what if it's all a mistake?--Why not a mistake? why not?--tell me that! Plenty of women called Abbie, aren't there? Why shouldn't this be one of them--one of the others? No, but the professor had known her before--oh, yes!--known her before! and there's only one Abbie that the professor knew before! Curse her--curse her!
"Well, what if she is there? how will she know _him_? The professor won't tell her--he can't--he dare not tell her!--for I made him promise he wouldn't, and I've got his promise, written down--written down!--Ah! that was smart--that was smart! Yes, but the boy looks like his father!--that'll betray him!--she'll know him by that--know him? well, just as bad--yes, and worse too, in the end--worse! Oh! curse her!
"Never mind. I know how to manage. If the worst comes to the worst, I know what to do! And I must write to him--not now--as soon as he's well--he must come away. Even if it should turn out all a mistake, he must come away!--I'll write to him, as soon as he's well, that he must come away. And I'll question Cornelia again--ah! she's a handsome girl!--it's well I got her up here, out of the way!--I'll find out more from her. It may be a mistake, after all--it may, it may!"
While Aunt Margaret, sitting in her boudoir, thus took doubtful and disconnected counsel with herself, Cornelia was left to manage her little difficulties as best she might. Being tolerably quick in observing, and putting things together, and unwilling to trust to intuitive judgments of what was safe or unsafe in the moral atmosphere, she set to work with all her wits, and not without some measure of success, to fathom the secrets of the tantalizing freemasonry which piqued her curiosity. By listening to all that was said, laughing when others laughed, keeping silent when she was puzzled, comparing results and drawing deductions, she presently began to understand a good deal more than she had bargained for, was considerably shocked and disgusted, and perhaps felt desirous to unlearn what she had learned.
But this was not so easy. Things she would willingly have forgotten seemed, for that very reason, to stick in her memory--nay, in some moods of mind, to appear less entirely objectionable than in others. She had little opportunity for solitude--to bethink herself where she stood, and how she came there. During the daytime, there were the young ladies, here, there, and everywhere; there could be no seclusion. In the afternoons and evenings some admiring, soft-voiced young gentleman was always at her side, offering her his arm on the faintest pretext, or attempting to put it round her waist on no pretext at all; who always found it more convenient to murmur in her ear, than to speak out from a reasonable distance; whose hands were always getting into proximity with hers, and often attempting to clasp them; whose eyes were forever expressing something earnest or arch, pleading or romantic--though precisely what, his lingering utterance scarcely tried to define; who never could "see the harm" of these and many other peculiarities of behavior; and, indeed it was not very easy to argue about them, although the young gentlemen never shrank from the dispute, and never failed to have on hand an inexhaustible assortment of syllogisms to combat any remonstrance that might be advanced withal; while at the worst they could always be surprised and hurt if their conduct were called into question. Well, they appeared to be refined and high-bred. Compare them with Bill Reynolds! And the flattery of their attention, and the preference they gave her over the other girls, were not entirely lost upon Cornelia.
In the absence of both gentlemen and ladies, there, on an easily-accessible shelf in the library, were those works of Dumas, Fval, and the rest, to which Cornelia's attention had been indirectly invited. She had a sound knowledge of the French language, and an ardent love of fiction, and beyond question the books were of absorbing interest.
At first, indeed, Cornelia, as she read, would ever and anon blush, and look around apprehensively, for fear there should be an observer somewhere; and this, too, at passages which a week before she would have passed over without noticing, because not understanding them. If any one appeared, she hid the book away in the folds of her dress, or under the sofa-cushion, and put on the air of having just awakened from a nap. By-and-by, however, when she had become a little used to the tone of the works, and had asked herself, what were the books put there for, unless to be read, she plucked up courage, as her young friends would have said--albeit angels might have wept at it--and overcame her notions so far as to be able to take down from its shelf and become deeply interested in one of the Frenchiest of the set, while three or four people were sitting in the library!
A triumph that! Howbeit, when she went to bed that night there was a persistent pain of dry unhappiness in her heart, and a self-contemptuous feeling, which she tried to get the better of by calling it _ennui_. But in time a kind of hardness, at once flexible and impenetrable, began to encase her, rendering her course more easy, less liable to embarrassment, more self-confident than before.
At length a crisis was brought on by the attempt of the boldest of her admirers to kiss her. She repelled him passionately, facing him with gleaming eyes, and lips white with anger and disgust. He was surprised, at first--then angry; but she spoke to him in a way that cowed, and finally almost made him ashamed of himself. He even went so far, afterward, as to try to knock a fellow down for speaking disrespectfully of "Neelie." For her own part, she locked herself into her room, and cried tempestuously for half an hour; then she spent a still longer time in lying with her heated face upon the pillow, reviewing the incidents of her life since Bressant had entered into it. He was the superior of any man she had met before or since: she was sure of it now; it could no longer be called the infatuation of inexperience. She took herself well to task for the recent laxity and imprudence of her conduct; did not spare to cut where the flesh was tender; and resolved never again to lay herself open to blame.
This was very well, but the mood was too strained and exalted to be depended upon. Cornelia got up from the disordered bed, put it to rights again, washed her stained face carefully, rearranged her hair, and went down-stairs. All that afternoon she was cold, grave, and reserved; inquiries after her health met with a chilling answer, and her friends wisely concluded to leave her malady, whatever it were, to the cure of time. As dinner progressed, Cornelia began to thaw: when Mr. Grumblow, the member of Congress, requested her, with solemn and oppressive courtesy, to do him the honor of taking a glass of wine with him, she responded graciously; and as the toasts circulated, she first looked upon her ideal resolves with good-humored tolerance, and then they escaped her memory altogether. She became once more lively and sparkling, and carried on what she imagined was a very brilliant conversation with two or three people at once. By the time she was ready to retire, she had practised anew the