It might seem strange that his memory should not have kept her beyond the reach of deleterious influences. But a young girl's love is any thing but a preservative, if it shall yield her, in any aspect, other than such pure and delicate thoughts as she would not scruple to whisper in her mother's ear, or to ask God's blessing on at night. Should there be any circumstance or incident, however seemingly trifling and unimportant, in her reminiscences, which nevertheless keeps recurring to the mind with a slight twinge of regret--a feeling that it would have been just as well had it never happened--then is love a dangerous companion. Gradually does the trifling spot grow upon her; in trying to justify it, she succeeds only in lowering the whole idea of love to its level; and this once accomplished, in all future intercourse with her lover she must be undefended by the shield of her maidenly integrity. And not all men are great enough not to presume on woman's weakness, even though it be that woman, to assert whose honor and purity they would risk their lives against the world.
Some such quality of earthiness Cornelia may have felt in the course of her acquaintance with Bressant, preventing her love from ennobling and elevating her. Alas! if it were so. If she cannot draw a high inspiration from the affection which must be her loftiest sentiment, what shall be her safeguard, and who her champion?
In the course of ten days or a fortnight, Aunt Margaret announced that the condition of her head would admit of traveling, and the long-expected tour began. But the more important consequences of Cornelia's fashionable experiences had already taken place.
CHAPTER XVII.
SOPHIE'S CONFESSION.
Sophie did not stay long in the invalid's room after the awakening they had undergone with respect to one another. She went instinctively to her father's study, and, entering the open door, kissed the old man ere he was well aware of her presence. He took her affectionately upon his knee, and hugged her up to him with homely tenderness.
"My precious little daughter!" quoth he; "what would your old father do without you?"
"Am I so much to you, papa?" asked she, with her cheek resting upon his shoulder.
"Very much--very much, Sophie: too much, perhaps; for I don't see how I could bear to lose you."
"Do you mean to have me die, papa?"
"How is your sick boy getting along?" returned the professor, clearing his throat, and not seeming to hear his daughter's words.
Sophie caught a breath, and paled a little at the thought of the news she had to tell about the sick boy. Her father had just told her she was precious to him, and she felt that to be married might involve a separation virtually as complete as that of death, and perhaps harder to bear. But, again, she needed his sympathy and approval: and, sooner or later, he must hear the truth. She was not, perhaps, aware that etiquette should have closed her lips upon the subject until after Bressant had spoken to the professor; at all events, she had no intention of delegating or postponing her confidence.
"He seemed quite well when I left him. I have been having a--talk with him, papa."
"He begins to show the effects of being talked to by you, my dear. You're a wise little woman in some ways, that's certain! and have done him good in more ways than one," said papa, with parental complacency.
Sophie shrank at this, remembering how lately she had fed herself with the same idea. She had learned a great deal about herself since discovering how little of herself she knew.
"He is a--man!" said she, trying to throw into the word an expression of its best and loftiest meaning. "I can do very little to help him."
"Hope to see him a man some day, my dear," returned the professor, gathering his eyebrows. "Has a great many faults at present. Why, in some respects, he's as ignorant and inexperienced as a child. Very one-sided affair still, I fear, that soul of his!"
"One-sided, papa?"
"Yes: don't believe it would carry him very far toward heaven, as it is now," said the old gentleman, whose severity of judgment was cultivated in this instance as a preservative against possible disappointment. "He needs melting in a crucible."
"What does that mean?"
"If you weren't a wise little woman, as I said, I shouldn't be talking about my pupil's character and management with you, my dear. But I can trust you as well as if you were forty;" and here he gave her another little hug, which made Sophie feel like a receiver of stolen goods. "Well, now, theorizing won't do a young fellow like that much good. He needs something real--that he can take hold of, and that'll take hold of him. You and I can't give it him--not more than an impetus in the right direction, at any rate. But the only thing that can make his future tolerably secure--make it safe to count upon him (or upon any other man, for that matter), is for him to fall heartily and soundly in love, in the old-fashioned way, and with a strong-hearted, worthy woman."
"O papa! do you really think marriage will help him to be greater and better?"
"It's the only thing for him, my dear," said Professor Valeyon; and, although he was looking his guilty little daughter straight in the face, and at such short range, too, this would-be sharp-sighted old man of wisdom never thought to ask himself why she blushed so. "As soon as he gets well again, I must see to getting him somewhere where he can have a chance to profit by what we have done for him."
"Papa," said Sophie, sitting up, and stroking the old gentleman's white beard, "you don't know how happy it makes me to hear you think that to love and to be loved will be good for him."
"So anxious to get rid of him, eh?"
"No; oh! papa, don't you see? it's because--because I _never_ want to get rid of him!" and Sophie, catching her father suddenly around the neck, hid her face in his linen coat-collar.
The professor, his features discharged of all expression, sat stone-still, looking straight before him. Had Death been embracing him, instead of his daughter, he could hardly have been struck more motionless. Existence, spiritual as well as physical, seemed for a space to have come to a stand-still.
By-and-by, startled at his silence, Sophie raised her head and looked at him with alarmed eyes. With an effort, he turned his face toward her, and smiled as naturally as though his mouth had been frozen.
"I'm an old man, you see, my dear: a surprise like this makes me feel it," he made shift to say, in an uncertain voice. "So--you're engaged to each other?"
"We're waiting for you to say we may be, papa."
"It is right--it is just!" said the professor, solemnly, though still with a sluggish utterance. "I sought to glorify God to the end of mine own glorification, and lo! He hath taken from me my own heart's blood!" Swept off his feet by the profundity of his emotion, the ministerial form of speech, so long disused, rose naturally to the old man's lips.
But presently, the paralyzing effect of the shock beginning to wear off, he drew a few long breaths, and found himself growing very hot. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the perspiration that had gathered on his forehead. Then he took his little daughter strongly yet tremblingly to his heart, and kissed her more than once.
"God bless you! my darling--my Sophie--you're my Sophie still, if you are in love with that--great overgrown rascal. I'm a fool--an old fool! Well--and how long has this been going on between you, my darling?"
Sophie's heart, which, in the passionate tumult of her recent interview with her lover, had remained so steady and unfaltering, began now to beat with such violence as to impede her utterance and visibly to shake her. She was resolved