Opposite the table stood a chair, straight-backed and severe, in which Professor Valeyon always sat when at work. He had a theory that it was not well to be too much at bodily ease when intellectually occupied. Directly behind the chair, upon the shelf of a bookcase, stood a plaster cast of Shakespeare's face, the nose of which was most unaccountably darkened and polished. It is doubtful whether even the professor himself could have cleared up the mystery of this deepened color in the immortal bard's nose. But whoever, during those hours set apart by the old gentleman for solitary labor and meditation, had happened to peep in at the window, would, ten to one, have beheld him tilted thoughtfully back in his chair, abstractedly tweaking, with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, the sacred feature in question. He had done it every day, for many years past, and never once found himself out, and, doubtless, the great poet was far too broad-minded ever to think of resenting the liberty, especially as it was only in his most thoughtful moments that the professor meddled with him.
The room contained little else in the way of furniture, except a few extra chairs, and a malacca-joint cane, with an ivory head, which stood in a corner near the door. It produced an impression at once of cleanliness and disorder, therein bearing a strong analogy to the professor's own person and habits; and the disorder was of such a kind, that, although no rule or system in the arrangement of any thing was perceptible, Professor Valeyon would have been at once and almost instinctively aware of any alteration that might have been made, however slight.
On entering the study, the old gentleman first shuffled up to the fireplace, flapping the heels of his slippers behind him as he went, and deposited his pipe on the mantel-piece. Next, he put on his straw hat, and, turning to the engraving of the Transfiguration, which had served him as a looking-glass almost ever since it had hung there, he put himself to rights, with his usual fierce scowlings, liftings of the chin, and jerkings at collar and stock. When every thing seemed in proper trim, he took his ivory-headed cane from its place in the corner, and made his way along the entry to the front door.
"Bless me!" ejaculated the professor, as he emerged upon the porch, shading his eyes from the white dazzle of the road; "how hot it is, sure enough!" Scarcely had he spoken, however, when the sun, which had been coquetting for the last half-hour with the majestic white cloud which Cornelia had idly watched from the balcony, suddenly plunged his burning face right into its cool, soft bosom, and immediately a clear, gray shadow gently took possession of the landscape.
"Humph!" grunted the professor again, turning a sharp, wise eye to the westward, "we shall have a thunder-shower before long. I must take the covered wagon. But how's this? I declare I've forgotten to change my slippers! I'm growing old—I'm growing old, that's certain!"
As the old gentleman stood, shaking his head over this new symptom of approaching senility, he happened to turn his eyes in the direction of the village, and descried a figure approaching rapidly from the turn in the road, which at once arrested his attention.
"Who can that be?" muttered he to himself, frowning to assist his vision. "None of the town boys, that's certain. Never saw such a figure but once before! If any thing, this is the better man of the two. By-the-way, what if it should be—! Humph! I believe it is, sure enough."
By this time the stranger, a very tall and broadly built young man, with a close brown beard, and quick, comprehensive eyes, had arrived opposite the house, and stood with one hand on the gate.
"Is this the parsonage?" demanded he, speaking with great rapidity of utterance, and turning his head half sideways as he spoke, without, however, removing his eyes from the professor's face.
The old gentleman nodded his head, "It is known by that name, sir!" said he.
With the almost impatient quickness which marked every thing he did—a quickness which did not seem in any way allied to slovenliness or inaccuracy, however—the young man pushed through the gate, which protested loudly against such rough usage, and walked hastily up to the porch-steps. He paused a moment ere ascending.
"Are you Professor Valeyon?" he asked.
Again the professor bowed his head in assent. "And are you—?" began he.
The young man sprang up the steps, and grasping the other's half-extended hand, gave it a brief, hard shake.
"I'm Bressant," said he.
CHAPTER III.
SOPHIE AND CORNELIA ENTER INTO A COVENANT.
When Cornelia left her father on the balcony, she danced up-stairs, and chasséed on tiptoe up to the door of Sophie's room. There she stopped and knocked.
Somehow or other, nobody ever went into that room without knocking. It never entered any one's head to burst in unannounced. The door was an unimposing-looking piece of deal, grained by some village artist into the portraiture of an as yet undiscovered kind of wood, and considerably impaired in various ways by time. It could not have been the door, therefore. Nor was the bolt ever drawn, save at certain hours of the morning and night. Sophie was not an ogre, either. Cornelia, who was very trying at times, would have found it hard to recall an occasion when Sophie had answered or addressed her sharply or crossly. If she exerted any influence, or wielded any power, it was not of the kind which attends a violent or morose temper. But no vixen or shrew, how terrible soever she may be, can hope at all times or from all people to meet with respect or consideration; while to Sophie Valeyon the world always put on its best face and manner, secretly wondering at itself the while for being so well-behaved.
As to the affair of knocking, Sophie herself had never said a word about it, one way or another. She always took it as a matter of course; indeed, had she been loquacious on the subject, or insisted upon the observance, Cornelia for one would have been very likely to laugh to scorn and disregard her, therein acting upon a principle of her own, which prompted her to measure her strength against any thing which seemed to challenge her, and never to give up if she could help it. But she had never had a trial of strength with Sophie, and possibly was quite contented that it should be so. She would have shrunk from thwarting or crossing her sister as she would from committing a secret sin: there might be no material or visible ill-consequence, but the stings of conscience would be all the sharper.
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