Bressant's health was now sufficiently established to warrant his moving
back to Abbie's. Not that he was particularly anxious to go, but he had
no pretext for staying, and his engagement to Sophie was a reason in
etiquette why he should not. Accordingly, about a week after Cornelia's
arrival, such of his books and other property as had been sent to him
from the boarding-house were packed in a box, which was hoisted in to
the back of the wagon; he and Professor Valeyon mounted the seat, and,
with Dolly between the shafts, they set out for the village.
"I suppose you remember a talk I had with you the first evening you came
here?" said the old gentleman, as they turned the corner in the road.
"Told you it would be work enough for a churchful of missionaries to
make any thing out of you, in the way of a minister, and so on?"
"Very well; I remember the whole conversation," said Bressant, pushing
up his beard into his mouth and biting it.
"Thanks to God--I can't take any credit to myself--you've been more
changed than I ever expected to see you. You've found your heart and how
to use it. That goes further toward fitting you for the ministry than
all the divinity-books ever printed."
Bressant's hankering after the ministerial life was not so strong as it
once had been; but he said nothing.
"You'll need means of support when you're married," resumed the
professor. "A few months' hard study will qualify you to take charge of
a parish. The next parish to this will be vacant before next spring. If
I apply for it now, I may be able to give it you, with your wife, as a
New-Year's gift."
"I thought of getting a place in New York. What could I do in a country
parish?"
"Expensive, living in New York!" said the professor, with a glance of
quiet scrutiny at his companion's profile. "Marriage won't be a good
pecuniary investment for you, remember. Better begin safe. The village
salary will be good enough."
Bressant communed with himself in silence a few moments, before
replying: "As my father's will stands, Mrs. Vanderplanck--I believe he owed some
obligation or other to her--receives half the fortune, and I the other
half. Are you certain that my marriage, and the disclosure it would
bring about, will forfeit the whole of it?"
Professor Valeyon touched Dolly with the whip, and turned inward his
white-bearded lips.
"All I can tell you about it," said he, "is this: when your mother
married your father, all her property was settled upon her; so that it
was only the event of her death, intestate, that could have given your
father the right to will it away at all."
At this information, Bressant folded his arms, and, looking steadfastly
before him, said not a word. A silence followed between the two, which
lasted over half a mile. Dolly seemed to be in a meditative humor,
likewise; she whisked her tail with an absorbed air, and once in a while
shook her ears, or wagged her head, as though accepting or rejecting
some hypothesis or proposition. Most likely, her problems found their
solution in the manger that afternoon; but those of the professor and
his companion received neither so early nor so satisfactory a
settlement.