Bressant

"There!" ejaculated she, with a smile which did not part her lips, but

seemed to draw her dark eyebrows a little closer together.

"Strange I'm so quiet!" she mused, as she walked slowly to the door.

"What an ordeal I have to go through! I must sit down with Sophie, and

papa, and--him: listen to all the particulars, ask all the proper and

necessary questions, smile and laugh; and it would be well, I suppose,

to rally the lovers archly on the ardor of their affection, and the

suddenness of the consummation. Better still, I can laughingly allude to

my own prior claim--suggest that I feel hurt at being distanced and left

out in the cold by that demure little younger sister of mine! Oh, yes!"

exclaimed Cornelia, clapping her hands together, "that will cap the

climax; what fun!"

Here the tea-bell rang. Cornelia put her hand on the door-handle.

"Of course, nobody could help loving Sophie--such a dear, simple, good

little thing! and why not he as well as any one else? and, of course, in

that case, Sophie must think that she loved him back--thought it her

duty, too, perhaps! Nobody was to blame."

"But he was mine first!" she whispered to her heart, again and again,

and she found a disastrous solace in each repetition. She flung open the

door, and ran down-stairs with a light step, a smiling face, and a

fierce, tight heart.