Bressant

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.