Bressant

Having thus delivered herself of what had evidently been weighing on her

mind for weeks past, the fat servant-girl stopped wiping her hands on

her apron (without help of which praiseworthy act she could no more have

talked, than a donkey with a heavy stone tied to his tail can bray), and

turning herself about, waddled toward the door. Bressant hesitated a

moment, passed his hand rapidly down over his face and beard, and then,

catching open the door just as the fat servant-girl was closing it, he

requested her to inform Abbie, when she came back, of his return, and

tell her he would like to speak with her.

"I'll do it, sir; rest easy," was the encouraging reply. "Faith, and

it's a handsome man he is, and a sweet, lovely look he has out of his

eyes; leastways now, which is, maybe, more than could be said when first

he came here, three months ago, and looked that cold and sharp at a body

as might make one shiver like. It's likely his being going to marry Miss

Sophie up to the Parsonage as has fetched a change in him; which, she's

a dear good girl; and may they be happy--God bless the both of them!"

Thus soliloquizing, the fat servant-girl, apron in hand, descended the

narrow stairs, and betook herself to the kitchen.

Bressant paced restlessly up and down his small room, stopping every

minute or so to bend over the flower-pots in the window, or take a sniff

from the bouquet on the table. His cheeks and forehead were flushed, and

his eyes very brilliant. His lips worked incessantly against one

another, and he held his hands now clasped behind his back, now thrust

into the pockets of his coat. But there was certainly a noble and a

gentle light upon his features, different from their usual expression of

dazzling intellectual efficiency, different from the passionate fire

which Cornelia's presence had more than once caused to flicker over

them, different even from the purer and deeper illumination which his

love for Sophie sometimes kindled within him. A virtuous act stirs the

soul by its own innate beauty, even when the motive is not all

unselfish. It was probably the first time that precisely such a look had

ever visited Bressant's face; and it was certainly a great pity that no

one but a fat Irish servant-girl should have had the privilege of

beholding it there.

Presently, as he stood facing the door, he saw the latch lifted. The

moment had come. Involuntarily he caught hold of the back of the chair,

and drew in his breath.

Pshaw! only the fat servant again. Bressant bit his lip, stamped his

foot upon the floor, and frowned.

The fat girl met these demonstrations with a fat smile, and extended to

the young man a long, narrow envelop, laid crossways over the dirty palm

of her large, thick hand.