Bressant

She felt rather tired of it, as she sat up and looked dimly around her.

Putting her hand in the pocket of her dark dress, she drew out the small

square morocco case which contained the daguerreotype. It was rather

mortifying, certainly: every one knows what it is to appear, dressed for

a party, and find you have mistaken the night. In what pleasant little

episode had Abbie flattered herself that this portrait, with its grave,

dark, baby eyes, its soft, light curls, its slender, solemn little face,

might be going to play a part? No matter: the hope was gone by; and

every day the portrait faded more and more indistinguishably into the

dark background. Abbie looked at it a moment or two only, then closed

the case, and carefully fastened the two little hooks which kept it

shut. Opening the old-fashioned desk, she put the daguerreotype in its

little drawer, and locked it up. She held the key--a small brass

key--between her finger and thumb, meditating. Presently she went to the

window, opened it, and looked out. Beneath, a little to one side, stood

a huge black water-butt, half buried in the earth, and partly full of

rain-water, contributed by the tin spout whose mouth opened above it.

Into this butt Abbie dropped the key. It struck the water with a faint

pat, and disappeared, causing two or three circles to expand to the

edges of the butt, against which they disappeared also.

She did not immediately draw back, but remained leaning with her arms

upon the window-sill. It was a beautiful, cool, September morning, such

as makes breathing and eyesight luxurious. The fat Irish girl sat on the

back steps, peeling potatoes for dinner. On the step by her side was a

large earthen bowl, into which she put the potatoes, while throwing the

skins into the swill-pail on her right. She was obliged to give her

whole mind to the operation, there being a danger lest, in rapid

working, she should happen to throw the potato into the swill-pail, and

put the skin into the earthen bowl. She was much too absorbed to notice

the beautiful weather, even had she been inclined to do so; but it

remained beautiful, nevertheless.

"I'd be a fool to find fault with him," said Abbie to herself. "How can

I expect him to see any thing in me, more than I can see myself in the

looking-glass? And then, he loves Sophie, and perhaps he thinks I'd rob

her; the Lord knows I only coveted the luxury of giving away my own, and

seeing them happy with it. Well, he may set his mind at rest; he shall

never suffer the mortification of having to thank a boarding-house

keeper for his fortune.

"O my boy--my dear, dear boy!"

Meanwhile Bressant, having been relieved, by the timely arrival of the

letter, from any present necessity of visiting his aunt, was devoting

himself pretty diligently to the cultivation of that line in his

forehead running perpendicularly up from between the eyebrows. It bade

fair to become a permanent feature in his face.