Bressant

When Sophie hit upon an idea which seemed to her spiritually beautiful

and harmonious, she was apt to be carried away--sometimes, perhaps, into

deep water. Yet thus, occasionally, did she catch glimpses of higher

truths than a broader and safer wisdom could have attained. Cornelia

took one of the glowing leaves out of her basket, and looked at it.

Perhaps she saw, in the perfect earthly self-sufficiency of its

splendor, something akin to herself.

"I suppose I don't half appreciate your theory, Sophie, though it's

certainly pretty enough. But you're more soul than body, to begin with,

I believe. For my part, I almost think, sometimes, I could get along

without any soul at all, and never feel the least inconvenience. Perhaps

everybody hasn't a soul--only a few favored ones."

"What is it gives you such thoughts, Neelie?" said her sister, in a tone

which, had it not been charged with so ranch depth of feeling, would

have been plaintive. Her gray, profound eyes, from a slight slanting

upward of the brows above them, took on an expression in harmony with

her tone. "I never knew you to have such, until lately."

"I suppose, until lately, I didn't have any thoughts at all." There was

a pause. Sophie looked away over the beautiful valley, but it could not

drive the shadow of anxious and loving sorrow from her face. Cornelia

busied herself selecting leaves from her basket, and arranging them in a

bouquet. Like them, she was more vividly and variously beautiful since

the frost.

"Do you think men's ideas of love, and such things, are as high as

women's?" asked she presently.

"Why shouldn't they be?" answered Sophie, coming back from her reverie

with a sigh. "I'm sure Bressant's are: if they weren't--"

She sank again into thought, and another long silence followed. This

time Cornelia's hands were still, but she watched Sophie closely.

"Well--suppose they weren't--suppose he were to turn out not quite so

high-minded, and all that, as you think him: you would stop loving him,

wouldn't you?"

"Why do you suggest it!" cried Sophie, almost with a sob. She bent down,

resting her face upon her arms, and against the rock. "That question has

come to me once before. How can I know? If he were to degenerate

now--now, after I have told him that I love him--it must be because he

no longer loved me; and I should have no right to love him, then."

Cornelia looked down, for there was a certain light in her eyes which

had no right to be there. When she thought it was subdued, she raised

them again.

"Shouldn't you hate him always afterward? Shouldn't you want to kill

him?" demanded she, in a low voice.

"I should want to kill only the memory of his unworthiness," replied

Sophie, her voice rising and clearing, while she regarded her sister

with a full, bright glance. "As to hating him--I cannot hate any one I

have loved, Neelie." She raised herself up as she spoke, and sat erect.