Bressant

She laughed in his face, at the same time drawing her hand from his arm,

and stepping away from him. How tantalizingly lovely she looked!

"It won't do to carry the privileges of relationship too far, my dear

sir! at least, not until after you're married. There! go back to your

Sophie--I didn't mean to keep you so long--really! No, no!" as he made

an offer to approach her; "go! and be quick, I advise you. Good-by!"

Bressant, as he walked on to the Parsonage, was possessed by an

undefined conviction that he was learning a great deal not set down in

the books. The page of the passions, once thrown open, seems to comprise

every thing. The world has but one voice for the man of one idea.

Evidently, this man did not comprehend the nature of his position

between these two women. Reason told him it was impossible he could love

both at once; but there her information stopped. His senses assured him

that, with Cornelia, he experienced a vivid rush of emotion, such as

Sophie, strongly as he loved her, never awakened in him; but his senses

could give him no explanation of the fact. His instinct whispered that

he would not have dared, in his most ardent moments, to feel toward

Sophie as he invariably felt toward her sister; but no instinct warned

him of the danger which this implied. A sturdy principle, if it had not

thrown light upon the question, would, at least, have pointed out to him

the true course to adopt; but, unfortunately, principles, and the

impulses which they are formed to control, are neither of simultaneous

nor proportionate growth. Bressant, while partaking so liberally of

emotional food, had quite neglected to provide himself with the

necessary and useful correctives to such indulgences. Thus it happened

that when he arrived, a little past his usual hour, at the

Parsonage-door, his mental digestion was in a very disturbed condition.

The very beauty and purity of the fraternal relation cloaks the

miserable rottenness of the imitation. So innocent does it seem, it

might almost deceive the parties to the deception themselves. "I may

love him, for I'm his sister!" said Cornelia; but could she in reality

have become his sister, she would, beyond all else, have shrunk from it.

"Nothing I do is in itself an impropriety," she could say: but her

secret sense and motive were enough to make the most innocent act

criminal. She closed her ears to the inner voice, and her eyes, looking

at her conduct only through the crimson glass of her desire, pronounced

it good.