Bressant

Nevertheless, time went on, and November had stalked shivering away

before the frosty breath of December, and still Cornelia had

accomplished nothing definite; nay, she scarcely felt sufficiently sure

of her footing to attempt any thing. And what was it that she was to

attempt? On looking this question in the face, at close quarters--it

wanted less than four weeks now of that wedding-day which Cornelia had

promised herself should see no wedding!--when she found herself pressed

so peremptorily as this for an answer, it might be imagined that she

turned pale at what was before her. And, indeed, the prospect, viewed in

its best light, was discouraging and desperate enough. For at what price

to herself must success be bought, and at what sacrifice be enjoyed? She

must either lose, or deserve to lose, all that a woman ought to hold

most sacred and most dear--home, the esteem and love of friends, the

protection of truth, and, above all, and worst of all, her own

self-respect. All these in exchange for a baffled, angry, selfish man,

at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in

self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he

would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The

one word was--she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in

it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. She can rely on

nothing else.

But Cornelia would not be disheartened. If she saw the rocks ahead,

against whose fatal shoulders she was being swept--if she heard, dinning

in her ears, the rush and roar of the headlong, irresistible rapids--if

her eyes could penetrate the void which opened darkly beyond--she only

nerved herself the more resolutely, her glance was all the firmer, her

determination the more unfaltering.

The peril in which she stood but kindled in her heart a fiery depth of

passion, such as overtopped and tamed the very terrors of her position.

Because she must lose the world to gain her end, that end was exalted,

in her thought, above a hundred worlds. The faculties of her soul,

which, in her time of innocence and indifference, had been dormant--half

alive--now sprang at once into an exalted, fierce vitality. The hour of

evil found Cornelia a creature of far higher powers and more vigorous

development than she could ever, under any other conditions, have

attained. She showed most gloriously and greatly, when illuminated by

that lurid light whose flame was fed by all that was most gentle,

womanly, and sweet within her. She looked nearest to a goddess, when she

needed but one step to be transformed into a demon.

In following out her psychological progress, we have necessarily

outstripped, to some extent, the sober pace of the narrative. It was

about the first of December that rumors began to be circulated in the

village of an approaching ball at Abbie's. It was to be the

grandest--the most complete in all its appointments--of any that ever

had been given there. It was looked upon, in advance, as the great event

of the year. Real, formal invitations were to be sent out, printed on a

fold of note-paper, with the blank left for the name, and

"R.S.V.P."--whatever that might mean--in the lower left-hand corner.

There were to be six pieces in the band; dancing was to be from eight to

four, instead of from seven to twelve, as heretofore; and the toilets,

it was further whispered, were to be exceptionally brilliant and

elaborate. Certain it was that dress-making might have been seen in

progress through the windows of any farm-house within ten miles; and at

the Parsonage no less than elsewhere.