Bressant

"Are you glad the day comes so soon, Sophie?"

"Yes," answered she, with quiet simplicity. "A few weeks ago it

frightened me--it seemed so near; but not now. I love him much more than

I did--that's one reason. And he loves me more, I think."

"Loves you more! why? what makes you think so?" demanded Cornelia, a

frown quivering across her forehead.

"His manner tells me so: he's more subdued and gentle; almost sad,

indeed, sometimes. He's lived so much in his mind since we were engaged:

I can see it in his face, and hear it in his voice, even. He's not like

other men; I never want him to be; he has all that makes other men worth

any thing, and still is himself. He has the greatest and the warmest

heart that ever was; but when he first came here he had no idea how to

use it, nor even what it was for."

"And he's found out now, has he?"

"Yes--especially in the last few weeks. Before, he used sometimes to be

violent, almost--to lose command of himself; but he never does now."

"But doesn't he ever tell you that he loves you more than ever?"

"We understand each other," replied Sophie, with a slight touch of

reserve, for she thought she was being questioned further than was

entirely justifiable. "Nothing he could say would make me feel his love

more than I do."

Cornelia smiled to herself with secret derision; she imagined she could

give a more plausible reason for her sister's reticence. She took off

her "waist" and resumed her place upon the stool.

"What should you do, Sophie, supposing something occurred to prevent

your marriage?"

"Die an old maid," returned she: not treating the question seriously,

but as a piece of Cornelia's wanton idleness.

Cornelia began to laugh, but interrupted herself, half-way, with a sob.

She was seized by a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister

would have been the cause of it--would be a murderess! The sudden

jarring of this idea--tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of

reality that there was about it--against the ludicrous element with

which tradition flavors the name of old maid--caught the young woman at

unawares, and threw her rudely out of her nervous control. It was a

result which could scarcely have happened, had she been less morbidly

and unnaturally excited and strained to begin with; as it was, it may

have been an outbreak which had long been brewing, and to which Sophie's

answer had but given the needful stimulus.

The sob was succeeded by a convulsion of painful laughter, that would

go on the more Cornelia tried to stop it. At last, in gasping for

breath, the laughter gave way to an outburst of tears and sobs, which

seemed, in comparison, to be a relief. But at the first intermission,

the discordant laughter came again: she hid her face in her hands, and

made wild efforts to control herself: she slipped from her stool, and

flung herself at full length upon the floor. Now, the paroxysms of

laughing and crying came together, her body was shaken, strained, and

convulsed in every part: she was breathless, flushed, and faint. But it

seemed as if nothing short of unconsciousness could bring cessation: the

sobs still tore their way out of her bosom, and the laughter came with a

terrible wrench that was more agonizing to hear than a groan.