Bressant

Bressant occupied two adjoining rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one

contained his bed and the other was fitted up as his study. They were on

the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the

lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly

erratic route above.

The study was some twelve feet by eight; the floor ornamented by a

carpet which, to judge from the size of the pattern, must have been

designed to grace some fifty-foot drawing-room. The furniture consisted

of a deal table with a folding leaf, a chair, a stove--which, perhaps

because it was so small, had been permitted to remain all summer--and a

broad-seated lounge with squeaky springs, but quite roomy and

comfortable, which monopolized a large portion of the room. The walls

were papered with a bewildering diamond pattern, in blue and white. Upon

the outside window-sill stood a pot of geraniums, and another of

heliotrope.

A good many books were stowed away in various parts of the study; piled

one upon another in the corner by the stove, ranged side by side beneath

the lounge, carefully disposed upon the inner window-sill, and occupying

as much space as could be spared to them on the table. There were few

ornaments to be seen; no landscapes or hunting-scenes--no pictures of

pretty women--no fancy pieces for the mantel--no wine either, nor

cigars, for Bressant neither smoked nor drank. A beautifully-finished

and colored drawing of a patent derrick, in plan and side elevation, was

pinned to the wall opposite the window. Above the mantel-piece hung an

ingeniously-contrived card almanac, by which the day of week and month

could be told for a hundred years to come. Two small globes, terrestrial

and astronomical, stood upon the table; on the mantel-piece was an

ordinary kerosene-lamp, with a conical shade of enamelled green paper,

arabesqued in black, and ornamented with three transparencies,

representing (when the lamp was lighted) bloody and fiery scenes in the

late war; but in the daytime appearing to be nothing more terrible than

plain pieces of white tissue-paper.

For two weeks Bressant had done his studying and thinking in this room.

He had enormous powers of application, naturally and by acquisition, and

the first fortnight had seen them exerted to their full extent. This

diligence, however, was practised not so much because the course of

study marked out necessitated it, as by way of voluntary

self-discipline. His first evening's experience in the Parsonage garden

had given the young man a serious shock; a disturbing influence had

obtained possession of him, of which he could understand no more than

that it appeared to have some connection with Cornelia. It interfered,

at unexpected moments, with his processes of thought; it distracted his

schemes of argument; it wrote itself unintelligibly upon the page he was

reading. It even followed him in his rough tramps up the hills and

through the woods, and sometimes shook the hand which held the pen

during his compositions.