Bressant

Mr. William Reynolds arrived late, perhaps because he delayed too long

over the niceties of his toilet. He was a country young man, fashioned

upon a well-worn last. His occupation for several years past had been to

attend to the furnishing and driving of a milk-cart, and, very likely,

it was this which had hindered the proper development of his figure. At

all events, he was stoutest where it is generally thought advisable to

be lean, and narrow where popular prejudice demands breadth. His knees

were more conspicuous than his legs, and his elbows than his arms. His

face was striking, chiefly because an accident in early life had

prostrated his nose; the expression, though lacking force, was in the

main good-natured, the eyes were modestly veiled behind a pair of

eye-glasses, which stayed on, as it were, by accident.

Mr. Reynolds was an admirer of Cornelia's; a fact which was the occasion

of much pleasant remark and easy witticism. More serious consequences

were not likely to ensue, for such men as he seldom attain to be other

than indirectly useful or mildly obnoxious to their fellow-creatures.

But the strongest instincts he had were social; and it was touching to

observe the earnestness with which they urged him to lumber the path of

fashion and gay life. He nearly broke his own heart, and unseated his

instructor's reason, in his efforts to learn dancing; and, to secure

elegant apparel for Sundays and parties, he would forswear the butcher's

wagon for months at a time. Once in a while he would smoke an Havana

cigar from the assortment to be found at the grocery-store on the

corner, and sometimes, when a national holiday or the gloom of

unrequited love rendered strong measures a necessity, he would become

recklessly convivial over muddy whisky-and-water amid the spittoons and

colored prints of the hotel bar-room.

On the present evening he arrived late, and came upon Cornelia and

Bressant just as the latter was proposing to obtain the professor's

consent to accompanying her home on foot.

Mr. Reynolds advanced, smiling; a polka was being played at the moment,

and he playfully contorted his figure and balanced his head from side to

side in time with the tune, while with his right forefinger he beckoned

winningly to Miss Valeyon to join him in the dance. Bressant gave an

involuntary shudder of disgust; it seemed to him a grisly caricature of

the inspiration he himself had felt at the beginning of the evening. But

Cornelia was equal to the emergency.

"If you'll go and ask papa now," said she, "I'll take care of this

person meantime. He's known me so long, I don't want to be impolite to

him."

A good deal of harm may be done in this world by what is called a

reluctance to be uncivil. There is generally more selfishness than

consideration about it. All sincere admiration, no matter from how low a

source, is grateful to us. Cornelia knew that Bill Reynolds worshipped

her with his whole small capacity, and she was unwilling to deny herself

the miserable little incense, and give him plainly to understand that,

though it was not distasteful to her, he was. And who could blame her

for not wanting to hurt his feelings?