Bressant

"It would be no use for you to read: I couldn't understand--I couldn't

attend to your voice and the book at the same time."

"We'd better wait, then," said Sophie, turning her clear, gray eyes upon

him with an expression of demure satire. "By-and-by, perhaps, it won't

have such a distracting effect upon you--when you come to know me

better. If not, I must keep away altogether."

Bressant's forehead grew red with sudden temper. He felt reproved, but

was not prepared to acknowledge that he had merited it.

"You're very generous of your voice!" exclaimed he, resentfully. "It's

your fault, not mine, that it's agreeable. You're not so kind as your

tone is."

"I don't mean to be unkind," said she, more gently, looking down. "You

don't seem to see the difference between unkindness and--what I said."

"What is the difference?" demanded he, taking her up.

Sophie paused a few moments, compassionating this great, willful boy,

and wondering what she could do for him. He had saved her father's life,

thereby imperilling his own, and disabling himself, and she could not

but admire and thank him for it. But his manner puzzled and annoyed her,

and was an obstacle in the way of her would-be helpfulness.

"You wouldn't ask that question, I think, if you'd had sisters, or a

mother," she said, at last. "I suppose you've lived only with men. But

you must learn how to treat young women from your own sense of what is

delicate and true."

Bressant stared and was silent: and Sophie herself was surprised at the

authoritative tone she was assuming toward a bearded man whom she had

never met before. But it was impossible to associate with Bressant

without either yielding to him, or, at least, behaving differently from

at other times, in one way or another. He was a magnet that drew from

people things unsuspected by themselves.

The pause was finally broken by the young man's accepting the situation

with a grace, and even docility, which was nearly too much for Sophie's

gravity.

"If you'll read, I will listen and understand it: you'd better try the

Bible. I have a great deal of work to do upon that, still: you'll find

one on the table by the window."

She got the book, with whose contents she was considerably better

acquainted than was the divinity student, and sat down to read,

marveling at the oddness of the situation; while he lay apparently

absorbed in the cracks on the ceiling. By degrees--for having carried

her point she could not help being more gracious--she began to allow a

little embroidery of conversation to weave itself about the sacred text

She spoke to Bressant about such simple and ordinary matters as went to

make up her life--the books she had read, the people she knew, the

country round about, a few of her more inward thoughts. He listened, and

said no more than enough to show he was attentive; sometimes making her

laugh by the shrewdness of his questions, and the quaintness of his

remarks.