Bressant

Before the delivery of the letter, a very pretty little ceremony took

place. The professor had stretched forth his hand to receive it, when,

by a sudden turn of the wrist and arm, the young lady whisked it out of

his reach and behind her back, and in place of it brought down her

fresh, sweet face with its fragrant mouth to within two inches of his

own wrinkled and bristly visage. A moment after, the ceremony was

completed, the letter delivered, and the postman, stepping over her

father's fallen slipper, leaned against the balcony-railing, and waited

for further developments.

The professor took his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, placed them

carefully upon his strongly-marked nose, and scrutinized in turn the

direction, post-mark, and seal. With a sniff of surprise, he then tore

open the envelop, and became immediately absorbed in the contents of the

inclosure, indicating his progress by much pursing and biting of his

lips, wrinkling of his forehead, and drawing together of his heavy

eyebrows. Having at length reached the end of the last page, he turned

it sharply about, and went through it once more, with half-articulate

grunts of comment; and finally, folding the letter carefully up, and

replacing it in the torn envelop, he caught the spectacles off his

nose, and, with them in one hand and the paper in the other, fixed his

eyes upon the vacant spot at the summit of the hill.

His daughter meanwhile had taken off her brown straw-hat, and was using

it as a fan, keeping up a light tattoo with one foot upon the plank

flooring. Her face was glowing with her four-mile walk in the hot sun,

but she showed no signs of weariness. The position in which she stood

was easy and graceful, but there was nothing statuesque or imposing

about it; it was evident that at the very next instant she might shift

into another equally as happy. Her eyes wandered from one object to

another with the absence of concentration of one whose mind is not fixed

upon any thing in particular. From the letter between the professor's

finger and thumb, they traveled upward to his thoughtful countenance;

thence took a leap to the decrepit water-spout which depended weakly

from the corner of the balcony-roof, and thence again ascended to a

great, solid, white cloud, with turreted outline clear against the blue,

which was slowly sliding across the sky from the westward, and

threatened soon to cut off the afternoon sunshine.

The professor restlessly altered the position of his legs, thereby

drawing his daughter's attention once more to himself. Thinking she had

waited as long as was requisite for the maintenance of her dignity as a

non-inquisitive person, she transferred herself lightly to the arm of

her father's chair, grasping his beard in her plump, slender hand, and

turned his face up toward hers.