Bressant

"You'll be happy about it--you'll forgive us, won't you, papa?" she

said, turning at the door.

The old gentleman shuffled heavily up to her, and kissed her on the

forehead.

"God bless you, and God's will be done, my darling!" said he; but at

that moment he could say no more.

An hour afterward, however, when the professor knocked the ashes out of

his second pipe, and laid his hand upon the latch of Bressant's door,

the expression upon his strongly-cut features was neither gloomy nor

severe. There was a look in his eyes of benignant sweetness, all the

more impressive because it made one wonder how it could find a place

beneath such stern eyebrows and so deeply lined a forehead. But, cutting

off an offending right hand, although a bitter piece of work enough for

the time being, may, in its after-effect, work as gracious a miracle in

an older and more forbidding gentleman even than Professor Valeyon.