Whatever Sophie may have thought of Cornelia's answer, she said no more, but lay in reverie, opening and shutting her scissors in an objectless manner, until Cornelia's voice flowed forth again.
"Isn't it a pity he wasn't a nice, jolly, society fellow? it would have been such fun this winter! As it is, I don't suppose we shall be able to do so much even as if we were alone."
"From something papa said the other day, I think he'd like to try and make Mr. Bressant more of a society fellow; perhaps it would wear away that coldness and hardness you speak of."
"What I teach him the arts and pleasures of fashionable life?" exclaimed Cornelia, laughing. "Dear me! I'd no more think of trying to teach that great big thing any thing than—any thing!"
"But you can make him go to Abbie's party, if you are to be there yourself, and then, if you don't want to instruct him, you can give him to some one who isn't afraid of him, and—have Bill Reynolds all to yourself."
Cornelia laughed and pouted, and told Sophie she was mean; but probably felt it a relief to have poor Bill's name introduced, he being so palpably hors de combat.
"It would be pretty good fun, after all—walking round on the arm of that great, tall, broad-shouldered creature, and telling him how to behave! I believe I will try it!" and she straightened herself up with a very valiant air.
"It will be your last chance, remember!" said Sophie, looking up with a deep smile in her eyes. "I promised papa that when I was well I'd take charge of Mr. Bressant myself!"
Sophie's life, as has been said, was preeminently an ideal one. Materialism disturbed and perplexed her, and she ignored it as much as possible. She was inspired and excited by the ideal she had conceived of Bressant, and of her sphere of action with regard to him. But, had the physical personality of the man been thrust upon her in the first place, she would have very likely recoiled, her finer intuitions would have been jarred, and their precision paralyzed. Standing aloof, however, living and acting only in the realm of her pure maiden creeds, every thing seemed clear and simple enough. Right should be done, and wrong be righted; there would be no material conditions or hinderances; results were attained immediately.
But life is not what the pure-hearted girl painted it in her ideal dreams. The unconsidered obstacles rise into frowning and insurmountable barriers. Those we would make our beneficiaries often fail to appreciate their position, and turn our good into a worse evil than their own. We may theorize about the human soul, but, to put our theories to the test, is to assume an awful responsibility.