"The professor and Miss Valeyon will both come," said Abbie, as soon as the neuralgia, if that it were, would allow her to speak. "Excuse me, sir—may I sit down a moment?" These words were uttered hurriedly, and, at the same moment, the woman made a sudden step to the lounge, and dropped down upon it so abruptly that the venerable springs creaked again.
"Beg your pardon, ma'am," said Bressant, rather awkwardly. "Must be an infirm old person," he added to himself. "She looks older, even, than when she came in!"
"Well, sir," said she, with rather a constrained air, rising, from the sofa in a way that confirmed the young man's opinion about her infirmity; "well, sir, shall I expect you on Thursday evening?"
"Yes; I'll come," said he, with an elastic inclination of his shoulders, and a smile. He thought himself fortunate in so good an opportunity to put his invulnerability to the proof.
Abbie bowed without speaking, and moved toward the door. Having opened it, she turned round, with her hands upon the latch: "Professor Valeyon tells me you're an orphan, sir?"
"My father died last month; I never knew my mother," returned Bressant, pushing his brown beard between his teeth, and biting it impatiently. He wished people would get through asking him about his deceased relatives.
"Never knew your mother! it must have been—have you never felt the need of her?"
"Oh, no! I was better without one," said he, quite provoked at his landlady's pertinacity. He turned about, and threw himself into his chair. The woman shrank back beyond the threshold.
"Good-day, sir, and thank you," she said. But Bressant could not be expected to hear the low, timid tone in which she spoke. Seeing that he made no response, she softly closed the door.
She went along the dark entry to her own room. On a little table in one corner stood an old-fashioned desk. She opened it, and, unlocking an inner drawer, took therefrom a small morocco case, lined with red velvet, and containing a daguerreotype much faded by age. She studied it long and earnestly, but seemingly without any very satisfactory result.