When Cornelia left her father on the balcony, she danced up-stairs, and
chasséed on tiptoe up to the door of Sophie's room. There she stopped
and knocked.
Somehow or other, nobody ever went into that room without knocking. It
never entered any one's head to burst in unannounced. The door was an
unimposing-looking piece of deal, grained by some village artist into
the portraiture of an as yet undiscovered kind of wood, and considerably
impaired in various ways by time. It could not have been the door,
therefore. Nor was the bolt ever drawn, save at certain hours of the
morning and night. Sophie was not an ogre, either. Cornelia, who was
very trying at times, would have found it hard to recall an occasion
when Sophie had answered or addressed her sharply or crossly. If she
exerted any influence, or wielded any power, it was not of the kind
which attends a violent or morose temper. But no vixen or shrew, how
terrible soever she may be, can hope at all times or from all people to
meet with respect or consideration; while to Sophie Valeyon the world
always put on its best face and manner, secretly wondering at itself the
while for being so well-behaved.
As to the affair of knocking, Sophie herself had never said a word about
it, one way or another. She always took it as a matter of course;
indeed, had she been loquacious on the subject, or insisted upon the
observance, Cornelia for one would have been very likely to laugh to
scorn and disregard her, therein acting upon a principle of her own,
which prompted her to measure her strength against any thing which
seemed to challenge her, and never to give up if she could help it. But
she had never had a trial of strength with Sophie, and possibly was
quite contented that it should be so. She would have shrunk from
thwarting or crossing her sister as she would from committing a secret
sin: there might be no material or visible ill-consequence, but the
stings of conscience would be all the sharper.
So Cornelia knocked and entered, and the quiet, cool room in which her
sister lay seemed to glow and become enlivened by the joyous reflection
of her presence. Yet the effect of the room upon Cornelia was at least
as marked. She hushed herself, as it were, and tried, half
unconsciously, to adapt herself to the tone of her surroundings; for,
although her physical nature was sound and healthy, almost to
boisterousness, her perceptions remained very keen and delicate, and
occasionally rallied her upon the redundancy of her animal well-being
with something like reproof.
It was singular, with how few and how simple means was created the
impression of purity and repose that this chamber produced! It brought
to mind the pearly interior of a shell, and a fanciful person might have
listened for the sea-music whispering through. The walls were papered
with pale gray, relieved by a light pink tracery, and the white-muslin
curtains were set off by a pink lining. A bunch of wild-flowers and
grasses, which Cornelia had gathered that morning, and Sophie had
arranged, stood on the mantel-piece. There were four or five
pictures--one, a bass-relief of Endymion, deep asleep, yet conscious in
his dream that the moon is peeping shyly over his polished shoulder, had
been copied from a famous original by Sophie herself. She had painted it
in a pale-brown mezzotint, which was like nothing in nature, but seemed
suitable of all others for the embodiment of the classic fable. This
picture hung over the mantel-piece. Opposite Sophie's bed was an
illumination of the Lord's Prayer, with clear gold lettering, and
capitals and border of celestial colors. The dressing-table was covered
with a white cloth, on which reposed a comb and brush and a pink
pin-cushion with a muslin cover, and over which hung a crayon of the
cherub of the Sistine Madonna, who leans his chin upon his hand.