"Her life is in this fellow's hand!" thought the professor, and he
trembled to his very heart, but dared not ask himself wherefore.
"Do you really think it would hurt me to sew, dear papa?" said she, at
length, looking up from her pillow.
"Better let sewing and every thing else alone for the present, my dear;
it'll be enough work to get all well again by next Sunday."
Sophie sighed. "I did so want to finish my wedding-dress all myself,"
said she. "It needs only a few hours' work now, and Cornelia is so busy
on her own account, it's hard to ask her. Oh, yes! dear papa, I know how
glad she'd be to help me," she added quickly, seeing the old gentleman's
eyebrows meet, and his forehead redden.
"I should hope she would! Must be very busy if she hasn't time to do so
much as that!" growled he. "I'll send her up to you, my dear."
"Papa!" said Sophie, calling him back from the door; and it was not
until she had possession of his hand and was holding it against her
cheek that she went on. "Don't let the wedding be put off, if I
shouldn't be able to sit up on Sunday. I'll be carried down into the
guest-chamber, where he was ill for so long. Don't--papa, I know you
won't think hardly of me; but I feel a kind of superstition about that
particular day and hour: that if all is not done then, it never will be.
Am not I foolish? But do let it be so, and never mind wisdom!"
There was a vein of strenuous earnestness only partly concealed beneath
her words and manner, which the gruff old gentleman, who was as
sensitive as a photographic plate, where his affections were concerned,
did not fail to note. He kissed her on both cheeks--a fully sufficient
answer to her request, and shuffled out of the room in his old slippers;
which, thanks to Sophie's filial attentions, still held together with
dying faith fulness.
The rest of the day the two sisters passed together--Cornelia working
upon her sister's wedding-dress, and Sophie guiding her by directions
and suggestions. Not since they first began to grow apart, had there
been between them so great an appearance of sisterly love and
cordiality. Yet, if Cornelia allowed herself to think at all, it must
have seemed, in the light of her purpose regarding Bressant, as if she
was preparing a shroud rather than a wedding-garment. Or, perhaps, as
she observed the change which even so brief and light an illness had
made in Sophie's delicate face, there may have lurked, in the secret
places of her mind, a darker and guiltier thought than that. But let not
our condemnation be too unconditional, lest the precedent come home,
some day, to ourselves. It may astonish us, hereafter, to discover how
many of our most respectable acquaintances are murderers--only in
thought!