By the time Professor Valeyon had remounted the granite steps, he was
quite ready to do justice to his breakfast. Cornelia came singing
down-stairs, with a full-blown tea-rose in her hair, and looking as if
she had already breakfasted upon the greater part of the day's sunshine.
She reported Sophie to be awake and comfortable, so the gentleman
climbed up-stairs and shuffled into her peaceful, rose-colored room to
give her a morning kiss. The Lord's Prayer glowed forth as brightly from
the wall as if it had been pronounced for the first time that day.
"Well, heard all about my new pupil from Cornelia, I suppose?" said
papa, when the kiss had been given, sitting down by the bedside, and
holding his daughter's pale, slender hand in his own.
"He who came last evening? No, I've not seen Neelie to speak to her,
since he was here. What is he to be taught?"
"Wants to be a minister," replied the professor, rubbing his beard.
"Shall do what I can for him, because he's the son of a former friend,
now dead. I'm afraid he won't do, though. Needs a good deal besides
Hebrew and history."
"But you can give him all he does need, papa," rejoined Sophie, with
serene faith in the old gentleman's infallibility.
"I don't know," returned he, his eyes resting upon the Lord's Prayer. "I
don't know," he repeated, turning them to his daughter's transparent
face, which seemed almost an incarnation of the divine words. "I think,
my dear, that you could put some ideas into his head that would do him
more good than any thing I can give him;" and he smiled gravely upon
her.
"All right, papa," said Sophie, gayly, with a tender kindling of her
soft, gray eyes. "Nothing could make me happier than to do good to
somebody. As soon as I get well enough, I'll take him under my charge."
Her manner was playful, but there was a vibration in her tone which
caught the professor's ear, and conveyed to him the idea that there was
an unseen depth of yearning and passionate desire to be something more
than an invalid, selfish and helpless, during her earthly life; an
inheritance, perhaps, of the apostolic spirit which had played a not
inconsiderable part in the history of his own life. And surely, he may
have thought, there never was human being better qualified than she to
inspire to high and pure simplicity of life and thought, were it merely
by the example of her own. And would it not be a strange and beautiful
thing, if this beloved daughter of his should be the means of turning to
worthier and truer ambitions a man whom, of all others, he had reason to
wish honored and respected among mankind! It was a very alluring
thought, and the professor quite lost himself for a few moments in the
contemplation of it. He did not reflect, and Sophie could not know, that
there might be danger in the prosecution of such a scheme; for, all the
knowledge which a young girl like her can have or impart, must find its
ultimate origin in the heart. But then, again, the matter had taken no
definite or practical shape in his mind as yet, and things which in the
abstract may wear an appearance of being highly desirable often put on
quite a different look when presented in concrete form. This would be
especially the case with a man like Professor Valeyon, who was half a
dreamer, and half a practical, common-sensible individual. With Sophie,
however, whose whole life was necessarily a tissue of delicate and
high-wrought theories, there was no safeguard of the kind to be relied
upon.