Cornelia began to laugh, but interrupted herself, half-way, with a sob.  She was seized by a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister would have been the cause of it—­would be a murderess!  The sudden jarring of this idea—­tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of reality that there was about it—­against the ludicrous element with which tradition flavors the name of old maid—­caught the young woman at unawares, and threw her rudely out of her nervous control.  It was a result which could scarcely have happened, had she been less morbidly and unnaturally excited and strained to begin with; as it was, it may have been an outbreak which had long been brewing, and to which Sophie’s answer had but given the needful stimulus.

The sob was succeeded by a convulsion of painful laughter, that would go on the more Cornelia tried to stop it.  At last, in gasping for breath, the laughter gave way to an outburst of tears and sobs, which seemed, in comparison, to be a relief.  But at the first intermission, the discordant laughter came again:  she hid her face in her hands, and made wild efforts to control herself:  she slipped from her stool, and flung herself at full length upon the floor.  Now, the paroxysms of laughing and crying came together, her body was shaken, strained, and convulsed in every part:  she was breathless, flushed, and faint.  But it seemed as if nothing short of unconsciousness could bring cessation:  the sobs still tore their way out of her bosom, and the laughter came with a terrible wrench that was more agonizing to hear than a groan.

Sophie had never seen Cornelia in hysterics before, and was tortured with alarm and apprehension.  She knew not what to do, for every attempt she made to relieve her, seemed only to make her worse.

“Let me call papa—­he must be somewhere in the house—­he will know what to do!” she said, at last, trembling and white.

“No! no!” cried Cornelia:  and the shock of fear lest her father should see her, overcame the grasp of the hysterical paroxysm.  She half raised herself on one arm, showing her face, red and disfigured, the veins on the forehead standing out, full and throbbing.  “Come back! come back!” for Sophie had her hand on the door.

She returned, in compliance with her sister’s demand, and knelt down beside her on the floor.  Cornelia let herself fall back, her head resting on Sophie’s knee, in a state of complete exhaustion.  There she lay, panting heavily; and a clammy pallor gradually took the place of the deeply-stained flush.  But the fit was over:  by-and-by she sat up, sullenly shunning Sophie’s touch, and appearing to shrink even at the sound of her voice.  Finally, she rose inertly to her feet, attempting to moisten her dry lips, walked once or twice aimlessly to and fro across the room, and ended by sitting down again upon her stool, and taking up her sewing.

“Are you all well again, dear?” asked Sophie, timidly.