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.

Within reach of Sophie’s hand as she lay, were suspended a couple of hanging shelves, which held her books.  There were not a great many of them, but they all bore signs of having been well read, and there was at the same time a certain neatness and spotlessness in their appearance which no merely new books could ever possess, but which was communicated solely by Sophie’s pure finger-touches.  On the opposite side of the bed stood a small table, on which ticked a watch; and beside the watch was a work-basket, full of those multifarious little articles that only a woman knows how to get together.

Looking around the room, and noting the delicate nicety and precision of its condition and arrangement, one would have supposed that Sophie’s own hands must have been very lately at work upon it.  But it was many weeks since she had even sat in the easy-chair that stood in the rosy-curtained window; and, although now far advanced in convalescence, she had taken no part in the care of her room since her illness.  Why it had still continued to retain its immaculateness was one of many similar mysteries which must always surround a character like Sophie’s.  Every thing she accomplished seemed not so much to be done, as to take place, in accordance with her idea or resolve; and there were always, in her manifestations of whatever kind, more spiritual than material elements.

When Cornelia entered, Sophie laid down her sewing, and looked up-with a smile in her eyes, which were large and gray, and the only regularly beautiful part of her face.  She had a way of confining a smile to them, when wishing merely to express good-will or pleasure, which was peculiar to herself, and very effective.  Cornelia walked quite soberly up to the bedside, kissed her sister, and then stood silent for several moments.