“You are one of the daughters?” said he, with the sudden scrutinizing contraction of the eyebrows that often accompanied his questions.  “There are two, aren’t there?  Which one are you?”

“I’m Cornelia,” replied she, provoked, as the words left her mouth, that she had not said “Miss Valeyon.”  But the question had surprised her out of her presence of mind, and the necessity of speaking loud, if nothing else, hindered her from making the correction.

“Is the other any thing like you?” resumed he, after a moment’s more contemplation, which, spite of its directness, had in it a certain element of unsophisticatedness that prevented it from seeming rude.

“Who, Sophie?” exclaimed the young lady, bursting forth into an unexpected gurgle of laughter, to which Bressant at once responded in kind, though having no idea what the merriment was about.  “I wish you could see her!  There couldn’t be a greater difference if I was a negro!”

The laugh died away in Bressant’s eyes, and he pressed his hand rapidly down over his face, as if to sharpen his wits, or clear away cobwebs.

“That’s natural,” he remarked, reflectively.  “I never saw any thing like you.”

“If he’d said ‘any body,’” thought Cornelia, “I should have said he meant to compliment.  How funny he is! just like a boy in some ways.  I believe I know more than he does, after all!”

“Have you any sisters, Mr. Bressant?” asked she aloud, looking up at him with more cordiality and confidence than she had yet felt or shown.

“Not any.  I should think it would be a good thing.  Do you like it?”

“Of course; but then I am a sister myself, so it don’t apply,” said Cornelia, with the sunshine of another laugh.  It was delightful to look at her at such times; every part of her partook of the merriment, so that her hands, feet, and waist, might all be said to laugh for themselves.  Cornelia could express a great deal more in a bodily than in a spiritual way.  Her material self, indeed, seemed so completely and bounteously endowed as to leave little place or occasion for a soul.  The warm, rounded, fragrant, wholesome personality which met the eye, satisfied it; the harmonious tumult of life, that thrilled in every movement, was contentment to the other perceptions; the thought of a soul, bringing with it that other of death, was cold and inconsistent.  Such mortal perfection loses its full effect, unless we can look upon it as physically immortal:  as soon as we begin to refine our ideas into the abstract, we sully our enjoyment.

“But your mother must have given you some idea of what a sister would be,” continued Cornelia, presently.

“Would she?  I wish I had one!” said the young man, unconscious that no such desire had ever entered his head till now, and yet at a loss to account for its presence.  “Mine died more than twenty years ago,” he explained.

“The poor boy!  I believe he don’t know what a woman is!” murmured Cornelia to herself, perhaps not displeased at the reflection that it lay with her to enlighten him.  “No wonder he looked at me as if I were a mammoth squash, or something.  I’m going down in the garden to pluck a tea-rose bud,” added she aloud.  “Won’t you come?”