e alone."

"From something papa said the other day, I think he'd like to try and
make Mr. Bressant more of a society fellow; perhaps it would wear away
that coldness and hardness you speak of."

"What I teach him the arts and pleasures of fashionable life?" exclaimed
Cornelia, laughing. "Dear me! I'd no more think of trying to teach that
great big thing any thing than--any thing!"

"But you can make him go to Abbie's party, if you are to be there
yourself, and then, if you don't want to instruct him, you can give him
to some one who isn't afraid of him, and--have Bill Reynolds all to
yourself."

Cornelia laughed and pouted, and told Sophie she was mean; but probably
felt it a relief to have poor Bill's name introduced, he being so
palpably _hors de combat_.

"It would be pretty good fun, after all--walking round on the arm of
that great, tall, broad-shouldered creature, and telling him how to
behave! I believe I _will_ try it!" and she straightened herself up with
a very valiant air.

"It will be your last chance, remember!" said Sophie, looking up with a
deep smile in her eyes. "I promised papa that when I was well I'd take
charge of Mr. Bressant myself!"

Sophie's life, as has been said, was preeminently an ideal one.
Materialism disturbed and perplexed her, and she ignored it as much as
possible. She was inspired and excited by the ideal she had conceived of
Bressant, and of her sphere of action with regard to him. But, had the
physical personality of the man been thrust upon her in the first place,
she would have very likely recoiled, her finer intuitions would have
been jarred, and their precision paralyzed. Standing aloof, however,
living and acting only in the realm of her pure maiden creeds, every
thing seemed clear and simple enough. Right should be done, and wrong be
righted; there would be no material conditions or hinderances; results
were attained immediately.

But life is not what the pure-hearted girl painted it in her ideal
dreams. The unconsidered obstacles rise into frowning and insurmountable
barriers. Those we would make our beneficiaries often fail to appreciate
their position, and turn our good into a worse evil than their own. We
may theorize about the human soul, but, to put our theories to the test,
is to assume an awful responsibility.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DAGUERROTYPE.

Bressant occupied two adjoining rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one
contained his bed and the other was