mary;" perhaps--for this also must have a place--perhaps from
a fear lest he should make no attempt to regain it. She felt his bearded
lips press against it. At the touch, a sudden weakness, a self-pitying
sensation, came over her, and the tears started to her eyes.

"No one ever did that before to me," she said, almost plaintively, for
he had spoken no justifying words, and she was balancing between a
remorseful timidity and a timid exultation.

"It's the first kiss I ever gave," said he, and his own voice vibrated.
"Are you angry? it shall be the last if you are."

"Oh, I'm not angry," faltered poor Cornelia; and then she felt, or
seemed to feel, a force drawing her down--scarcely perceptible, yet
strong as death. She bent her lovely glowing face, with its tearful eyes
and fragrant breath, close down to Bressant's.

At that very moment, or even an incalculable instant before, the
professor's voice was heard calling loudly from without:

"Come--come! be quick! you'll be too late!"

She rose and fled from the room; but it was too late, indeed.

CHAPTER XIV.

NURSING.

After seeing Cornelia off, Professor Valeyon bethought himself of Abbie;
she must be wondering what had become of her late boarder, and he
resolved to stop at the house, and give her an account of the accident.
He had got some distance beyond the boarding-house when the idea
occurred to him. Just as he was about to head Dolly round in the
opposite direction, he discerned a figure beyond, beneath an umbrella,
which looked very much like the person he was seeking. He drove on, and
in a few minutes overtook her.

"Going up to the Parsonage?" cried the old gentleman, getting gallantly
down into the mud. "Here, jump up into-the wagon; I want to tell you
about your--boarder."

"He--there's nothing the matter with him, of course?" said Abbie, with a
short laugh. She was looking very pale, and as if she had not slept much
of late. "No, don't drive mo to the Parsonage; take me home, if you
please, Professor Valeyon. Well, about Mr. Bressant?"

"Doing very well now; he was pretty seriously hurt." And he went on to
give a short account of what had happened, which Abbie did not interrupt
by word or gesture; she sat with her head bent, and her lips working
against each other.

"It's quite certain he'll recover?" she asked, when all was told.

"As certain," quoth the professor, non-committally, "as any thing in
surgery can be."

"It wouldn't b