r her own part, she locked herself into her room, and
cried tempestuously for half an hour; then she spent a still longer time
in lying with her heated face upon the pillow, reviewing the incidents
of her life since Bressant had entered into it. He was the superior of
any man she had met before or since: she was sure of it now; it could no
longer be called the infatuation of inexperience. She took herself well
to task for the recent laxity and imprudence of her conduct; did not
spare to cut where the flesh was tender; and resolved never again to lay
herself open to blame.

This was very well, but the mood was too strained and exalted to be
depended upon. Cornelia got up from the disordered bed, put it to rights
again, washed her stained face carefully, rearranged her hair, and went
down-stairs. All that afternoon she was cold, grave, and reserved;
inquiries after her health met with a chilling answer, and her friends
wisely concluded to leave her malady, whatever it were, to the cure of
time. As dinner progressed, Cornelia began to thaw: when Mr. Grumblow,
the member of Congress, requested her, with solemn and oppressive
courtesy, to do him the honor of taking a glass of wine with him, she
responded graciously; and as the toasts circulated, she first looked
upon her ideal resolves with good-humored tolerance, and then they
escaped her memory altogether. She became once more lively and
sparkling, and carried on what she imagined was a very brilliant
conversation with two or three people at once. By the time she was
ready to retire, she had practised anew the whole list of her
lately-abrogated accomplishments; and she wound up by picking the French
novel out of the corner into which she had disdainfully thrown it twelve
hours before, reading it in bed until she fell asleep, and dreaming that
she was its heroine. And yet she had not forgotten to wind up Bressant's
watch, and put it in its usual place under her pillow.

It might seem strange that his memory should not have kept her beyond
the reach of deleterious influences. But a young girl's love is any
thing but a preservative, if it shall yield her, in any aspect, other
than such pure and delicate thoughts as she would not scruple to whisper
in her mother's ear, or to ask God's blessing on at night. Should there
be any circumstance or incident, however seemingly trifling and
unimportant, in her reminiscences, which nevertheless keeps recurring to
the mind with a slight