a fantasy that if Sophie died an old maid her sister
would have been the cause of it--would be a murderess! The sudden
jarring of this idea--tragical enough, even without the ghastly spice of
reality that there was about it--against the ludicrous element with
which tradition flavors the name of old maid--caught the young woman at
unawares, and threw her rudely out of her nervous control. It was a
result which could scarcely have happened, had she been less morbidly
and unnaturally excited and strained to begin with; as it was, it may
have been an outbreak which had long been brewing, and to which Sophie's
answer had but given the needful stimulus.

The sob was succeeded by a convulsion of painful laughter, that would
go on the more Cornelia tried to stop it. At last, in gasping for
breath, the laughter gave way to an outburst of tears and sobs, which
seemed, in comparison, to be a relief. But at the first intermission,
the discordant laughter came again: she hid her face in her hands, and
made wild efforts to control herself: she slipped from her stool, and
flung herself at full length upon the floor. Now, the paroxysms of
laughing and crying came together, her body was shaken, strained, and
convulsed in every part: she was breathless, flushed, and faint. But it
seemed as if nothing short of unconsciousness could bring cessation: the
sobs still tore their way out of her bosom, and the laughter came with a
terrible wrench that was more agonizing to hear than a groan.

Sophie had never seen Cornelia in hysterics before, and was tortured
with alarm and apprehension. She knew not what to do, for every attempt
she made to relieve her, seemed only to make her worse.

"Let me call papa--he must be somewhere in the house--he will know what
to do!" she said, at last, trembling and white.

"No! no!" cried Cornelia: and the shock of fear lest her father should
see her, overcame the grasp of the hysterical paroxysm. She half raised
herself on one arm, showing her face, red and disfigured, the veins on
the forehead standing out, full and throbbing. "Come back! come back!"
for Sophie had her hand on the door.

She returned, in compliance with her sister's demand, and knelt down
beside her on the floor. Cornelia let herself fall back, her head
resting on Sophie's knee, in a state of complete exhaustion. There she
lay, panting heavily; and a clammy pallor gradually took the place of
the deeply-stained flush. But the fit was over: b