"M. Vauderp." Bressant read the
message, and afterward carefully perused the printing, even down to the
name of the printer's firm, which was given in very small type at the
bottom of the paper. Then he glanced over the writing once more, and
returned the paper to the envelope.

"At once, at once!" muttered he; "that's the only way of writing italics
in telegraphy, I suppose. Well, I'll go at once; it's ten now; there's a
train at half-past."

He unlocked a drawer in his table, and took from it a purse, which he
put in his pocket. He buttoned a pea-jacket across his broad chest,
pressed a round fur-cap on to his handsome head, took a pair of thick
gloves from the mantel-piece, and walked away without giving one
backward glance.

The snow blew and drifted through the open window into the empty room;
the few remaining flowers were hustled from their stalks; the red eye of
the stove grew dimmer and dimmer, and finally faded into darkness, and
the colored drawing of the patent derrick broke loose at another corner,
and flapped and fluttered against the wall in crazy exultation.

CHAPTER XXVII.

FACT AND FANCY.

The snow-storm continued all that afternoon. The customary hour for
Bressant's visit to the Parsonage went by, and he did not appear. The
professor smoked two extra pipes, and spent half an hour looking out
across the valley trying to discern the open spot upon the top of the
hill. Finally, the early twilight set in, and he returned to his chair,
but felt no impulse to light a lamp and take up a book. He sat tilted
back, pulling Shakespeare's nose with meditative fingers. A gloom
gradually settled over the room, withdrawing one after another of the
familiar objects around him from the old gentleman's sight; it even
seemed to creep into his heart, and create a vague uneasiness there. He
tried to shake it off, telling himself that he was the happiest and most
fortunate old fellow alive; that every thing was coming out just as he
had hoped and prayed it might; that one daughter, with the man of her
choice, would be just far enough removed from his fireside to give
piquancy to the frequent visits he should receive from her; while the
other would still, for a time, continue to pour out sunshine in the
house, and redouble her love for him by way of compensating for what he
should miss in Sophie's absence. And then the professor built an airier
and a fairer castle still: beneath it lay the heavy clouds of