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 fitted up as his study. They were on
the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the
lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly
erratic route above.
The study was some twelve feet by eight; the floor ornamented by a
carpet which, to judge from the size of the pattern, must have been
designed to grace some fifty-foot drawing-room. The furniture consisted
of a deal table with a folding leaf, a chair, a stove--which, perhaps
because it was so small, had been permitted to remain all summer--and a
broad-seated lounge with squeaky springs, but quite roomy and
comfortable, which monopolized a large portion of the room.
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