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Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934

"Bressant"

"
"Well!" said Bressant, quite resignedly. He was becoming a very
respectable patient.
"In what way do you want to be taken care of?" resumed the nurse with a
cheerful, business-like gravity which was at once becoming and piquant.
"Stay here and talk; I like to hear your voice: and you look so cool and
pleasant."
Very few people could oppose this young man in any thing; he knew so
well what he wanted, and demanded it so uncompromisingly. But Sophie's
sense of fitness and propriety was as sound and impenetrable as adamant,
and scarcely to be affected by any human will or consideration. She felt
there was something not quite right in his manner and in the nature of
his demand; and, being in the habit of making people conform to her
ideas, rather than the reverse, she at once determined to correct him.
"If there's any thing you wish me to read to you, I'll do it. I didn't
come to sit down and talk to you; but, if you like my voice, you can
have more pleasure from it in that way."
"It would be no use for you to read: I couldn't understand--I couldn't
attend to your voice and the book at the same time."
"We'd better wait, then," said Sophie, turning her clear, gray eyes upon
him with an expression of demure satire. "By-and-by, perhaps, it won't
have such a distracting effect upon you--when you come to know me
better.


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