"Here it is, all safe. You can't think how punctual I've learned to be
since I've had it. I got to be quite superstitious about winding it up;
but it did run down once--just about six weeks after I left. It was in
the forenoon, about eleven. I--I happened to be looking at it at the
time, and suddenly the second-hand began to go slower and slower, and at
last it stopped. You can't think how frightened I was. I couldn't help
thinking that something must have happened at home. I wrote to Sophie
that I would come home the same afternoon. Of course you know"--here
Cornelia interrupted the hurried and nervous flow of her words to force
a laugh--"of course it wasn't any thing but that I'd been up late
talking with Aunt Margaret, and had forgotten to wind it. It isn't out
of order or any thing."
She was out of breath now, and had to pause. She would gladly have kept
on indefinitely, for the sake of avoiding another of those dreadful
silences.
Bressant was not in the habit of paying much attention to coincidences,
but it happened to occur to him that the stoppage of the watch must have
taken place pretty nearly, if not exactly, at the time of his engagement
to Sophie, and the thought rendered his discomposure still more painful.
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