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Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934

"Bressant"

But you're more soul than body, to begin with,
I believe. For my part, I almost think, sometimes, I could get along
without any soul at all, and never feel the least inconvenience. Perhaps
everybody hasn't a soul--only a few favored ones."
"What is it gives you such thoughts, Neelie?" said her sister, in a tone
which, had it not been charged with so ranch depth of feeling, would
have been plaintive. Her gray, profound eyes, from a slight slanting
upward of the brows above them, took on an expression in harmony with
her tone. "I never knew you to have such, until lately."
"I suppose, until lately, I didn't have any thoughts at all." There was
a pause. Sophie looked away over the beautiful valley, but it could not
drive the shadow of anxious and loving sorrow from her face. Cornelia
busied herself selecting leaves from her basket, and arranging them in a
bouquet. Like them, she was more vividly and variously beautiful since
the frost.
"Do you think men's ideas of love, and such things, are as high as
women's?" asked she presently.
"Why shouldn't they be?" answered Sophie, coming back from her reverie
with a sigh. "I'm sure Bressant's are: if they weren't--"
She sank again into thought, and another long silence followed.


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