What a look was that! At all times there was more to be seen in Sophie's
eyes than in most women's; but now they were fathomless, and yet never
more clear and simple. Cornelia read in them all and more than legions
of words could have told her. There were visible the complete grasp and
appreciation of Cornelia's and Bressant's crime; the realization of her
own position between them; pity and sympathy for the sinners, too, were
there; and love, not sisterly, nor quite human, for Sophie had already
begun to put on immortality--but such a love as an angel might have
felt, knowing the temptation and the punishment. Before that look
Cornelia felt her own bitterness and anguish fade away, as a candle is
obliterated by the sun. She saw in Sophie so much higher a capacity for
feeling, so much profounder and more sublime an emotion, that she was
ashamed of her own beside it.
There was at once a comprehensiveness and a particularity in Sophie's
gaze which, while humbling and abasing Cornelia, brought a comforting
feeling that full justice, upon all points, had been done her in
Sophie's mind. There was no lack of charity for her trials and
temptations, no vindictiveness. Cornelia felt no impulse to plead her
cause, because aware that all she could say would be anticipated in her
sister's forgiveness.
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