Every few minutes--oftener than any circumstances could have
warranted--she pulled a handsome gold watch out of her belt and
consulted it. She did not, to be sure, seem solely anxious to know the
hour; she bent down and examined the enameled face minutely; watched
the second-hand make its tiny circuit; pressed the smooth crystal
against her cheek; listened to the ceaseless beating of its little
golden heart. That golden heart, it seemed to her, was a connecting link
between Bressant's and her own. He had set it going, and it should be
her care that it never stopped; for at the hour in which it ran
down--such was Cornelia's superstitious idea--some lamentable misfortune
would surely come to pass.
The dinner-bell sounded; she put her watch back into her belt, bestowing
a loving little pat upon it, by way of temporary adieu. Then, feeling
pretty hungry, she ran down the broad, soft-carpeted stairs, with their
wide mahogany banisters--she would have sat upon the latter and slid
down if she had dared--and entering the dining-room, which was furnished
throughout with yellow oak, even to the polished floor, she took her
place by her hostess's side. She had already been presented to the
fashionable guests who sat around the ample table, and a good deal of
the awe which she had felt in anticipation, had begun to ooze away.
Although much was said that was unintelligible to her, she could see
that this was not the result of intellectual deficiency on her part, but
merely of an ignorance of the ground on which the conversation was
founded. As Cornelia stole glances at the faces, pretty or pretentious,
of the young ladies, or at the mustaches, whiskers, or carefully-parted
hair of the young gentlemen, it did not seem to her that she could call
herself essentially the inferior of any one of them. As to what they
thought of her, she could only conjecture; but the gentlemen were
extravagantly polite--according to her primitive ideas of that
much-abused virtue--and the ladies were smiling, full of pretty
attitudes, small questions, and accentuated comments. No one of them,
nor of the young men either, seemed to be very hungry; but Cornelia had
her usual unexceptionable appetite, and ate stoutly to satisfy it; she
even tasted a glass of Italian wine at dessert, upon the assurance of
Aunt Margaret that "she must--really must--it would never do to come
to New York without learning how to drink wine, you know;" and upon the
word of the young gentleman who sat next to her that it wouldn't hurt
her a bit--all wines were medicinal--Italian wines especially so; and
so, indeed, it proved, for Cornelia thought she had never felt so genial
a glow of sparkling life in her veins. She was good-natured enough to
laugh at any thing, and brilliant enough to make anybody else laugh; and
the evening passed away most pleasantly.