Cornelia immediately kissed her soft fingers to him twice, and then vanished from the room, looking more like a blush than a tea rose.
Before long she returned with the sick man's breakfast on a tray.
"Do you like to be nursed ?" asked she, as she put the tray on a table, and moved it up to the bedside.
"No!" said Bressant, emphatically, and with an intonation of great surprise.
"Oh! why not ?" faltered Cornelia, quite taken aback.
"I hate disabled people; they're monstrosities, and had better not be at all.

I wouldn't nurse them." "You think there's no pleasure in doing things for people who cannot help themselves ?" demanded Cornelia, indignantly.
"There can be no pleasure in nursing," reiterated he.

"It might be very pleasant to be nursed--by any one who is beautiful--if one did not need the nursing!" Cornelia was becoming so accustomed to Bressant's undisguised manners that she forgot to be disturbed by this guileless compliment.

Many hours afterward, when she was alone in her chamber, the words recurred to her, devoid of the version his manner had given them, and then they brought the blood gently to her cheeks.
"You're very foolish," said she, as she poured out some tea, and cut up a mutton-chop into mouthfuls.

"Now, you have to drink this tea, though you wouldn't the last time I poured you out a cup; and I'll give you your chop.