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.