It passed through Cornelia's mind, as she lifted the tea-pot, that Mr.Bressant was outrageously conceited, and should be taken down at the first opportunity.

She had made a very graceful courtesy, and it was not to be overlooked in that way with impunity.
"Milk and sugar, sir ?" said she, interrogatively, raising her eyes to the young man's face with a somewhat gratuitous formality of manner, and holding a piece of sugar suspended over the cup.
Bressant had certainly been looking in her direction as she spoke; he had the opposite place to her at table; but instead of replying, even with a motion of the head, he, after a moment, turned to Professor Valeyon, who was gently oscillating himself in the rocking-chair he always occupied at meals, and asked him whether he knew any thing about a place in town called "Abbie's Boarding-house." Cornelia laid down the sugar and tongs, and looked very insulted and flushed.

What sort of a creature was this her papa had brought to his supper-table?
Papa, who had noticed the awkward turn, and was tickled by the humor thereof, could not forbear to give evidence of amusement, insomuch that his daughter, who was by no means of a lymphatic temperament, was almost ready to leave the table, or burst into tears with injured and astonished dignity.
Bressant, with that exceeding quickness of perception which most persons with his infirmity possess under such circumstances, transferred his glance from the professor to the young lady, and at once arrived at a pretty correct understanding of the difficulty.

He was not embarrassed, for it had probably never occurred to him that his deafness was so much a defect as a difference of organization, and he lost no time in explaining matters in his customary way.
"I'm deaf; when you talk to me you must speak loud," said he, looking full at Cornelia's disturbed face.
Miss Valeyon had never been so thoroughly discomfited.

She was smitten on three sides at once.