CHAPTER VI.
CORNELIA BEGINS TO UNDO A KNOT.
Bressant, to do him justice--for he was, on the whole, rather apt to be polite than otherwise, in his way--entirely forgot the professor's existence for the time being.

He was too self-absorbed to think of other people.

He thought he was bewitched, and felt a strong and healthy impulse to throw off the witchery before doing any thing else.

He sprang up the steps, across the balcony, traversed the hall with a quick tramp that shook the house, snatched his hat from the old hat-tree, came down upon the porch-step (which creaked in a paroxysm of reproach at his unaccustomed weight), and, in another moment, stood outside the Parsonage-gate, which, to save time, he had leaped, instead of opening.
The road was white no longer, but brown and moist.

The sky overhead was deep purple, and full of stars.