CHAPTER VII.
PROFESSOR VALEYON MAKES A CALL.
The morning following Bressant's arrival was clear and cool.

Professor Valeyon looked out of the window of his bedroom, which was at the garden-end of the house, and opposite Cornelia's, and saw the cold, white mists lying in the valley, and the rough hills, like islands, lifting their dark shoulders above it.
As he looked, the sun, having climbed a few inches above the eastern uplands, let a bright glance fall right upon the open spot at the summit of the professor's favorite hill.

A few minutes afterward he poured a golden flood into the valley, carrying consternation to the delaying vapors, insomuch that they straightway put themselves into commotion preparatory to departure.

No spare time was allowed them; some were bundled off into the dark gullies and passes of the hills; others betook themselves hastily to that side of the valley which was yet in shadow, to sleep a few moments beyond the legitimate time; others still, finding escape impossible, rose heavenward like a mighty incense, and were by the sun converted into something wellnigh as glorious as himself.
"Good simile for a sermon, that! turning persecution into a means of glorification!" thought the professor, recurring to the days of his pastorship.
As may be inferred, the old gentleman was in the habit of getting up early; a praiseworthy practice, but one so universal with elderly people as to suggest a doubt of its being entirely a voluntary virtue.

Be that as it may, the professor was up, and proceeded to set his blood in motion over a wash-bowl.