Every Little Counts

On the present evening he arrived late, and came upon Cornelia and
Bressant just as the latter was proposing to obtain the professor's
consent to accompanying her home on foot.

Mr. Reynolds advanced, smiling; a polka was being played at the moment,
and he playfully contorted his figure and balanced his head from side to
side in time with the tune, while with his right forefinger he beckoned
winningly to Miss Valeyon to join him in the dance. Bressant gave an
involuntary shudder of disgust; it seemed to him a grisly caricature of
the inspiration he himself had felt at the beginning of the evening. But
Cornelia was equal to the emergency.

"If you'll go and ask papa now," said she, "I'll take care of this
person meantime. He's known me so long, I don't want to be impolite to
him."

A good deal of harm may be done in this world by what is called a
reluctance to be uncivil. There is generally more selfishness than
consideration about it. All sincere admiration, no matter from how low a
source, is grateful to us. Cornelia knew that Bill Reynolds worshipped
her with his whole small capacity, and she was unwilling to deny herself
the miserable little incense, and give him plainly to understand that,
though it was not distasteful to her, he was. And who could blame her
for not wanting to hurt his feelings?

Bressant had no such delicate scruples, and would gladly have assisted
poor Bill through the open bow-window. He departed on his errand,
however, with nothing more than a look of intense dissatisfaction, which
was entirely lost upon the infatuated Reynolds.