chasséed on tiptoe up to the door of Sophie's room. There she stopped
and knocked.

Somehow or other, nobody ever went into that room without knocking. It
never entered any one's head to burst in unannounced. The door was an
unimposing-looking piece of deal, grained by some village artist into
the portraiture of an as yet undiscovered kind of wood, and considerably
impaired in various ways by time. It could not have been the door,
therefore. Nor was the bolt ever drawn, save at certain hours of the
morning and night. Sophie was not an ogre, either. Cornelia, who was
very trying at times, would have found it hard to recall an occasion
when Sophie had answered or addressed her sharply or crossly. If she
exerted any influence, or wielded any power, it was not of the kind
which attends a violent or morose temper. But no vixen or shrew, how
terrible soever she may be, can hope at all times or from all people to
meet with respect or consideration; while to Sophie Valeyon the world
always put on its best face and manner, secretly wondering at itself the
while for being so well-behaved.

As to the affair of knocking, Sophie herself had never said a word about
it, one way or another. She always took it as a matter of course;
indeed, had she been loquacious on the subject, or insisted upon the
observance, Cornelia for one would have been very likely to laugh to
scorn and disregard her, therein acting upon a principle of her own,
which prompted her to measure her strength against any thing which
seemed to challenge her, and never to give up if she could help it. But
she had never had a trial of strength with Sophie, and possibly was
quite contented that it should be so. She would have shrunk from
thwarting or crossing her sister as she would from committing a secret
sin: there might be no material or visible ill-consequence, but the