Chapter XLIX…

Chapter XLIX

Do you think I shall not love a sad Pamela as well as a joyful?

Sidney.

Mr. Carleton came back without his mother; she had chosen to put off her voyage till spring. He took up his quarters at Montepoole, which, far though it was, was yet the nearest point where his notions of ease could have freedom enough.

One would have thought that saw him,--those most nearly concerned almost did think,--that in his daily coming to Queechy Mr. Carleton sought everybody's pleasure rather than his own. He was Fleda's most gentle and kind assistant in taking care of Hugh, soon dearly valued by the sick one, who watched for and welcomed his coming as a bright spot in the day; and loved particularly to have Mr. Carleton's hand do anything for him. Rather than almost any other. His mother's was too feeling; Fleda's Hugh often feared was weary; and his father's, though gentle to him as to an infant, yet lacked the mind's training. And though Marion was his sister in blood, Guy was his brother in better bonds. The deep blue eye that little Fleda had admired Hugh learned to love and rest on singularly.

To the rest of the family Mr. Carleton's influence was more soothing and cheering than any cause beside. To all but the head of it. Even Mrs. Rossitur, after she had once made up her mind to see him, could not bear to be absent when he was in the house. The dreaded contrast with old times gave no pain, either to her or Marion. Mr. Carleton forgot so completely that there was any difference that they were charmed into forgetting it too. But Mr. Rossitur's pride lay deeper, or had been less humbled by sorrow; the recollections that his family let slip never failed to gall him when Mr. Carleton was present; and if now and then for a moment these were banished by his guest's graces of mind and manner, the next breath was a sigh for the circles and the pleasures they served to recall, now seeming for ever lost to him. Mr. Carleton perceived that his company gave pain and not pleasure to his host and for that reason was the less in the house, and made his visits to Hugh at times when Mr. Rossitur was not in the way. Fleda he took out of the house and away with him, for her good and his own.

To Fleda the old childish feeling came back, that she was in somebody's hands who had a marvellous happy way of managing things about her and even of managing herself. A kind of genial atmosphere, that was always doing her good, yet so quietly and so skilfully that she could only now and then get a chance even to look her thanks. Quietly and efficiently he was exerting himself to raise the tone of her mind, to brighten her spirits, to reach those sober lines that years of patience had drawn round her eye and mouth, and charm them away. So gently, so indirectly, by efforts so wisely and gracefully aimed, he set about it, that Fleda did not know what he was doing; but he knew. He knew when he saw her brow unbend and her eye catch its old light sparkle, that his conversation and the thoughts and interests with which he was rousing her mind or fancy, were working, and would work all he pleased. And though the next day he might find the old look of patient gravity again, he hardly wished it not there, for the pleasure of doing it away. Hugh's anxious question to Fleda had been very uncalled for, and Fleda's assurance was well-grounded; that subject was never touched upon.

Fleda's manner with Mr. Carleton was peculiar and characteristic. In the house, before others, she was as demure and reserved as though he had been a stranger; she never placed herself near him, nor entered into conversation with him, unless when he obliged her; but when they were alone there was a frank confidence and simplicity in her manner that most happily answered the high-bred delicacy that had called it out.

One afternoon of a pleasant day in March Fleda and Hugh were sitting alone together in the sick room. Hugh was weaker than usual, but not confined to his bed; he was in his great easy-chair which had been moved up-stairs for him again. Fleda had been repeating hymns.

"You are tired," Hugh said.

"No--"

"There's something about you that isn't strong," said Hugh fondly. "I wonder where is Mr. Carleton to-day. It is very pleasant, isn't it?"

"Very pleasant, and warm; it is like April; the snow all went off yesterday, and the ground is dry except in spots."

"I wish he would come and give you a good walk. I have noticed how you always come back looking so much brighter after one of your walks or rides with him."

"What makes you think so, dear Hugh?" said Fleda a little troubled.

"Only my eyes," said Hugh smiling. "It does me as much good as you, Fleda."

"I never want to go and leave you, Hugh."

"I am very glad there is somebody to take you. I wish he would come. You want it this minute."

"I don't think I shall let him take me if he comes."

"Whither? and whom?" said another voice.

"I didn't know you were there, sir," said Fleda suddenly rising.

"I am but just here--Rolf admitted me as he passed out."

Coming in between them and still holding the hand of one Mr. Carleton bent down towards the other.

"How is Hugh, to-day?"

It was pleasant to see, that meeting of eyes,--the grave kindliness on the one side, the confident affection on the other. But the wasted features said as plainly as the tone of Hugh's gentle reply, that he was passing away,--fast.

"What shall I do for you?"

"Take Fleda out and give her a good walk. She wants it."

"I will, presently. You are weary--what shall I do to rest you?"

"Nothing--" said Hugh, closing his eyes with a very placid look;--"unless you will put me in mind of something about heaven, Mr. Carleton."

"Shall I read to you?--Baxter,--or something else?"

"No--just give me something to think of while you're gone,--as you have done before, Mr. Carleton."

"I will give you two or three of the Bible bits on that subject; they are but hints and indications you know--rather rays of light that stream out from the place than any description of it; but you have only to follow one of these indications and see whither it will lead you. The first I recollect is that one spoken to Abraham, 'Fear not--I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.'"

"Don't go any further, Mr. Carleton," said Hugh with a smile. "Fleda--do you remember?"

They sat all silent, quite silent, all three, for nobody knew how long.

"You were going to walk," said Hugh without looking at them.

Fleda however did not move till a word or two from Mr. Carleton had backed Hugh's request; then she went.

"Is she gone?" said Hugh. "Mr. Carleton, will you hand me that little desk."

It was his own. Mr. Carleton brought it. Hugh opened it and took out a folded paper which he gave to Mr. Carleton, saying that he thought he ought to have it.

"Do you know the handwriting, sir?"

"No."

"Ah she has scratched it so. It is Fleda's."

Hugh shut his eyes again and Mr. Carleton seeing that he had settled himself to sleep went to the window with the paper. It hardly told him anything he did not know before, though set in a fresh light.

"Cold blew the east wind And thick fell the rain, I looked for the tops Of the mountains in vain; Twilight was gathering And dark grew the west, And the woodfire's crackling Toned well with the rest.

"Speak fire and tell me-- Thy flickering flame Fell on me in years past-- Say, am I the same? Has my face the same brightness In those days it wore?-- My foot the same lightness As it crosses the floor?

"Methinks there are changes-- Am weary to-night,-- I once was as tireless As the bird on her flight; My bark in full measure Threw foam from the prow;-- Not even for pleasure Would I care to move now.

"Tis not the foot only That lieth thus still,-- I am weary in spirit, I am listless in will. My eye vainly peereth Through the darkness, to find Some object that cheereth-- Some light for the mind.

"What shadows come o'er me-- What things of the past,-- Bright things of my childhood That fled all too fast, The scenes where light roaming My foot wandered free, Come back through the gloamin'-- Come all back to me.

"The cool autumn evening, The fair summer morn,-- The dress and the aspect Some dear ones have worn,-- The sunshiny places-- The shady hill-side-- The words and the faces That might not abide.--

"Die out little fire-- Ay, blacken and pine!-- So have paled many lights That were brighter than thine. I can quicken thy embers Again with a breath, But the others lie cold In the ashes of death."

Mr. Carleton had read near through the paper before Fleda came in.

"I have kept you a long time, Mr. Carleton," she said coming up to the window; "I found aunt Lucy wanted me."

But she saw with a little surprise the deepening eye which met her, and which shewed, she knew, the working of strong feeling. Her own eye went to the paper in search of explanation.

"What have you there?--Oh, Mr. Carleton," she said, putting her hand over it,--"Please to give it to me!"

Fleda's face was very much in earnest. He took the hand but did not give her the paper, and looked his refusal.

"I am ashamed you should see that!--who gave it to you?"

"You shall wreak your displeasure on no one but me," he said smiling.

"But have you read it?"

"Yes."

"I am very sorry!"

"I am very glad, my dear Elfie."

"You will think--you will think what wasn't true,--it was just a mood I used to get into once in a while--I used to be angry with myself for it, but I could not help it--one of those listless fits would take me now and then--"

"I understand it, Elfie."

"I am very sorry you should know I ever felt or wrote so."

"Why?"

"It was very foolish and wrong--"

"Is that a reason for my not knowing it?"

"No--not a good one--But you have read it now,--won't you let me have it?"

"No--I shall ask for all the rest of the portfolio, Elfie," he said as he put it in a place of security.

"Pray do not!" said Fleda most unaffectedly.

"Why?"

"Because I remember Mrs. Carleton says you always have what you ask for."

"Give me permission to put on your bonnet, then," said he laughingly, taking it from her hand.

The air was very sweet, the footing pleasant. The first few steps of the walk were made by Fleda in silence, with eager breath and a foot that grew lighter as it trod.

"I don't think it was a right mood of mind I had when I wrote that," she said. "It was morbid. But I couldn't help it.--Yet if one could keep possession of those words you quoted just now, I suppose one never would have morbid feelings, Mr. Carleton?"

"Perhaps not; but human nature has a weak hold of anything, and many things may make it weaker."

"Mine is weak," said Fleda. "But it is possible to keep firm hold of those words, Mr. Carleton?"

"Yes--by strength that is not human nature's--And after all the firm hold is rather that in which we are held, or ours would soon fail. The very hand that makes the promise its own must be nerved to grasp it. And so it is best, for it keeps us looking off always to the Author and Finisher of our faith."

"I love those words," said Fleda. "But Mr. Carleton, how shall one be sure that one has a right to those other words--those I mean that you told to Hugh? One cannot take the comfort of them unless one is sure."

Her voice trembled.

"My dear Elfie, the promises have many of them their double--stamped with the very same signet--and if that sealed counterpart is your own, it is the sure earnest and title to the whole value of the promise."

"Well--in this case?" said Fleda eagerly.

"In this case,--God says, 'I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.' Now see if your own heart can give the countersign,--'Thou art my portion, O Lord!'"

Fleda's head sank instantly and almost lay upon his arm.

"If you have the one, my dear Elfie, the other is yours--it is the note of hand of the maker of the promise--sure to be honoured. And if you want proof here it is,--and a threefold cord is not soon broken.--'Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.'"

There was a pause of some length. Fleda had lifted up her head, but walked along very quietly, not seeming to care to speak.

"Have you the countersign, Elfie?"

Fleda flashed a look at him, and only restrained herself from weeping again.

"Yes.--But so I had then, Mr. Carleton--only sometimes I got those fits of feeling--I forgot it, I suppose."

"When were these verses written?"

"Last fall;--uncle Rolf was away, and aunt Lucy unhappy,--and I believe I was tired--I suppose it was that."

For a matter of several rods each was busy with his own musings. But Mr. Carleton bethought himself.

"Where are you, Elfie?"

"Where am I?"

"Yes--Not at Queechy?"

"No indeed," said Fleda laughing. "Far enough away."

"Where?"

"At Paris--at the Marché des Innocens."

"How did you get to Paris?"

"I don't know--by a bridge of associations, I suppose, resting one end on last year, and the other on the time when I was eleven years old."

"Very intelligible," said Mr. Carleton smiling.

"Do you remember that morning, Mr. Carleton?--when you took Hugh and me to the Marché des Innocens?"

"Perfectly."

"I have thanked you a great many times since for getting up so early that morning."

"I think I was well paid at the time. I remember I thought I had seen one of the prettiest sights I had even seen in Paris."

"So I thought!" said Fleda. "It has been a pleasant picture in my imagination ever since."

There was a curious curl in the corners of Mr. Carleton's mouth which made Fleda look an inquiry--a look so innocently wistful that his gravity gave way.

"My dear Elfie!" said he, "you are the very child you were then."

"Am I?" said Fleda. "I dare say I am, for I feel so. I have the very same feeling I used to have then, that I am a child, and you taking the care of me into your own hands."

"One half of that is true, and the other half nearly so."

"How good you always were to me!" Fleda said with a sigh.

"Not necessary to balance the debtor and creditor items on both sides," he said with a smile, "as the account bids fair to run a good while."

A silence again, during which Fleda is clearly not enjoying the landscape nor the fine weather.

"Elfie,--what are you meditating?"

She came back from her meditations with a very frank look.

"I was thinking,--Mr. Carleton,--of your notions about female education."

"Well?--"

They had paused upon a rising ground. Fleda hesitated, and then looked up in his face.

"I am afraid you will find me wanting, and when you do, will you put me in the way of being all you wish me to be?"

Her look was ingenuous and tender, equally. He gave her no answer, except by the eye of grave intentness that fixed hers till she could meet it no longer and her own fell. Mr. Carleton recollected himself.

"My dear Elfie," said he, and whatever the look had meant Elfie was at no loss for the tone now,--"what do you consider yourself deficient in?"

Fleda spoke with a little difficulty.

"I am afraid in a good many things--in general reading,--and in what are called accomplishments--"

"You shall read as much as you please by and by," said he, "provided you will let me read with you; and as for the other want, Elfie, it is rather a source of gratification to me."

Elfie very naturally asked why?

"Because as soon as I have the power I shall immediately constitute myself your master in the arts of riding and drawing, and in any other art or acquisition you may take a fancy to, and give you lessons diligently."

"And will there be gratification in that?" said Fleda.

His answer was by a smile. But he somewhat mischievously asked her, "Will there not?"--and Fleda was quiet.

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Chapter L

Friends, I sorrow not to leave ye; If this life an exile be, We who leave it do but journey Homeward to our family.

Spanish Ballad.

The first of April came.

Mr. Rossitur had made up his mind not to abide at Queechy, which only held him now by the frail thread of Hugh's life. Mr. Carleton knew this, and had even taken some steps towards securing for him a situation in the West Indies. But it was unknown to Fleda; she had not heard her uncle say anything on the subject since she came home; and though aware that their stay was a doubtful matter, she still thought it might be as well to have the garden in order. Philetus could not be trusted to do everything wisely of his own head, and even some delicate jobs of hand could not be safely left to his skill; if the garden was to make any headway Fleda's head and hand must both be there, she knew. So as the spring opened she used to steal away from the house every morning for an hour or two, hardly letting her friends know what she was about, to make sure that peas and potatoes and radishes and lettuce were in the right places at the right times, and to see that the later and more delicate vegetables were preparing for. She took care to have this business well over before the time that Mr. Carleton ever arrived from the Pool.

One morning she was busy in dressing the strawberry beds, forking up the ground between the plants and filling the vacancies that the severe winter or some irregularities of fall dressing had made. Mr. Skillcorn was rendering a somewhat inefficient help, or perhaps amusing himself with seeing how she worked. The little old silver-grey hood was bending down over the strawberries, and the fork was going at a very energetic rate.

"Philetus--"

"Marm!"

"Will you bring me that bunch of strawberry plants that lies at the corner of the beds, in the walk?--and my trowel?"

"I will!--" said Mr. Skillcorn.

It was another hand however that brought them and laid them beside her; but Fleda very intent upon her work and hidden under her close hood did not find it out. She went on busily putting in the plants as she found room for them, and just conscious, as she thought, that Philetus was still standing at her side she called upon him from time to time, or merely stretched out her hand, for a fresh plant as she had occasion for it.

"Philetus," she said at length, raising her voice a little that it might win to him round the edge of her hood without turning her face,--"I wish you would get the ground ready for that other planting of potatoes--you needn't stay to help me any longer."

"'Tain't me, I guess," said the voice of Philetus on the other side of her.

Fleda looked in astonishment to make sure that it really was Mr. Skillcorn proceeding along the garden path in that quarter, and turning jumped up and dropped her trowel and fork, to have her hands otherwise occupied. Mr. Skillcorn walked off leisurely towards the potato ground, singing to himself in a kind of consolatory aside,--

"I cocked up my beaver, and who but I!-- The lace in my hat was so gallant and so gay, That I flourished like a king in his own coun_tray_."

"There is one of your countrymen that is an odd variety, certainly," said Mr. Carleton, looking after him with a very comic expression of eye.

"Is he not!" said Fleda. "And hardly a common one. There never was a line more mathematically straight than the course of Philetus's ideas; they never diverge, I think, to the right hand or the left, a jot from his own self-interest."

"You will be an invaluable help to me, Elfie, if you can read my English friends as closely."

"I am afraid you will not let me come as close to them," said Fleda laughing.

"Perhaps not. I shouldn't like to pay too high a premium for the knowledge. How is Hugh, to-day?"

Fleda answered with a quick change of look and voice that he was much as usual.

"My mother has written me that she will be here by the Europa, which is due to-morrow--I must set off for New York this afternoon; therefore I came so early to Queechy."

Fleda was instinctively pulling off her gardening gloves, as they walked towards the house.

"Aunt Miriam wants to see you, Mr. Carleton--she begged I would ask you to come there some time--"

"With great pleasure--shall we go there now, Elfie?"

"I will be ready in five minutes."

Mrs. Rossitur was alone in the breakfast-room when they went in. Hugh she reported was asleep, and would be just ready to see Mr. Carleton by the time they got back. They stood a few minutes talking, and then Fleda went to get ready.

Both pair of eyes followed her as she left the room and then met with perfect understanding.

"Will you give your child to me, Mrs. Rossitur?" said the gentleman.

"With all my heart!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur bursting into tears,--"even if I were left alone entirely--"

Her agitation was uncontrolled for a minute, and then she said, with feeling seemingly too strong to be kept in,

"If I were only sure of meeting her in heaven, I could be content to be without her till then!--"

"What is in the way, my dear madam?" said Mr. Carleton, with a gentle sympathy that touched the very spring he meant it should. Mrs. Rossitur waited a minute, but it was only till tears would let her speak, and then said like a child,--

"Oh, it is all darkness!--"

"Except this," said he, gently and clearly, "that Jesus Christ is a sun and a shield; and those that put themselves at his feet are safe from all fear, and they who go to him for light shall complain of darkness no more."

"But I do not know how--"

"Ask him and he will tell you."

"But I am unworthy even to look up towards him," said Mrs. Rossitur, struggling, it seemed, between doubts and wishes.

"He knows that, and yet he has bid you come to him. He knows that,--and knowing it, he has taken your responsibility and paid your debt, and offers you now a clean discharge, if you will take it at his hand;--and for the other part of this unworthiness, that blood cannot do away, blood has brought the remedy--'Shall we who are evil give good things to our children, and shall not our Father which is in heaven give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?'"

"But must I do nothing?" said Mrs. Rossitur, when she had remained quiet with her face in her hands for a minute or two after he had done speaking.

"Nothing but be willing--be willing to have Christ in all his offices, as your Teacher, your King, and your Redeemer--give yourself to him, dear Mrs. Rossitur, and he will take care of the rest."

"I am willing!" she exclaimed. Fresh tears came, and came freely. Mr. Carleton said no more, till hearing some noise of opening and shutting doors above stairs Mrs. Rossitur hurriedly left the room, and Fleda came in by the other entrance.

"May I take you a little out of the way, Mr. Carleton?" she said when they had passed through the Deepwater settlement.--"I have a message to carry to Mrs. Elster--a poor woman out here beyond the lake. It is not a disagreeable place."

"And what if it were?"

"I should not perhaps have asked you to go with me," said Fleda a little doubtfully.

"You may take me where you will, Elfie," he said gently. "I hope to do as much by you some day."

Fleda looked up at the piece of elegance beside her, and thought what a change must have come over him if he would visit poor places. He was silent and grave however, and so was she, till they arrived at the house they were going to.

Certainly it was not a disagreeable place. Barby's much less strong minded sister had at least a good share of her practical nicety. The little board path to the door was clean and white still, with possibly a trifle less brilliant effect. The room and its old inhabitants were very comfortable and tidy; the patchwork counterpane as gay as ever. Mrs. Elster was alone, keeping company with a snug little wood fire, which was near as much needed in that early spring weather as it had been during the winter.

Mr. Carleton had come back from his abstraction, and stood taking half unconscious note of these things, while Fleda was delivering her message to the old woman. Mrs. Elster listened to her implicitly with every now and then an acquiescing nod or ejaculation, but so soon as Fleda had said her say she burst out, with a voice that had never known the mufflings of delicacy and was now pitched entirely beyond its owner's ken. Looking hard at Mr. Carleton,

"Fleda!--Is this the gentleman that's to be your--husband?"

The last word elevated and brought out with emphatic distinctness of utterance.

If the demand had been whether the gentleman in question was a follower of Mahomet, it would hardly have been more impossible for Fleda to give an affirmative answer; but Mr. Carleton laughed and bringing his face a little nearer the old crone, answered,

"So she has promised, ma'am."

It was curious to see the lines of the old woman's face relax as she looked at him.

"He's--worthy of you!--as far as looks goes," she said in the same key as before, apostrophizing Fleda who had drawn back, but not stirring her eyes from Mr. Carleton all the time. And then she added to him with a little satisfied nod, and in a very decided tone of information,

"She will make you a good wife!"

"Because she has made a good friend?" said Mr. Carleton quietly. "Will you let me be a friend too?"

He had turned the old lady's thoughts into a golden channel, whence, as she was an American, they had no immediate issue in words; and Fleda and Mr. Carleton left the house without anything more.

Fleda felt nervous. But Mr. Carleton's first words were as coolly and as gravely spoken as if they had just come out from a philosophical lecture; and with an immediate spring of relief she enjoyed every step of the way and every word of the conversation which was kept up with great life, till they reached Mrs. Plumfield's door.

No one was in the sitting-room. Fleda left Mr. Carleton there and passed gently into the inner apartment, the door of which was standing ajar.

But her heart absolutely leaped into her mouth, for Dr. Quackenboss and Mr. Olmney were there on either side of her aunt's bed. Fleda came forward and shook hands.

"This is quite a meeting of friends," said the doctor blandly, yet with a perceptible shading of the whilome broad sunshine of his face.--"Your--a--aunt, my dear Miss Ringgan,--is in a most extraordinary state of mind!"

Fleda was glad to hide her face against her aunt's and asked her how she did.

"Dr. Quackenboss thinks it extraordinary, Fleda," said the old lady with her usual cheerful sedateness,--"that one who has trusted God and had constant experience of his goodness and faithfulness for forty years should not doubt him at the end of it."

"You have no doubt--of any kind, Mrs. Plumfield?" said the clergyman.

"Not the shadow of a doubt!" was the hearty, steady reply.

"You mistake, my dear madam," said Dr. Quackenboss,--"pardon me--it is not that--I would be understood to say, merely, that I do not comprehend how such--a--such security--can be attained respecting what seems so--a--elevated--and difficult to know."

"Only by believing," said Mrs. Plumfield with a very calm smile. "'He that believeth on him shall not be ashamed;'--'shall not be ashamed!'" she repeated slowly.

Dr. Quackenboss looked at Fleda, who kept her eyes fixed upon her aunt.

"But it seems to me--I beg pardon--perhaps I am arrogant--" he said with a little bow,--"but it appears to me almost--in a manner--almost presumptuous, not to be a little doubtful in such a matter until the time comes. Am I--do you disapprove of me, Mr. Olmney?"

Mr. Olmney silently referred him for his answer to the person he had first addressed, who had closed her eyes while he was speaking.

"Sir," she said, opening them,--"it can't be presumption to obey God, and he tells me to rejoice. And I do--I do!--'Let all those that love thee rejoice in thee and be glad in thee!'--But mind!" she added energetically, fixing her strong grey eye upon him--"he does not tell you to rejoice--do not think it--not while you stand aloof from his terms of peace. Take God at his word, and be happy;--but if not, you have nothing to do with the song that I sing!"

The doctor stared at her till she had done speaking, and then slunk out of her range of vision behind the curtains of the bed-post. Not silenced however.

"But--a--Mr. Olmney," said he hesitating--"don't you think that there is in general--a--a becoming modesty, in--a--in people that have done wrong, as we all have,--putting off being sure until they are so? It seems so to me!"

"Come here, Dr. Quackenboss," said aunt Miriam.

She waited till he came to her side, and then taking his hand and looking at him very kindly, she said,

"Sir, forty years ago I found in the Bible, as you say, that I was a sinner, and that drove me to look for something else. I found then God's promise that if I would give my dependence entirely to the substitute he had provided for me and yield my heart to his service, he would for Christ's sake hold me quit of all my debts and be my father, and make me his child. And, sir, I did it. I abhor every other dependence--the things you count good in me I reckon but filthy rags. At the same time, I know that ever since that day, forty years ago, I have lived in his service and tried to live to his glory. And now, sir, shall I disbelieve his promise? do you think he would be pleased if I did?"

The doctor's mouth was stopped, for once. He drew back as soon as he could and said not another word.

Before anybody had broken the silence Seth came in; and after shaking hands with Fleda, startled her by asking whether that was not Mr. Carleton in the other room.

"Yes," Fleda said,--"he came to see aunt Miriam."

"Ain't you well enough to see him, mother?"

"Quite--and very happy," said she.

Seth immediately went back and invited him in. Fleda dared not look up while the introductions were passing,--of "the Rev. Mr. Olmney," and of "Dr. Quackenboss,"--the former of whom Mr. Carleton took cordially by the hand, while Dr. Quackenboss conceiving that his hand must be as acceptable, made his salutation with an indescribable air at once of attempted gracefulness and ingratiation. Fleda saw the whole in the advancing line of the doctor's person, a vision of which crossed her downcast eye. She drew back then, for Mr. Carleton came where she was standing to take her aunt's hand; Seth had absolutely stayed his way before to make the said introductions.

Mrs. Plumfield was little changed by years or disease since he had seen her. There was somewhat more of a look of bodily weakness than there used to be; but the dignified, strong-minded expression of the face was even heightened; eye and brow were more pure and unclouded in their steadfastness. She looked very earnestly at her visiter and then with evident pleasure from the manner of his look and greeting. Fleda watched her eye softening with a gratified expression and fixed upon him as he was gently talking to her.

Mr. Olmney presently came round to take leave, promising to see her another time, and passing Fleda with a frank grave pressure of the hand which gave her some pain. He and Seth left the room. Fleda was hardly conscious that Dr. Quackenboss was still standing at the foot of the bed making the utmost use of his powers of observation. He could use little else, for Mr. Carleton and Mrs. Plumfield after a few words on each side, had as it were by common consent come to a pause. The doctor, when a sufficient time had made him fully sensible of this, walked up to Fleda, who wished heartily at the moment that she could have presented the reverse end of the magnet to him. Perhaps however it was that very thing which by a perverse sort of attraction drew him towards her.

"I suppose--a--we may conclude," said he with a somewhat saturnine expression of mischief,--that Miss Ringgan contemplates forsaking the agricultural line before a great while."

"I have not given up my old habits, sir," said Fleda, a good deal vexed.

"No--I suppose not--but Queechy air is not so well suited for them--other skies will prove more genial," he said; she could not help thinking, pleased at her displeasure.

"What is the fault of Queechy air, sir?" said Mr. Carleton, approaching them.

"Sir!" said the doctor, exceedingly taken aback, though the words had been spoken in the quietest manner possible,--'it--a--it has no fault, sir,--that I am particularly aware of--it is perfectly salubrious. Mrs. Plumfield, I will bid you good-day;--I--a--I hope you will get well again!"

"I hope not, sir!" said aunt Miriam, in the same clear hearty tones which had answered him before.

The doctor took his departure and made capital of his interview with Mr. Carleton; who he affirmed he could tell by what he had seen of him was a very deciduous character, and not always conciliating in his manners.

Fleda waited with a little anxiety for what was to follow the doctor's leave-taking.

It was with a very softened eye that aunt Miriam looked at the two who were left, clasping Fleda's hand again; and it was with a very softened voice that she next spoke.

"Do you remember our last meeting, sir?"

"I remember it well," he said.

"Fleda tells me you are a changed man since that time?"

He answered only by a slight and grave bow.

"Mr. Carleton," said the old lady,--"I am a dying woman--and this child is the dearest thing in the world to me after my own,--and hardly after him.--Will you pardon me--will you bear with me, if that I may die in peace, I say, sir, what else it would not become me to say?--and it is for her sake."

"Speak to me freely as you would to her," he said with a look that gave her full permission.

Fleda had drawn close and hid her face in her aunt's neck. Aunt Miriam's hand moved fondly over her cheek and brow for a minute or two in silence; her eye resting there too.

"Mr. Carleton, this child is to belong to you--how will you guide her?"

"By the gentlest paths," he said with a smile.

A whispered remonstrance from Fleda to her aunt had no effect.

"Will her best interests be safe in your hands?"

"How shall I resolve you of that, Mrs. Plumfield?" he said gravely.

"Will you help her to mind her mother's prayer and keep herself unspotted from the world?"

"As I trust she will help me."

A rogue may answer questions, but an eye that has never known the shadow of double-dealing makes no doubtful discoveries of itself. Mrs. Plumfield read it and gave it her very thorough respect.

"Mr. Carleton--pardon me, sir,--I do not doubt you--but I remember hearing long ago that you were rich and great in the world--it is dangerous for a Christian to be so--Can she keep in your grandeur the simplicity of heart and life she has had at Queechy?"

"May I remind you of your own words, my dear madam? By the blessing of God all things are possible. These things you speak of are not in themselves evil; if the mind be set on somewhat else, they are little beside a larger storehouse of material to work with--an increased stewardship to account for."

"She has been taking care of others all her life," said aunt Miriam tenderly;--"it is time she was taken care of; and these feet are very unfit for rough paths; but I would rather she should go on struggling as she has done with difficulties and live and die in poverty, than that the lustre of her heavenly inheritance should be tarnished even a little.--I would, my darling!--"

"But the alternative is not, so," said Mr. Carleton with gentle grace, touching Fleda's hand who he saw was a good deal disturbed. "Do not make her afraid of me, Mrs. Plumfield."

"I do not believe I need," said aunt Miriam, "and I am sure I could not,--but sir, you will forgive me?"

"No madam--that is not possible."

"One cannot stand where I do," said the old lady, "without learning a little the comparative value of things; and I seek my child's good,--that is my excuse. I could not be satisfied to take her testimony--"

"Take mine, madam," said Mr. Carleton. "I have learned the comparative value of things too; and I will guard her highest interests as carefully as I will every other--as earnestly as you can desire."

"I thank you, sir," said the old lady gratefully. "I am sure of it. I shall leave her in good hands. I wanted this assurance. And if ever there was a tender plant that was not fitted to grow on the rough side of the world--I think this is one," said she, kissing earnestly the face that yet Fleda did not dare to lift up.

Mr. Carleton did not say what he thought. He presently took kind leave of the old lady and went into the next room, where Fleda soon rejoined him and they set off homewards.

Fleda was quietly crying all the way down the hill. At the foot of the hill Mr. Carleton resolutely slackened his pace.

"I have one consolation," he said, "my dear Elfie--you will have the less to leave for me."

She put her hand with a quick motion upon his, and roused her self.

"She is a beautiful rebuke to unbelief. But she is hardly to be mourned for, Elfie."

"Oh I was not crying for aunt Miriam," said Fleda.

"For what then?" he said gently.

"Myself."

"That needs explanation," he said in the same tone. "Let me have it, Elfie."

"O--I was thinking of several things," said Fleda, not exactly wishing to give the explanation.

"Too vague," said Mr. Carleton smiling. "Trust me with a little more of your mind, Elfie."

Fleda glanced up at him, half smiling, and yet with filling eyes, and then as usual, yielded to the winning power of the look that met her.

"I was thinking," she said, keeping her head carefully down,--"of some of the things you and aunt Miriam were saying just now,--and--how good for nothing I am."

"In what respect?" said Mr. Carleton with praiseworthy gravity.

Fleda hesitated, and he pressed the matter no further; but more unwilling to displease him than herself she presently went on, with some difficulty; wording what she had to say with as much care as she could.

"I was thinking--how gratitude--or not gratitude alone--but how one can be full of the desire to please another,--a fellow-creature,--and find it constantly easy to do or bear anything for that purpose; and how slowly and coldly duty has to move alone in the direction where it should be the swiftest and warmest."

She knew he would take her words as simply as she said them; she was not disappointed. He was silent a minute and then said gravely,--

"Is this a late discovery, Elfie?"

"No--only I was realizing it strongly just now."

"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."

"You have said that before," said Fleda still keeping her head down.

"What?"

"About my being a help to you!"

"It will not be the first time," said he smiling,--"nor the second. Your little hand first held up a glass to gather the scattered rays of truth that could not warm me into a centre where they must burn."

"Very innocently," said Fleda with a little unsteady feeling of voice.

"Very innocently," said Mr. Carleton smiling. "A veritable lens could hardly have been more unconscious of its work or more pure of design."

"I do not think that was quite so either, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda.

"It was so, my dear Elfie, and your present speech is nothing against it. This power of example is always unconsciously wielded; the medium ceases to be clear so soon as it is made anything but a medium. The bits of truth you aimed at me wittingly would have been nothing if they had not come through that medium."

"Then apparently one's prime efforts ought to be directed to oneself."

"One's first efforts, certainly. Your silent example was the first thing that moved me."

"Silent example!" said Fleda catching her breath a little. "Mine ought to be very good, for I can never do good in any other way."

"You used to talk pretty freely to me."

"It wasn't my fault, I am certain," said Fleda half laughing. "Besides, I was sure of my ground. But in general I never can speak to people about what will do them any good."

"Yet whatever be the power of silent example there are often times when a word is of incalculable importance."

"I know it," said Fleda earnestly,--"I have felt it very often, and grieved that I could not say it, even at the very moment when I knew it was wanting."

"Is that right, Elfie?"

"No," said Fleda, with quick watering eyes,--"It is not right at all;--but it is constitutional with me. I never can talk to other people of what concerns my own thoughts and feelings."

"But this concerns other people's thoughts and feelings."

"Yes, but there is an implied revelation of my own."

"Do you expect to include me in the denomination of 'other people'?"

"I don't know," said Fleda laughing.

"Do you wish it?"

Fleda looked down and up, and coloured, and said she didn't know.

"I will teach you," said he smiling.

The rest of the day by both was given to Hugh.

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Chapter LI

O what is life but a sum of love, And death but to lose it all? Weeds be for those that are left behind, And not for those that fall!

Milnes.

"Here's something come, Fleda," said Barby walking into the sick room one morning a few days afterwards,--"a great bag of something--more than you can eat up in a fortnight--it's for Hugh."

"It's extraordinary that anybody should send me a great bag of anything eatable," said Hugh.

"Where did it come from?" said Fleda.

"Philetus fetched it--he found it down to Mr. Sampion's when he went with the sheep-skins."

"How do you know it's for me?" said Hugh.

"'Cause it's written on, as plain as a pikestaff. I guess it's a mistake though."

"Why?" said Fleda; "and what is it?"

"O I don't much think 'twas meant for him," said Barby. "It's oysters."

"Oysters!"

"Yes--come out and look at 'em--you never see such fine fellows. I've heerd say," said Barby abstractedly as Fleda followed her out and she displayed to view some magnificent Ostraceans,--"I've heerd say that an English shilling was worth two American ones, but I never understood it rightly till now."

To all intents and purposes those were English oysters, and worth twice as much as any others Fleda secretly confessed.

That evening, up in the sick room,--it was quite evening, and all the others of the family were taking rest or keeping Mr. Rossitur company down stairs,--Fleda was carefully roasting some of the same oysters for Hugh's supper. She had spread out a glowing bed of coals on the hearth, and there lay four or five of the big bivalves, snapping and sputtering in approbation of their quarters in a most comfortable manner; and Fleda standing before the fire tended them with a double kind of pleasure. From one friend, and for another, those were most odorous oysters. Hugh sat watching them and her, the same in happy simplicity that he had been at eleven years old.

"How pleasant those oysters smell," said he. "Fleda, they remind me so of the time when you and I used to roast oysters in Mrs. Renney's room for lunch--do you recollect?--and sometimes in the evening when everybody was gone out, you know; and what an airing we used to have to give the dining-room afterwards. How we used to enjoy them, Fleda--you and I all alone."

"Yes," said Fleda in a tone of doubtful enjoyment. She was shielding her face with a paper and making self-sacrificing efforts to persuade a large oyster-shell to stand so on the coals as to keep the juice.

"Don't!" said Hugh;--"I would rather the oysters should burn than you. Mr. Carleton wouldn't thank me for letting you do so."

"Never mind!" said Fleda arranging the oysters to her satisfaction,--"he isn't here to see. Now Hugh, my dear--these are ready as soon as I am."

"I am ready," said Hugh. "How long it is since we had a roast oyster, Fleda!"

"They look good, don't they?"

A little stand was brought up between them with the bread and butter and the cups; and Fleda opened oysters and prepared tea for Hugh, with her nicest, gentlest, busiest of hands; making every bit to be twice as sweet, for her sympathizing eyes and loving smile and pleasant word commenting. She shared the meal with him, but her own part was as slender as his and much less thought of. His enjoyment was what she enjoyed, though it was with a sad twinge of alloy which changed her face whenever it was where he could not see it; when turned upon him it was only bright and affectionate, and sometimes a little too tender; but Fleda was too good a nurse to let that often appear.

"Mr. Carleton did not bargain for your opening his oysters, Fleda. How kind it was of him to send them."

"Yes."

"How long will he be gone, Fleda?"

"I don't know--he didn't say. I don't believe many days."

Hugh was silent a little while she was putting away the stand and the oyster-shells. Then she came and sat down by him.

"You have burnt yourself over those things," said he sorrowfully;--"you -shouldn't have done it. It is not right."

"Dear Hugh," said Fleda lightly, laying her head on his shoulder,--"I like to burn myself for you."

"That's just the way you have been doing all your life."

"Hush!" she said softly.

"It is true,--for me and for everybody else. It is time you were taken better care of, dear Fleda."

"Don't, dear Hugh!"

"I am right though," said he. "You are pale and worn now with waiting upon me and thinking of me. It is time you were gone. But I think it is well I am going too, for what should I do in the world without you, Fleda?"

Fleda was crying now, intensely though quietly; but Hugh went on with feeling as calm as it was deep.

"What should I have done all these years?--or any of us? How you have tired yourself for everybody--in the garden and in the kitchen and with Earl Douglass--how we could let you I don't know, but I believe we could not help it."

Fleda put her hand upon his mouth. But he took it away and went on--

"How often I have seen you sleeping all the evening on the sofa with a pale face, tired out--Dear Fleda," said he kissing her cheek, "I am glad there's to be an end put to it. And all the day you went about with such a bright face that it made mother and me happy to look at you; and I knew then, many a time, it was for our sakes--

"Why do you cry so, Fleda? I like to think of it, and to talk of it, now that I know you won't do so any more. I knew the whole truth, and it went to the bottom of my heart; but I could do nothing but love you--I did that!--Don't cry so, Fleda!--you ought not.--You have been the sunshine of the house. My spirit never was so strong as yours; I should have been borne to the ground, I know, in all these years, if it had not been for you; and mother--you have been her life."

"You have been tired too," Fleda whispered.

"Yes at the saw-mill. And then you would come up there through the sun to look at me, and your smile would make me forget everything sorrowful for the rest of the day--except that I couldn't help you."

"Oh you did--you did--you helped me always, Hugh."

"Not much. I couldn't help you when you were sewing for me and father till your fingers and eyes were aching, and you never would own that you were anything but 'a little' tired--it made my heart ache. Oh I knew it all, dear Fleda.--I am very, very glad that you will have somebody to take care of you now that will not let you burn your fingers for him or anybody else. It makes me happy!"

"You make me very unhappy, dear Hugh."

"I don't mean it," said Hugh tenderly. "I don't believe there is anybody else in the world that I could be so satisfied to leave you with."

Fleda made no answer to that. She sat up and tried to recover herself.

"I hope he will come back in time," said Hugh, settling himself back in the easy-chair with a weary look, and closing his eyes.

"In time for what?"

"To see me again."

"My dear Hugh!--he will to be sure, I hope."

"He must make haste," said Hugh. "But I want to see him again very much, Fleda."

"For anything in particular?"

"No--only because I love him. I want to see him once more."

Hugh slumbered; and Fleda by his side wept tears of mixed feeling till she was tired.

Hugh was right. But nobody else knew it, and his brother was not sent for.

It was about a week after this, when one night a horse and wagon came up to the back of the house from the road, the gentleman who had been driving leading the horse. It was late, long past Mr. Skillcorn's usual hour of retiring, but some errand of business had kept him abroad and he stood there looking on. The stars gave light enough.

"Can you fasten my horse where he may stand a little while, sir? without taking him out?"

"I guess I can," replied Philetus, with reasonable confidence,--"if there's a rope's end some place--"

And forthwith he went back into the house to seek it. The gentleman patiently holding his horse meanwhile, till he came out.

"How is Mr. Hugh to-night?"

"Well--he ain't just so smart, they say," responded Philetus, insinuating the rope's end as awkwardly as possible among the horse's head-gear,--"I believe he's dying."

Instead of going round now to the front of the house, Mr. Carleton knocked gently at the kitchen door and asked the question anew of Barby.

"He's--Come in, sir, if you please," she said, opening wide the door for him to enter,--"I'll tell 'em you're here."

"Do not disturb any one for me," said he.

"I won't disturb 'em!" said Barby, in a tone a little though unconsciously significant.

Mr. Carleton neglected the chair she had placed for him, and remained standing by the mantelpiece, thinking of the scenes of his early introduction to that kitchen. It wore the same look it had done then; under Barby's rule it was precisely the same thing it had been under Cynthia's.--The passing years seemed a dream, and the passing generations of men a vanity, before the old house more abiding than they. He stood thinking of the people he had seen gathered by that fireplace and the little household fairy whose childish ministrations had given such a beauty to the scene,--when a very light step crossed the painted floor and she was there again before him. She did not speak a word; she stood still a moment trying for words, and then put her hand upon Mr. Carleton's arm and gently drew him out of the room with her.

The family were all gathered in the room to which she brought him. Mr. Rossitur, as soon as he saw Mr. Carleton come in, shrunk back where he could be a little shielded by the bed-post. Marion's face was hid on the foot of the bed. Mrs. Rossitur did not move. Leaving Mr. Carleton on the near side of the bed Fleda went round to the place she seemed to have occupied before, at Hugh's right hand; and they were all still, for he was in a little doze, lying with his eyes closed, and the face as gently and placidly sweet as it had been in his boyhood. Perhaps Mr. Rossitur looked at it; but no other did just then, except Mr. Carleton. His eye rested nowhere else. The breathing of an infant could not be more gentle; the face of an angel not more peacefully at rest. "So he giveth his beloved sleep,"--thought the gentleman, as he gazed on the brow from which all care, if care there had ever been, seemed to have taken flight.

Not yet--not quite yet; for Hugh suddenly opened his eyes and without seeing anybody else, said,

"Father--"

Mr. Rossitur left the bed-post and came close to where Fleda was standing, and leaning forward, touched his son's head, but did not speak.

"Father--" said Hugh, in a voice so gentle that it seemed as if strength must be failing,--"what will you do when you come to lie here?"

Mr. Rossitur put his hands to his face.

"Father--I must speak now if I never did before--once I must speak to you,--what will you do when you come to lie where I do?--what will you trust to?"

The person addressed was as motionless as a statue. Hugh did not move his eyes from him.

"Father, I will be a living warning and example to you, for I know that I shall live in your memory--you shall remember what I say to you--that Jesus Christ is a dear friend to those that trust in him, and if he is not yours it will be because you will not let him. You shall remember my testimony, that he can make death sweeter than life--in his presence is fulness of joy--at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore. He is better,--he is more to me,--even than you all, and he will be to you a better friend than the poor child you are losing, though you do not know it now. It is he that has made my life in this world happy--only he--and I have nothing to look to but him in the world I am going to. But what will you do in the hour of death, as I am, if he isn't your friend, father?"

Mr. Rossitur's frame swayed, like a tree that one sees shaken by a distant wind, but he said nothing.

"Will you remember me happily, father, if you come to die without having done as I begged you? Will you think of me in heaven and not try to come there too? Father, will you be a Christian?--will you not?--for my sake--for little Hugh's sake, as you used to call him?--Father?--"

Mr. Rossitur knelt down and hid his face in the coverings; but he did not utter a word.

Hugh's eye dwelt on him for a moment with unspeakable expression, and his lip trembled. He said no more; he closed his eyes; and for a little time there was nothing to be heard but the sobs which could not be restrained, from all but the two gentlemen. It probably oppressed Hugh, for after a while he said with a weary sigh and without opening his eyes,

"I wish somebody would sing."

Nobody answered at first.

"Sing what, dear Hugh?" said Fleda, putting aside her tears and leaning her face towards him.

"Something that speaks of my want," said Hugh.

"What do you want, dear Hugh?"

"Only Jesus Christ," he said with a half smile.

But they were silent as death. Fleda's face was in her hands and her utmost efforts after self-control wrought nothing but tears. The stillness had lasted a little while, when very softly and sweetly the notes of a hymn floated to their ears, and though they floated on and filled the room, the voice was so nicely modulated that its waves of sweetness broke gently upon the nearest ear.

"Jesus, the sinner's friend, to Thee, Lost and undone, for aid I flee; Weary of earth, myself, and sin, Open thine arms and take me in.

"Pity and save my sin-sick soul,-- 'Tis thou alone canst make me whole; Dark, till in me thine image shine, And lost I am, till thou art mine.

"At length I own it cannot be, That I should fit myself for thee, Here now to thee I all resign,-- Thine is the work, and only thine.

"What shall I say thy grace to move?-- Lord, I am sin, but thou art love! I give up every plea beside,-- Lord, I am lost,--but thou hast died!"

They were still again after the voice had ceased; almost perfectly still; though tears might be pouring, as indeed they were from every eye, there was no break to the silence, other than a half-caught sob now and then from a kneeling figure whose head was in Marion's lap.

"Who was that?" said Hugh, when the singer had been silent a minute.

Nobody answered immediately; and then Mr. Carleton bending over him, said,

"Don't you know me, dear Hugh?"

"Is it Mr. Carleton?"

Hugh looked pleased, and clasped both of his hands upon Guy's which he laid upon his breast. For a second he closed his eyes and was silent.

"Was it you sang?"

"Yes."

"You never sang for me before," he remarked.

He was silent again.

"Are you going to take Fleda away?"

"By and by," said Mr. Carleton gently.

"Will you take good care of her?"

Mr. Carleton hesitated, and then said, so low that it could reach but one other person's ear,

"What hand and life can."

"I know it," said Hugh. "I am very glad you will have her. You will not let her tire herself any more."

Whatever became of Fleda's tears she had driven them away and leaning forward she touched her cheek to his, saying with a clearness and sweetness of voice that only intensity of feeling could have given her at the moment,

"I am not tired, dear Hugh."

Hugh clasped one arm round her neck and kissed her--again and again, seeming unable to say anything to her in any other way; still keeping his hold of Mr. Carleton's hand.

"I give all my part of her to you," he said at length. "Mr. Carleton, I shall see both of you in heaven?"

"I hope so," was the answer, in those very calm and clear tones that have a singular effect in quieting emotion, while they indicate anything but the want of it.

"I am the best off of you all," Hugh said.

He lay still for awhile with shut eyes. Fleda had withdrawn herself from his arms and stood at his side, with a bowed head, but perfectly quiet. He still held Mr. Carleton's hand, as something he did not want to part with.

"Fleda," said he, "who is that crying?--Mother--come here."

Mr. Carleton gave place to her. Hugh pulled her down to him till her face lay upon his, and folded both his arms around her.

"Mother," he said softly, "will you meet me in heaven?--say yes."

"How can I, dear Hugh?"

"You can, dear mother," said he kissing her with exceeding tenderness of expression,--"my Saviour will be yours and take you there. Say you will give yourself to Christ--dear mother!--sweet mother! promise me I shall see you again!--"

Mrs. Rossitur's weeping it was difficult to hear. But Hugh hardly shedding a tear still kissed her, repeating, "Promise me, dear mother--promise me that you will;"--till Mrs. Rossitur in an agony sobbed out the word he wanted,--and Hugh hid his face then in her neck.

Mr. Carleton left the room and went down stairs. He found the sitting-room desolate, untenanted and cold for hours; and he went again into the kitchen. Barby was there for some time, and then she left him alone.

He had passed a long while in thinking and walking up and down, and he was standing musing by the fire, when Fleda again came in. She came in silently, to his side, and putting her arm within his laid her face upon it with a simplicity of trust and reliance that went to his heart; and she wept there for a long hour. They hardly changed their position in all that time; and her tears flowed silently though incessantly, the only tokens of sympathy on his part being such a gentle caressing smoothing of her hair or putting it from her brow as he had used when she was a child. The bearing of her hand and head upon his arm in time shewed her increasingly weary. Nothing shewed him so.

"Elfie--my dear Elfie," he said at last very tenderly, in the same way that he would have spoken nine years before--"Hugh gave his part of you to me--I must take care of it."

Fleda tried to rouse herself immediately.

"This is poor entertainment for you, Mr. Carleton," she said, raising her head and wiping away the tears from her face.

"You are mistaken," he said gently. "You never gave me such pleasure but twice before, Elfie."

Fleda's head went down again instantly, and this time there was something almost caressing in the motion.

"Next to the happiness of having friends on earth," he said soothingly, "is the happiness of having friends in heaven. Don't weep any more to-night, my dear Elfie."

"He told me to thank you--" said Fleda. But stopping short and clasping with convulsive energy the arm she held, she shed more violent tears than she had done that night before. The most gentle soothing, the most tender reproof, availed at last to quiet her; and she stood clinging to his arm still and looking down into the fire.

"I did not think it would be so soon," she said.

"It was not soon to him, Elfie."

"He told me to thank you for singing. How little while it seems since we were children together--how little while since before that--when I was a little child here--how different!"

"No, the very same," said he, touching his lips to her forehead,--"you are the very same child you were then; but it is time you were my child, for I see you would make yourself ill. No--" said he softly taking the hand Fleda raised to her face,--"no more tonight--tell me how early I may see you in the morning--for, Elfie, I must leave you after breakfast."

Fleda looked up inquiringly.

"My mother has brought news that determines me to return to England immediately."

"To England!"

"I have been too long from home--I am wanted there."

Fleda looked down again and did her best not to shew what she felt.

"I do not know how to leave you--and now--but I must. There are disturbances among the people, and my own are infected. I must be there without delay."

"Political disturbances?" said Fleda.

"Somewhat of that nature--but partly local. How early may I come to you?"

"But you are not going away tonight? It is very late."

"That is nothing--my horse is here."

Fleda would have begged in vain, if Barby had not come in and added her word, to the effect that it would be a mess of work to look for lodgings at that time of night, and that she had made the west room ready for Mr. Carleton. She rejected with great sincerity any claim to the thanks with which Fleda as well as Mr. Carleton repaid her; "there wa'n't no trouble about it," she said. Mr. Carleton however found his room prepared for him with all the care that Barby's utmost ideas of refinement and exactness could suggest.

It was still very early the next morning; when he left it and came into the sitting-room, but he was not the first there. The firelight glimmered on the silver and china of the breakfast table, all set; everything was in absolute order, from the fire to the two cups and saucers which were alone on the board. A still silent figure was standing by one of the windows looking out. Not crying; but that Mr. Carleton knew from the unmistakable lines of the face was only because tears were waiting another time; quiet now, it would not be by and by. He came and stood at the window with her.

"Do you know," he said, after a little, "that Mr. Rossitur purposes to leave Queechy?"

"Does he?" said Fleda rather starting, but she added not another word, simply because she felt she could not safely.

"He has accepted, I believe, a consulship at Jamaica."

"Jamaica!" said Fleda. "I have heard him speak of the West Indies--I am not surprised--I know it was likely he would not stay here."

How tightly her fingers that were free grasped the edge of the window-frame. Mr. Carleton saw it and softly removed them into his own keeping.

"He may go before I can be here again. But I shall leave my mother to take care of you, Elfie."

"Thank you," said Fleda faintly. "You are very kind--"

"Kind to myself," he said smiling. "I am only taking care of my own. I need not say that you will see me again as early as my duty can make it possible;--but I may be detained, and your friends may be gone--Elfie--give me the right to send if I cannot come for you. Let me leave my wife in my mother's care."

Fleda looked down, and coloured, and hesitated; but the expression in her face was not that of doubt.

"Am I asking too much?" he said gently.

"No sir," said Fleda,--"and--but--"

"What is in the way?"

But it seemed impossible for Fleda to tell him.

"May I not know?" he said, gently putting away the hair from Fleda's face, which looked distressed. "Is it only your feeling?"

"No sir," said Fleda,--"at least--not the feeling you think it is--but--I could not do it without giving great pain."

Mr. Carleton was silent.

"Not to anybody you know, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, suddenly fearing a wrong interpretation of her words,--"I don't mean that--I mean somebody else--the person--the only person you could apply to--" she said, covering her face in utter confusion.

"Do I understand you?" said he smiling. "Has this gentleman any reason to dislike the sight of me?"

"No sir," said Fleda,--"but he thinks he has."

"That only I meant," said he. "You are quite right, my dear Elfie; I of all men ought to understand that."

The subject was dropped, and in a few minutes his gentle skill had well nigh made Fleda forget what they had been talking about. Himself and his wishes seemed to be put quite out of his own view, and out of hers as far as possible; except that the very fact made Fleda recognize with unspeakable gratitude and admiration the kindness and grace that were always exerted for her pleasure. If her good-will could have been put into the cups of coffee she poured out for him, he might have gone in the strength of them all the way to England. There was strength of another kind to be gained from her face of quiet sorrow and quiet self-command which were her very childhood's own.

"You will see me at the earliest possible moment," he said when at last taking leave.--"I hope to be free in a short time; but it may not be. Elfie--if I should be detained longer than I hope--if I should not be able to return in a reasonable time, will you let my mother bring you out?--if I cannot come to you will you come to me?"

Fleda coloured a good deal, and said, scarce intelligibly, that she hoped he would be able to come. He did not press the matter. He parted from her and was leaving the room. Fleda suddenly sprang after him, before he had reached the door, and laid her hand on his arm.

"I did not answer your question, Mr. Carleton," she said with cheeks that were dyed now,--"I will do whatever you please--whatever you think best."

His thanks were most gratefully though silently spoken, and he went away.

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Chapter LII

Daughter, they seem to say, Peace to thy heart! We too, yes, daughter, Have been as thou art. Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed, Seeing in part,-- Tried, troubled, tempted,-- Sustained,--as thou art.

Unknown.

Mr. Rossitur was disposed for no further delay now in leaving Queechy. The office at Jamaica, which Mr. Carleton and Dr. Gregory had secured for him, was immediately accepted; and every arrangement pressed to hasten his going. On every account he was impatient to be out of America, and especially since his son's death. Marion was of his mind. Mrs. Rossitur had more of a home feeling, even for the place where home had not been to her as happy as it might.

They were sad weeks of bustle and weariness that followed Hugh's death; less sad perhaps for the weariness and the bustle. There was little time for musing, no time for lingering regrets. If thought and feeling played their Eolian measures on Fleda's harpstrings, they were listened to only by snatches, and she rarely sat down and cried to them.

A very kind note had been received from Mrs. Carleton.

April gave place to May. One afternoon Fleda had taken an hour or two to go and look at some of the old places on the farm, that she loved and that were not too far to reach. A last look she guessed it might be, for it was weeks since she had had a spare afternoon, and another she might not he able to find. It was a doubtful pleasure she sought too, but she must have it.

She visited the long meadow and the height that stretched along it, and even went so far as the extremity of the valley, at the foot of the twenty-acre lot, and then stood still to gather up the ends of memory. There she had gone chestnutting with Mr. Ringgan--thither she had guided Mr. Carleton and her cousin Rossitur that day when they were going after wood-cock--there she had directed and overseen Earl Douglass's huge crop of corn. How many pieces of her life were connected with it. She stood for a little while looking at the old chestnut trees, looking and thinking, and turned away soberly with the recollection, "The world passeth away,--but the word of our God shall stand forever." And though there was one thought that was a continual well of happiness in the depth of Fleda's heart, her mind passed it now, and echoed with great joy the countersign of Abraham's privilege,--"Thou art my portion, O Lord!"--And in that assurance every past and every hoped-for good was sweet with added sweetness. She walked home without thinking much of the long meadow.

It was a chill spring afternoon and Fleda was in her old trim, the black cloak, the white shawl over it, and the hood of grey silk. And in that trim she walked into the sitting-room.

A lady was there, in a travelling dress, a stranger. Fleda's eye took in her outline and feature one moment with a kind of bewilderment, the next with perfect intelligence. If the lady had been in any doubt, Fleda's cheeks alone would have announced her identity. But she came forward without hesitation after the first moment, pulling off her hood, and stood before her visiter, blushing in a way that perhaps Mrs. Carleton looked at as a novelty in her world. Fleda did not know how she looked at it, but she had nevertheless an instinctive feeling, even at the moment, that the lady wondered how her son should have fancied particularly anything that went about under such a hood.

Whatever Mrs. Carleton thought, her son's fancies she knew were unmanageable; and she had far too much good breeding to let her thoughts be known; unless to one of those curious spirit thermometers that can tell a variation of temperature through every sort of medium. There might have been the slightest want of forwardness to do it, but she embraced Fleda with great cordiality.

"This is for the old time--not for the new, dear Fleda," she said. "Do you remember me?"

"Perfectly!--very well," said Fleda, giving Mrs. Carleton for a moment a glimpse of her eyes.--"I do not easily forget."

"Your look promises me an advantage from that, which I do not deserve, but which I may as well use as another. I want all I can have, Fleda."

There was a half look at the speaker that seemed to deny the truth of that, but Fleda did not otherwise answer. She begged her visiter to sit down, and throwing off the white shawl and black cloak, took tongs in hand and began to mend the fire. Mrs. Carleton sat considering a moment the figure of the fire-maker, not much regardful of the skill she was bringing to bear upon the sticks of wood.

Fleda turned from the fire to remove her visitor's bonnet and wrappings, but the former was all Mrs. Carleton would give her; she threw off shawl and tippet on the nearest chair.

It was the same Mrs. Carleton of old,--Fleda saw while this was doing,--unaltered almost entirely. The fine figure and bearing were the same; time had made no difference; even the face had paid little tribute to the years that had passed by it; and the hair held its own without a change. Bodily and mentally she was the same. Apparently she was thinking the like of Fleda.

"I remember you very well," she said with kindly accent when Fleda sat down by her. "I have never forgotten you. A dear little creature you were. I always knew that."

Fleda hoped privately the lady would see no occasion to change her mind; but for the present she was bankrupt in words.

"I was in the same room this morning at Montepoole where we used to dine, and it brought back the whole thing to me--the time when you were sick there with us. I could think of nothing else. But I don't think I was your favourite, Fleda."

Such a rush of blood again answered her as moved Mrs. Carleton in common kindness to speak of common things. She entered into a long story of her journey--of her passage from England--of the steamer that brought her--of her stay in New York;--all which Fleda heard very indifferently well. She was more distinctly conscious of the handsome travelling dress which seemed all the while to look as its wearer had done, with some want of affinity upon the little grey hood which lay on the chair in the corner. Still she listened and responded as became her, though for the most part with eyes that did not venture from home. The little hood itself could never have kept its place with less presumption, nor with less flutter of self-distrust.

Mrs. Carleton came at last to a general account of the circumstances that had determined Guy to return home so suddenly, where she was more interesting. She hoped he would not be detained, but it was impossible to tell. It was just as it might happen.

"Are you acquainted with the commission I have been charged with?" she said, when her narrations had at last lapsed into silence and Fleda's eyes had returned to the ground.

"I suppose so, ma'am," said Fleda with a little smile.

"It is a very pleasant charge," said Mrs. Carleton softly kissing her cheek. Something in the face itself must have called forth that kiss, for this time there were no requisitions of politeness.

"Do you recognize my commission, Fleda?"

Fleda did not answer. Mrs. Carleton sat a few minutes thoughtfully drawing back the curls from her forehead, Mr. Carleton's very gesture, but not by any means with his fingers; and musing perhaps on the possibility of a hood's having very little to do with what it covered.

"Do you know," she said, "I have felt as if I were nearer to Guy since I have seen you."

The quick smile and colour that answered this, both very bright, wrought in Mrs Carleton an instant recollection that her son was very apt to be right in his judgments and that probably the present case might prove him so. The hand which had played with Fleda's hair was put round her waist, very affectionately, and Mrs. Carleton drew near her.

"I am sure we shall love each other, Fleda," she said.

It was said like Fleda, not like Mrs. Carleton, and answered as simply. Fleda had gained her place. Her head was in Mrs. Carleton's neck, and welcomed there.

"At least I am sure I shall love you," said the lady kissing her,--"and I don't despair on my own account,--for somebody else's sake."

"No--" said Fleda,--but she was not fluent to-day. She sat up and repeated, "I have not forgotten old times either, Mrs. Carleton."

"I don't want to think of the old time--I want to think of the new,"--she seemed to have a great fancy for stroking back those curls of hair;--"I want to tell you how happy I am, dear Fleda."

Fleda did not say whether she was happy or unhappy, and her look might have been taken for dubious. She kept her eyes on the ground, while Mrs. Carleton drew the hair off from her flushing cheeks, and considered the face laid bare to her view; and thought it was a fair face--a very presentable face--delicate and lovely--a face that she would have no reason to be ashamed of, even by her son's side. Her speech was not precisely to that effect.

"You know now why I have come upon you at such a time. I need not ask pardon?--I felt that I should be hardly discharging my commission if I did not see you till you arrived in New York. My wishes I could have made to wait, but not my trust. So I came."

"I am very glad you did!"

She could fain have persuaded the lady to disregard circumstances and stay with her, at least till the next day, but Mrs. Carleton was unpersuadable. She would return immediately to Montepoole.

"And how long shall you be here now?" she said.

"A few days--it will not be more than a week."

"Do you know how soon Mr. Rossitur intends to sail for Jamaica?"

"As soon as possible--he will make his stay in New York very short--not more than a fortnight perhaps,--as short as he can."

"And then, my dear Fleda, I am to have the charge of you--for a little while--am I not?"

Fleda hesitated and began to say, "Thank you," but it was finished with a burst of very hearty tears.

Mrs. Carleton knew immediately the tender spot she had touched. She put her arms about Fleda and caressed her as gently as her own mother might have done.

"Forgive me, dear Fleda!--I forgot that so much that is sad to you must come before what is so much pleasure to me.--Look up and tell me that you forgive me."

Fleda soon looked up, but she looked very sorrowful, and said nothing. Mrs. Carleton watched her face for a little while, really pained.

"Have you heard from Guy since he went away?" she whispered.

"No, ma'am."

"I have."

And therewith she put into Fleda's hand a letter,--not Mrs. Carleton's letter, as Fleda's first thought was. It had her own name and the seal was unbroken. But it moved Mrs. Carleton's wonder to see Fleda cry again, and longer than before. She did not understand it. She tried soothing, but she ventured no attempt at consoling, for she did not know what was the matter.

"You will let me go now, I know," she said smilingly, when Fleda was again recovered and standing before the fire with a face not so sorrowful, Mrs. Carleton saw. "But I must say something--I shall not hurt you again."

"Oh no, you did not hurt me at all--it was not what you said."

"You will come to me, dear Fleda? I feel that I want you very much."

"Thank you--but there is my uncle Orrin, Mrs. Carleton,--Dr. Gregory."

"Dr. Gregory? He is just on the eve of sailing for Europe--I thought you knew it."

"On the eve?--so soon?"

"Very soon, he told me. Dear Fleda--shall I remind you of my commission, and who gave it to me?"

Fleda hesitated still; at least she stood looking into the fire and did not answer.

"You do not own his authority yet," Mrs. Carleton went on,--"but I am sure his wishes do not weigh for nothing with you, and I can plead them."

Probably it was a source of some gratification to Mrs. Carleton to see those deep spots on Fleda's cheeks. They were a silent tribute to an invisible presence that flattered the lady's affection,--or her pride.

"What do you say, dear Fleda--to him and to me?" she said smiling and kissing her.

"I will come, Mrs. Carleton."

The lady was quite satisfied and departed on the instant, having got, she said, all she wanted; and Fleda--cried till her eyes were sore.

The days were few that remained to them in their old home; not more than a week, as Fleda had said. It was the first week in May.

The evening before they were to leave Queechy, Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went together to pay their farewell visit to Hugh's grave. It was some distance off. They walked there arm in arm without a word by the way.

The little country grave-yard lay alone on a hill-side, a good way from any house, and out of sight even of any but a very distant one. A sober and quiet place, no tokens of busy life immediately near, the fields around it being used for pasturing sheep, except an instance or two of winter grain now nearing its maturity. A by-road not much travelled led to the grave-yard, and led off from it over the broken country, following the ups and downs of the ground to a long distance away, without a moving thing upon it in sight near or far. No sound of stirring and active humanity. Nothing to touch the perfect repose. But every lesson of the place could be heard more distinctly amid that silence of all other voices. Except indeed nature's voice; that was not silent; and neither did it jar with the other. The very light of the evening fell more tenderly upon the old grey stones and the thick grass in that place.

Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went softly to one spot where the grass was not grown and where the bright white marble caught the eye and spoke of grief fresh too. Oh that that were grey and moss-grown like the others! The mother placed herself where the staring black letters of Hugh's name could not remind her so harshly that it no more belonged to the living; and sitting down on the ground hid her face; to struggle through the parting agony once more with added bitterness.

Fleda stood awhile sharing it, for with her too it was the last time, in all likelihood. If she had been alone, her grief might have witnessed itself bitterly and uncontrolled; but the selfish relief was foregone, for the sake of another, that it might be in her power by and by to minister to a heart yet sorer and weaker than hers. The tears that fell so quietly and so fast upon the foot of Hugh's grave were all the deeper-drawn and richer-fraught.

Awhile she stood there; and then passed round to a group a little way off, that had as dear and strong claims upon her love and memory. These were not fresh, not very; oblivion had not come there yet; only Time's softening hand. Was it softening?--for Fleda's head was bent down further here, and tears rained faster. It was hard to leave these! The cherished names that from early years had lived in her child's heart,--from this their last earthly abiding-place she was to part company. Her mother's and her father's graves were there, side by side; and never had Fleda's heart so clung to the old grey stones, never had the faded lettering seemed so dear,--of the dear names and of the words of faith and hope that were their dying or living testimony. And next to them was her grandfather's resting-place; and with that sunshiny green mound came a throng of strangely tender and sweet associations, more even than with the other two. His gentle, venerable, dignified figure rose before her, and her heart yearned towards it. In imagination Fleda pressed again to her breast the withered hand that had led her childhood so kindly; and overcome here for a little she kneeled down upon the sod and bent her head till the long grass almost touched it, in an agony of human sorrow. Could she leave them?--and for ever in this world? and be content to see no more these dear memorials till others like them should be raised for herself, far away?--But then stole in consolations not human, nor of man's devising,--the words that were written upon her mother's tombstone,--

"Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."--It was like the march of angel's feet over the turf. And her mother had been a meek child of faith, and her father and grandfather, though strong men, had bowed like little children to the same rule.--Fleda's head bent lower yet, and she wept, even aloud, but it was one half in pure thankfulness and a joy that the world knows nothing of. Doubtless they and she were one; doubtless though the grass now covered their graves, the heavenly bond in which they were held would bring them together again in light, to a new and more beautiful life that should know no severing. Asleep in Jesus;--and even as he had risen so should they,--they and others that she loved,--all whom she loved best. She could leave their graves; and with an unspeakable look of thanks to Him who had brought life and immortality to light, she did; but not till she had there once again remembered her mother's prayer, and her aunt Miriam's words, and prayed that rather anything might happen to her than that prosperity and the world's favour should draw her from the simplicity and humility of a life above the world. Rather than not meet them in joy at the last,--oh let her want what she most wished for in this world.

If riches have their poisonous snares, Fleda carried away from this place a strong antidote. With a spirit strangely simple, pure, and calm she went back to her aunt.

Poor Mrs. Rossitur was not quieted, but at Fleda's touch and voice, gentle and loving as the spirit of love and gentleness could make them, she tried to rouse herself; lifted up her weary head and clasped her arms about her niece. The manner of it went to Fleda's heart, for there was in it both a looking to her for support and a clinging to her as another dear thing she was about to lose. Fleda could not speak for the heart-ache.

"It is harder to leave this place than all the rest," Mrs. Rossitur murmured, after some little time had passed on.

"He is not here," said Fleda's soothing voice. It set her aunt to crying again.

"No--I know it--" she said.

"We shall see him again. Think of that."

"You will," said Mrs. Rossitur very sadly.

"And so will you, dear aunt Lucy,--dear aunt Lucy--you promised him?"

"Yes--" sobbed Mrs. Rossitur,--"I promised him--but I am such a poor creature--"

"So poor that Jesus cannot save you?--or will not?--No, dear aunt Lucy--you do not think that;--only trust him--you do trust him now, do you not?"

A fresh gush of tears came with the answer, but it was in the affirmative; and after a few minutes Mrs. Rossitur grew more quiet.

"I wish something were done to this," she said, looking at the fresh earth beside her;--"if we could have planted something--"

"I have thought of it a thousand times," said Fleda sighing;--I would have done it long ago if I could have got here;--but it doesn't matter, aunt Lucy,--I wish I could have done it."

"You?" said Mrs. Rossitur;--"my poor child! you have been wearing yourself out working for me,--I never was worth anything!"--she said, hiding her face again.

"When you have been the dearest and best mother to me? Now that is not right, aunt Lucy--look up and kiss me."

The pleading sweet tone of voice was not to be resisted. Mrs. Rossitur looked up and kissed her earnestly enough but with unabated self reproach.

"I don't deserve to kiss you, for I have let you try yourself beyond your strength.--How you look!--Oh how you look!--"

"Never mind how I look," said Fleda bringing her face so close that her aunt could not see it. "You helped me all you could, aunt Lucy--don't talk so--and I shall look well enough by and by. I am not so very tired."

"You always were so!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur clapping her in her arms again;--"and now I am going to lose you too--My dear Fleda!--that gives me more pleasure than anything else in the world!--"

But it was a pleasure well cried over.

"We shall all meet again, I hope,--I will hope,--" said Mrs. Rossitur meekly when Fleda had risen from her arms;

"Dear aunty!--but before that--in England--you will come to see me--Uncle Rolf will bring you."

Even then Fleda could not say even that without the blood mounting to her face. Mrs. Rossitur shook her head and sighed; but smiled a little too, as if that delightful chink of possibility let some light in.

"I shouldn't like to see Mr. Carleton now," she said, "for I could not look him in the face; and I am afraid he wouldn't want to look in mine, he would be so angry with me."

The sun was sinking low on that fair May afternoon and they had two miles to walk to get home. Slowly and lingeringly they moved away.

The talk with her aunt had shaken Fleda's calmness and she could have cried now with all her heart; but she constrained herself. They stopped a moment at the fence to look the last before turning their backs upon the place. They lingered, and still Mrs. Rossitur did not move, and Fleda could not take away her eyes.

It was that prettiest time of nature which while it shows indeed the shade side of everything, makes it the occasion of a fair contrast The grave-stones cast long shadows over the ground, foretokens of night where another night was resting already; the longest stretched away from the head of Hugh's grave. But the rays of the setting sun softly touching the grass and the face of the white tombstone seemed to say, "Thy brother shall rise again." Light upon the grave! The promise kissing the record of death!--It was impossible to look in calmness. Fleda bowed her head upon the paling and cried with a straitened heart, for grief and gratitude together.

Mrs. Rossitur had not moved when Fleda looked up again. The sun was yet lower; the sunbeams, more slant, touched not only that bright white stone--they passed on beyond, and carried the promise to those other grey ones, a little further off; that she had left--yes, for the last time; and Fleda's thoughts went forward swiftly to the time of the promise.--"Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."--And then as she looked, the sunbeams might have been a choir of angels in light singing, ever so softly, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men."

With a full heart Fleda clasped her aunt's arm, and they went gently down the lane without saying one word to each other, till they had left the graveyard far behind them and were in the high road again.

Fleda internally thanked Mr. Carleton for what he had said to her on a former occasion, for the thought of his words had given her courage, or strength, to go beyond her usual reserve in speaking to her aunt; and she thought her words had done good.

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Chapter LIII

Use your pleasure: If your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.

Merchant of Venice.

On the way home Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda went a trifle out of their road to say good-bye to Mrs. Douglass's family. Fleda had seen her aunt Miriam in the morning, and bid her a conditional farewell; for, as after Mrs. Rossitur's sailing she would be with Mrs. Carleton, she judged it little likely that she should see Queechy again.

They had time for but a minute at Mrs. Douglass's. Mrs. Rossitur had shaken hands and was leaving the house when Mrs. Douglass pulled Fleda back.

"Be you going to the West Indies too, Fleda?"

"No, Mrs. Douglass."

"Then why don't you stay here?"

"I want to be with my aunt while I can," said Fleda.

"And then do you calculate to stop in New York?"

"For awhile," said Fleda colouring.

"O go 'long!" said Mrs. Douglass, "I know all about it. Now do you s'pose you're agoing to be any happier among all those great folks than you would be if you staid among little folks?" she added tartly; while Catherine looked with a kind of incredulous admiration at the future lady of Carleton.

"I don't suppose that greatness has anything to do with happiness, Mrs. Douglass," said Fleda gently.

So gently,--and so calmly sweet the face was that said it that Mrs. Douglass's mood was overcome.

"Well you ain't agoing to forget Queechy?" she said, shaking Fleda's hand with a hearty grasp.

"Never--never!"

"I'll tell you what I think," said Mrs. Douglass, the tears in her eyes answering those in Fleda's.--"It'll be a happy house that gets you into it, wherever 'tis! I only wish it wa'n't out o' Queechy."

Fleda thought on the whole as she walked home that she did not wish any such thing. Queechy seemed dismantled, and she thought she would rather go to a new place now that she had taken such a leave of every thing here.

Two things remained however to be taken leave of; the house and Barby. Happily Fleda had little time for the former. It was a busy evening, and the morning would be more busy; she contrived that all the family should go to rest before her, meaning then to have one quiet look at the old rooms by herself; a leave-taking that no other eyes should interfere with. She sat down before the kitchen fire-place, but she had hardly realized that she was alone when one of the many doors opened and Barby's tall figure walked in.

"Here you be," she half whispered. "I knowed there wouldn't be a minute's peace to-morrow; so I thought I'd bid you good-bye to-night."

Fleda gave her a smile and a hand, but did not speak. Barby drew up a chair beside her, and they sat silent for some time, while quiet tears from the eyes of each said a great many things.

"Well, I hope you'll be as happy as you deserve to be,"--were Barby's first words, in a voice very altered from its accustomed firm and spirited accent.

"Make some better wish for me than that, dear Barby."

"I wouldn't want any better for myself," said Barby determinately.

"I would for you," said Fleda.

She thought of Mr. Carleton's words again, and went on in spite of herself.

"It is a mistake, Barby. The best of us do not deserve anything good; and if we have the sight of a friend's face, or the very sweet air we breathe, it is because Christ has bought it for us. Don't let us forget that, and forget him."

"I do, always," said Barby crying,--"forget everything. Fleda, I wish you'd pray for me when you are far away, for I ain't as good as you be."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, touching her shoulder affectionately, "I haven't waited to be far away to do that."

Barby sobbed for a few minutes with the strength of a strong nature that rarely gave way in that manner; and then dashed her tears right and left, not at all as if she were ashamed of them, but with a resolution not to be overcome.

"There won't be nothing good left in Queechy, when you're gone, you and Mis' Plumfield--without I go and look at the place where Hugh lies--"

"Dear Barby," said Fleda with softening eyes, "won't you be something good yourself?"

Barby put up her hand to shield her face. Fleda was silent for she saw that strong feeling was at work.

"I wish I could," Barby broke forth at last, "if it was only for your sake."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, "you can do this for me--you can go to church and hear what Mr. Olmney says. I should go away happier if I thought you would, and if I thought you would follow what he says; for dear Barby there is a time coming when you will wish you were a Christian more than you do now; and not for my sake."

"I believe there is, Fleda."

"Then will you?--won't you give me so much pleasure?"

"I'd do a'most anything to do you a pleasure."

"Then do it, Barby."

"Well, I'll go," said Barby. "But now just think of that, Fleda, how you might have stayed in Queechy all your days and done what you liked with everybody. I'm glad you ain't, though; I guess you'll be better off."

Fleda was silent upon that.

"I'd like amazingly to see how you'll be fixed," said Barby after a trifle of ruminating. "If 'twa'n't for my old mother I'd be 'most a mind to pull up sticks and go after you."

"I wish you could, Barby; only I am afraid you would not like it so well there as here."

"Maybe I wouldn't. I s'pect them English folks has ways of their own, from what I've heerd tell; they set up dreadful, don't they?"

"Not all of them," said Fleda.

"No, I don't believe but what I could get along with Mr. Carleton well enough--I never see any one that knowed how to behave himself better."

Fleda gave her a smiling acknowledgment of this compliment.

"He's plenty of money, ha'n't he?"

"I believe so."

"You'll be sot up like a princess, and never have anything to do no more."

"O no," said Fleda laughing,--"I expect to have a great deal to do; if I don't find it, I shall make it."

"I guess it'll be pleasant work," said Barby. "Well, I don't care! you've done work enough since you've lived here that wa'n't pleasant, to play for the rest of your days; and I'm glad on't. I guess he don't hurt himself. You wouldn't stand it much longer to do as you have been doing lately."

"That couldn't be helped," said Fleda; "but that I may stand it to-morrow I am afraid we must go to bed, Barby."

Barby bade her good-night and left her. But Fleda's musing mood was gone. She had no longer the desire to call back the reminiscences of the old walls. All that page of her life, she felt, was turned over; and after a few minutes' quiet survey of the familiar things, without the power of moralizing over them as she could have done half an hour before, she left them--for the next day had no eyes but for business.

It was a trying week or two before Mr. Rossitur and his family were fairly on shipboard. Fleda as usual, and more than usual,--with the eagerness of affection that felt its opportunities numbered and would gladly have concentrated the services of years into days,--wrought, watched, and toiled, at what expense to her own flesh and blood Mrs. Rossitur never knew, and the others were too busy to guess. But Mrs. Carleton saw the signs of it, and was heartily rejoiced when they were fairly gone and Fleda was committed to her hands.

For days, almost for weeks, after her aunt was gone Fleda could do little but rest and sleep; so great was the weariness of mind and body, and the exhaustion of the animal spirits, which had been kept upon a strain to hide her feelings and support those of others. To the very last moment affection's sweet work had been done; the eye, the voice, the smile, to say nothing of the hands, had been tasked and kept in play to put away recollections, to cheer hopes, to soften the present, to lighten the future; and hardest of all, to do the whole by her own living example. As soon as the last look and wave of the hand were exchanged and there was no longer anybody to lean upon her for strength and support, Fleda shewed how weak she was, and sank into a state of prostration as gentle and deep almost as an infant's.

As sweet and lovely as a child too, Mrs. Carleton declared her to be; sweet and lovely as she was when a child; and there was no going beyond that. As neither this lady nor Fleda had changed essentially since the days of their former acquaintanceship, it followed that there was still as little in common between them, except indeed now the strong ground of affection. Whatever concerned her son concerned Mrs. Carleton in almost equal degree; anything that he valued she valued; and to have a thorough appreciation of him was a sure title to her esteem. The consequence of all this was that Fleda was now the most precious thing in the world to her after himself; especially since her eyes, sharpened as well as opened by affection, could find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her personally, country and blood Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry, the strongest wish she had known for years, had grown so despairing that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care, as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good-breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back to her old health and strength; and stripped on a sudden of all her old friends, on this turning-point of her life, her spirits were in that quiet mood that would have felt any jarring most keenly.

The weeks of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the waving tops of green trees and the bright waters of the bay. She used to lie gazing out at the coming and going vessels with a curious fantastic interest in them; they seemed oddly to belong to that piece of her life, and to be weaving the threads of her future fate as they flitted about in all directions before her. In a very quiet, placid mood, not as if she wished to touch one of the threads, she lay watching the bright sails that seemed to carry the shuttle of life to and fro; letting Mrs. Carleton arrange and dispose of everything and of her as she pleased.

She was on her couch as usual, looking out one fair morning, when Mrs. Carleton came in to kiss her and ask how she did. Fleda said better.

"Better! you always say 'better'," said Mrs. Carleton; "but I don't see that you get better very fast. And sober;--this cheek is too sober," she added, passing her hand fondly over it;--"I don't like to see it so."

"That is just the way I have been feeling, ma'am--unable to rouse myself. I should be ashamed of it, if I could help it."

"Mrs. Evelyn has been here begging that we would join her in a party to the Springs--Saratoga--how would you like that?"

"I should like anything that you would like, ma'am," said Fleda, with a thought how she would like to read Montepoole for Saratoga.

"The city is very hot and dusty just now."

"Very, and I am sorry to keep you in it, Mrs. Carleton."

"Keep me, love?" said Mrs. Carleton bending down her face to her again;--" it's a pleasure to be kept anywhere by you."

Fleda shut her eyes, for she could hardly bear a little word now.

"I don't like to keep you here--it is not myself I am thinking of. I fancy a change would do you good."

"You are very kind, ma'am."

"Very interested kindness," said Mrs. Carleton. "I want to see you looking a little better before Guy comes--I am afraid he will look grave at both of us." But as she paused and stroked Fleda's cheek it came into her mind to doubt the truth of the last assertion, and she ended off with, "I wish he would come!--"

So Fleda wished truly; for now, cut off as she was from her old associations, she longed for the presence of the one friend that was to take place of them all.

"I hope we shall hear soon that there is some prospect of his getting free," Mrs. Carleton went on. "He has been gone now,--how many weeks?--I am looking for a letter to-day. And there it is!--"

The maid at this moment entered with the steamer despatches. Mrs. Carleton pounced upon the one she knew and broke it open.

"Here it is!--and there is yours, Fleda."

With kind politeness she went off to read her own and left Fleda to study hers at her leisure. An hour after she came in again. Fleda's face was turned from her.

"Well what does he say?" she asked in a lively tone.

"I suppose the same he has said to you, ma'am," said Fleda.

"I don't suppose it indeed," said Mrs. Carleton laughing, "He has given me sundry charges, which if he has given you it is morally certain we shall never come to an understanding."

"I have received no charges." said Fleda.

"I am directed to be very careful to find out your exact wish in the matter and to let you follow no other. So what is it, my sweet Fleda?"

"I promised--" said Fleda colouring and turning her letter over. But there she stopped.

"Whom and what?" said Mrs. Carleton after she had waited a reasonable time.

"Mr. Carleton."

"What did you promise, my dear Fleda?"

"That--I would do as he said."

"But he wishes you to do as you please."

Fleda brought her eyes quick out of Mrs. Carleton's view, and was silent.

"What do you say, dear Fleda?" said the lady, taking her hand and bending over her.

"I am sure we shall be expected," said Fleda. "I will go."

"You are a darling girl!" said Mrs. Carleton kissing her again and again. "I will love you forever for that. And I am sure it will be the best thing for you--the sea will do you good--and ne vous en déplaise, our own home is pleasanter just now than this dusty town. I will write by this steamer and tell Guy we will be there by the next. He will have everything in readiness, I know, at all events; and in half an hour after you get there, my dear Fleda, you will be established in all your rights--as well as if it had been done six months before. Guy will know how to thank you. But after all, Fleda, you might do him this grace--considering how long he has been waiting upon you."

Something in Fleda's eyes induced Mrs. Carleton to say, laughing,

"What's the matter?"

"He never waited for me," said Fleda simply.

"Didn't he?--But my dear Fleda I--" said Mrs. Carleton in amused extremity,--"how long is it since you knew what he came out here for?"

"I don't know now, ma'am," said Fleda. But she became angelically rosy the next minute.

"He never told you?"

"No."--

"And you never asked him?"

"Why no, ma'am!"

"He will be well suited in a wife," said Mrs. Carleton laughing. "But he can have no objection to your knowing now, I suppose. He never told me but at the latest. You must know, Fleda, that it has been my wish for a great many years that Guy would marry--and I almost despaired, he was so difficult to please--his taste in everything is so fastidious; but I am glad of it now," she added, kissing Fleda's cheek. "Last spring--not this last, but a year ago--one evening at home I was talking to him on this subject; but he met everything I said lightly--you know his way--and I saw my words took no hold. I asked him at last in a kind of desperation if he supposed there was a woman in the world that could please him; and he laughed, and said if there was he was afraid she was not in that hemisphere. And a day or two after he told me he was going to America."

"Did he say for what?"

"No,--but I guessed as soon as I found he was prolonging his stay, and I was sure when he wrote me to come out to him. But I never knew till I landed, Fleda my dear, any more than that. The first question I asked him was who he was going to introduce to me."

The interval was short to the next steamer, but also the preparations were few. A day or two after the foregoing conversation, Constance Evelyn coming into Fleda's room found her busy with some light packing.

"My dear little creature!" she exclaimed ecstatically,--"are you going with us?"

"No," said Fleda.

"Where are you going then?"

"To England."

"England!--Has--I mean, is there any addition to my list of acquaintances in the city?"

"Not that I know of," said Fleda, going on with her work.

"And you are going to England!--Greenhouses will be a desolation to me!--"

"I hope not," said Fleda smiling;--"you will recover yourself, and your sense of sweetness, in time."

"It will have nothing to act upon!--And you are going to England!--I think it is very mean of you not to ask me to go too and be your bridesmaid."

"I don't expect to have such a thing," said Fleda.

"Not?--Horrid! I wouldn't be married so, Fleda. You don't know the world, little Queechy; the art de vous faire valoir I am afraid is unknown to you."

"So it may remain with my good will," said Fleda.

"Why?" said Constance.

"I have never felt the want of it," said Fleda simply.

"When are you going?" said Constance after a minute's pause.

"By the Europa."

"But this is a very sudden move!"

"Yes--very sudden."

"I should think you would want a little time to make preparations."

"That is all happily taken off my hands," said Fleda. "Mrs. Carleton has written to her sister in England to take care of it for me."

"I didn't know that Mrs. Carleton had a sister.--What's her name?"

"Lady Peterborough."

Constance was silent again.

"What are you going to do about mourning, Fleda? wear white, I suppose. As nobody there knows anything about you, you won't care."

"I do not care in the least," said Fleda calmly; "my feeling would quite as soon choose white as black. Mourning so often goes alone, that I should think grief might be excused for shunning its company."

"And as you have not put it on yet," said Constance, "you won't feel the change. And then in reality after all he was only a cousin."

Fleda's quiet mood, sober and tender as it was, could go to a certain length of endurance, but this asked too much. Dropping the things from her hands, she turned from the trunk beside which she was kneeling and hiding her face on a chair wept such tears as cousins never shed for each other. Constance was startled and distressed; and Fleda's quick sympathy knew that she must be, before she could see it.

"You needn't mind it at all, dear Constance," she said as soon as she could speak,--"it's no matter--I am in such a mood sometimes that I cannot bear anything. Don't think of it," she said kissing her.

Constance however could not for the remainder of her visit get back her wonted light mood, which indeed had been singularly wanting to her during the whole interview.

Mrs. Carleton counted the days to the steamer, and her spirits rose with each one. Fleda's spirits were quiet to the last degree, and passive, too passive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. She felt, with all Mrs. Carleton's kindness, that she was completely alone, with no one on her side the ocean to look to; and glad to be relieved from taking active part in anything she made her little Bible her companion for the greater part of the time.

"Are you going to carry that sober face all the way to Carleton?" said Mrs. Carleton one day pleasantly.

"I don't know, ma'am."

"What do you suppose Guy will think of it?"

But the thought of what he would think of it, and what he would say to it, and how fast he would brighten it, made Fleda burst into tears. Mrs. Carleton resolved to talk to her no more, but to get her home as fast as possible.

"I have one consolation," said Charlton Rossitur as he shook hands with her on board the steamer;--"I have received permission, from head-quarters, to come and see you in England; and to that I shall look forward constantly from this time."

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Chapter LIV

The full sum of me Is sum of something; which to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd; Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; and happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed, As from her lord, her governor, her king.

Merchant of Venice.

They had a very speedy passage to the other side, and partly in consequence of that Mr. Carleton was not found waiting for them in Liverpool. Mrs. Carleton would not tarry there but hastened down at once to the country, thinking to be at home before the news of their arrival.

It was early morning of one fair day in July when they were at last drawing near the end of their journey. They would have reached it the evening before but for a storm which had constrained them to stop and wait over the night at a small town about eight miles off. For fear then of passing Guy on the road his mother sent a servant before, and making an extraordinary exertion was actually herself in the carriage by seven o'clock.

Nothing could be fairer than that early drive, if Fleda might have enjoyed it in peace. The sweet morning air was exceeding sweet, and the summer light fell upon a perfect luxuriance of green things. Out of the carriage Fleda's spirits were at home, but not within it; and it was sadly irksome to be obliged to hear and respond to Mrs. Carleton's talk, which was kept up, she knew, in the charitable intent to divert her. She was just in a state to listen to nature's talk; to the other she attended and replied with a patient longing to be left free that she might steady and quiet herself. Perhaps Mrs. Carleton's tact discovered this in the matter-of-course and uninterested manner of her rejoinders; for as they entered the park gates she became silent, and the long drive from them to the house was made without a word on either side.

For a length of way the road was through a forest of trees of noble growth, which in some places closed their arms overhead and in all sentinelled the path in stately array. The eye had no scope beyond the ranks of this magnificent body; Carleton park was celebrated for its trees; but magnificent though they were and dearly as Fleda loved every form of forest beauty, she felt oppressed. The eye forbidden to range, so was the mind, shut in to itself; and she only felt under the gloom and shadow of those great trees the shadow of the responsibilities and of the change that were coming upon her. But after a while the ranks began to be thinned and the ground to be broken; the little touches of beauty with which the sun had enlivened the woodland began to grow broader and cheerfuller; and then as the forest scattered away to the right and left, gay streams of light came through the glades and touched the surface of the rolling ground, where in the hollows, on the heights, on the sloping sides of the dingles, knots of trees of yet more luxuriant and picturesque growth, planted or left by the cultivator's hand long ago and trained by no hand but nature's, stood so as to distract a painter's eye; and just now, in the fresh gilding of the morning and with all the witchery of the long shadows upon the uneven ground certainly charmed Fleda's eye and mind both. Fancy was dancing again, albeit with one hand upon gravity's shoulder, and the dancing was a little nervous too. But she looked and caught her breath as she looked, while the road led along the very edge of a dingle, and then was lost in a kind of enchanted open woodland--it seemed so--and then passing through a thicket came out upon a broad sweep of green turf that wiled the eye by its smooth facility to the distant screen of oaks and beeches and firs on its far border. It was all new. Fleda's memory had retained only an indistinct vision of beauty, like the face of an angel in a cloud as painters have drawn it; now came out the beautiful features one after another, as if she had never seen them.

So far nature had seemed to stand alone. But now another hand appeared, not interfering with nature but adding to her. The road came upon a belt of the shrubbery where the old tenants of the soil were mingled with lighter and gayer companionship and in some instances gave it place; though in general the mingling was very graceful. There was never any crowding of effects; it seemed all nature still, only as if several climes had joined together to grace one. Then that was past; and over smooth undulating ground, bearing a lighter growth of foreign wood with here and there a stately elm or ash that disdained their rivalry, the carriage came under the brown walls and turrets of the house. Fleda's mood had changed again; and as the grave outlines rose above her, half remembered and all the more for that imposing, she trembled at the thought of what she had come there to do and to be. She felt very nervous and strange and out of place, and longed for the familiar free and voice that would bid her be at home. Mrs. Carleton, now, was not enough of a stand-by. With all that, Fleda descended from the carriage with her usual quiet demureness; no one that did not know her well would have seen in her any other token of emotion than a somewhat undue and wavering colour.

They were welcomed, at least one of them was, with every appearance of sincerity by the most respectable-looking personage who opened to them and whom Fleda remembered instantly. The array of servants in the hall would almost have startled her if she had not recollected the same thing on her first coming to Carleton. She stepped in with a curious sense of that first time, when she had come there a little child.

"Where is your master?' was Mrs. Carleton's immediate demand.

"Mr. Carleton set off this morning for Liverpool."

Mrs. Carleton gave a quick glance at Fleda, who kept her eyes at home.

"We did not meet him--we have not passed him--how long ago?" were her next rapid words.

"My master left Carleton as early as five o'clock--he gave orders to drive as fast as possible."

"Then he had gone through Hollonby an hour before we left it," said Mrs. Carleton looking again to her companion;--"but he will hear of us at Carstairs--we stopped there yesterday afternoon--he will be back again in a few hours I am sure. Then we have been expected?"

"Yes ma'am--my master gave orders that you should be expected."

"Is all well, Popham?"

"All is well, madam!"

"Is Lady Peterborough here?"

"His lordship and Lady Peterborough arrived the day before yesterday," was the succint reply.

Drawing Fleda's arm within hers and giving kind recognition to the rest who stood around, Mrs. Carleton led her to the stairs and mounted them, repeating in a whisper, "He will be here presently again." They went to Mrs. Carleton's dressing room, Fleda wondering in an interval fever whether "orders had been given" to expect her also; from the old butler's benign look at her as he said "All is well!" she could not help thinking it. If she maintained her outward quiet it was the merest external crust of seeming; there was nothing like quiet beneath it; and Mrs. Carleton's kiss and fond words of welcome were hardly composing.

Mrs. Carleton made her sit down, and with very gentle hands was busy arranging her hair, when the housekeeper came in; to pay her more particular respects and to offer her services. Fleda hardly ventured a glance to see whether she looked benign. She was a dignified elderly person, as stately and near as handsome as Mrs. Carleton herself.

"My dear Fleda," said the latter when she had finished the hair,--"I am going to see my sister--will you let Mrs. Fothergill help you in anything you want, and take you then to the library--you will find no one, and I will come to you there. Mrs. Fothergill, I recommend you to the particular care of this lady."

The recommendation was not needed, Fleda thought, or was very effectual; the housekeeper served her with most assiduous care, and in absolute silence. Fleda hurried the finishing of her toilet.

"Are the people quiet in the country?" she forced herself to say.

"Perfectly quiet, ma'am. It needed only that my master should be at home to make them so."

"How is that?"

"He has their love and their ear, ma'am, and so it is that he can just do his pleasure with them."

"How is it in the neighbouring country?"

"They're quiet, ma'am, I believe,--mostly--there's been some little disturbance in one place and another, and more fear of it, as well as I can make out, but it's well got over, as it appears. The noblemen and gentlemen in the country around were very glad, all of them I am told, of Mr. Carleton's return. Is there nothing more I can do for you, ma'am?"

The last question was put with an indefinable touch of kindliness which had not softened the respect of her first words. Fleda begged her to show the way to the library, which Mrs. Fothergill immediately did, remarking as she ushered her in that "those were Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms."

Fleda did not need to be told that; she put the remark and the benignity together, and drew a nervous inference. But Mrs. Fothergill was gone and she was alone. Nobody was there, as Mrs. Carleton had said.

Fleda stood still in the middle of the floor, looking around her, in a bewildered effort to realize the past and the present; with all the mind in the world to cry, but there was too great a pressure of excitement and too much strangeness of feeling at work. Nothing before her in the dimly familiar place served at all to lessen this feeling, and recovering from her maze she went to one of the glazed doors, which stood open, and turned her back upon the room with its oppressive recollections. Her eye lighted upon nothing that was not quiet now. A secluded piece of smooth green, partially bordered with evergreens and set with light shrubbery of rare kinds, exquisitely kept; over against her a sweetbriar that seemed to have run wild, indicating, Fleda was sure, the entrance of the path to the rose garden, that her memory alone would hardly have helped her to find. All this in the bright early summer morning, and the sweet aromatic smell of firs and flowers coming with every breath. There were draughts of refreshment in the air. It composed her, and drinking it in delightedly Fleda stood with folded arms in the doorway, half forgetting herself and her position, and going in fancy from the firs and the roses over a very wide field of meditation indeed. So lost, that she started fearfully on suddenly becoming aware that a figure had come just beside her.

It was an elderly and most gentlemanly-looking man, as a glance made her know. Fleda was reassured and ashamed in a breath. The gentleman did not notice her confusion, however, otherwise than by a very pleasant and well-bred smile, and immediately entered into some light remarks on the morning, the place, and the improvements Mr. Carleton had made in the latter. Though he said the place was one of those which could bear very well to want improvement; but Carleton was always finding something to do which excited his admiration.

"Landscape gardening is one of the pleasantest of amusements," said Fleda.

"I have just knowledge enough in the matter to admire;--to originate any ideas is beyond me; I have to depend for them upon my gardener,--and my wife--and so I lose a pleasure, I suppose; but every man has his own particular hobby. Carleton, however, has more than his share--he has half a dozen, I think."

"Half a dozen hobbies!" said Fleda.

"Perhaps I should not call them hobbies, for he manages to ride them all skilfully; and a hobby-horse, I believe, always runs away with the man?"

Fleda could hardly return his smile. She thought people were possessed with an unhappy choice of subjects in talking to her that morning. But fancying that she had very ill kept up her part in the conversation and must have looked like a simpleton, she forced herself to break the silence which followed the last remark, and asked the same question she had asked Mrs. Fothergill,--if the country was quiet?

"Outwardly quiet," he said;--"O yes--there is no more difficulty--that is, none which cannot easily be handled. There was some danger a few months ago, but it is blown over; all was quiet on Carleton's estates so soon as he was at home, and that of course had great influence on the neighbourhood. No, there is nothing to be apprehended. He has the hearts of his people completely, and one who has their hearts can do what he pleases with their heads, you know. Well he deserves it--he has done a great deal for them."

Fleda was afraid to ask in what way,--but perhaps he read the question in her eyes.

"That's one of his hobbies--ameliorating the condition of the poorer classes on his estates. He has given himself to it for some years back; he has accomplished a great deal for them--a vast deal indeed! He has changed the face of things, mentally and morally, in several places, with his adult schools, and agricultural systems, and I know not what; but the most powerful means I think after all has been the weight of his personal influence, by which he can introduce and carry through any measure; neither ignorance nor prejudice nor obstinacy seem to make head against him. It requires a peculiar combination of qualities, I think,--very peculiar and rare,--to deal successfully with the mind of the masses."

"I should think so indeed," said Fleda.

"He has it--I don't comprehend it--and I have not studied his machinery enough to understand that; but I have seen the effects. Never should have thought he was the kind of man either--but there it is!--I don't comprehend him. There is only one fault to be found with him though."

"What is that?" said Fleda smiling.

"He has built a fine dissenting chapel down here towards Hollonby," he said gravely, looking her in the face,--"and what is yet worse, his uncle tells me, he goes there half the time himself!"

Fleda could not help laughing, nor colouring, at his manner.

"I thought it was always considered a meritorious action to build a church," she said.

"Indubitably.--But you see, this was a chapel."

The laugh and the colour both grew more unequivocal--Fleda could not help it.

"I beg your pardon, sir--I have not learned such nice distinctions--Perhaps a chapel was wanted just in that place."

"That is presumable. But he might be wanted somewhere else. However," said the gentleman with a good-humoured smile,--"his uncle forgives him; and if his mother cannot influence him,--I am afraid nobody else will. There is no help for it. And I should be very sorry to stand ill with him. I have given you the dark side of his character."

"What is the other side in the contrast?" said Fleda, wondering at herself for her daring.

"It is not for me to say," he answered with a slight shrug of the shoulders and an amused glance at her;--"I suppose it depends upon people's vision,--but if you will permit me, I will instance a bright spot that was shewn to me the other day, that I confess, when I look at it, dazzles my eyes a little."

Fleda only bowed; she dared not speak again.

"There was a poor fellow--the son of one of Mr. Carleton's old tenants down here at Enchapel,--who was under sentence of death, lying in prison at Carstairs. The father, I am told, is an excellent man and a good tenant; the son had been a miserable scapegrace, and now for some crime--I forget what--had at last been brought to justice. The evidence against him was perfect and the offence was not trifling--there was not the most remote chance of a pardon, but it seemed the poor wretch had been building up his dependence upon that hope and was resting on it; and consequently was altogether indisposed and unfit to give his attention to the subjects that his situation rendered proper for him.

"The gentleman who gave me this story was requested by a brother clergyman to go with him to visit the prisoner. They found him quite stupid--unmovable by all that could be urged, or rather perhaps the style of the address, as it was described to me, was fitted to confound and bewilder the man rather than enlighten him. In the midst of all this Mr. Carleton came in--he was just then on the wing for America, and he had heard of the poor creature's condition in a visit to his father. He came,--my informant said,--like a being of a different planet. He took the man's hand,--he was chained foot and wrist,--'My poor friend,' he said, 'I have been thinking of you here, shut out from the light of the sun, and I thought you might like to see the face of a friend';--with that singular charm of manner which he knows how to adapt to everybody and every occasion. The man was melted at once--at his feet, as it were;--he could do anything with him. Carleton began then, quietly, to set before him the links in the chain of evidence which had condemned him--one by one--in such a way as to prove to him, by degrees but irresistibly, that he had no hope in this world. The man was perfectly subdued--sat listening and looking into those powerful eyes that perhaps you know,--taking in all his words and completely in his hand. And then Carleton went on to bring before him the considerations that he thought should affect him in such a case, in a way that this gentleman said was indescribably effective and winning; till that hardened creature was broken down,--sobbing like a child,--actually sobbing!--"

Fleda did her best, but she was obliged to hide her face in her hands, let what would be thought of her.

"It was the finest exhibition of eloquence, this gentleman said, he had ever listened to.--For me it was an exhibition of another kind. I would have believed such an account of few men, but of all the men I know I would least have believed it of Guy Carleton a few years ago; even now I can hardly believe it. But it is a thing that would do honour to any man."--

Fleda felt that the tears were making their way between her fingers, but she could not help it; and she presently knew that her companion had gone and she was left alone again. Who was this gentleman? and how much did he know about her? More than that she was a stranger, Fleda was sure; and dreading his return, or that somebody else might come and find her with tokens of tears upon her face, she stepped out upon the greensward and made for the flaunting sweet-briar that seemed to beckon her to visit its relations.

The entrance of a green path was there, or a grassy glade, more or less wide, leading through a beautiful growth of firs and larches. No roses, nor any other ornamental shrubs; only the soft, well-kept footway through the woodland. Fleda went gently on and on, admiring, where the trees sometimes swept back, leaving an opening, and at other places stretched their graceful branches over her head. The perfect condition of everything to the eye, the rich coloured vegetation,--of varying colour above and below,--the absolute retirement, and the strong pleasant smell of the evergreens, had a kind of charmed effect upon senses and mind too. It was a fairyland sort of place. The presence of its master seemed everywhere; it was like him; and Fleda pressed on to see yet livelier marks of his character and fancy beyond. By degrees the wood began to thin on one side; then at once the glade opened into a bright little lawn rich with roses in full bloom. Fleda was stopped short at the sudden vision of loveliness. There was the least possible appearance of design; no dry beds were to be seen; the luxuriant clumps of Provence and white roses, with the varieties of the latter, seemed to have chosen their own places; only to have chosen them very happily. One hardly imagined that they had submitted to dictation, if it were not that Queen Flora never was known to make so effective a disposition of her forces without help. The screen of trees was very thin on the border of this opening, so thin that the light from beyond came through. On a slight rocky elevation which formed the further side of it sat an exquisite little Moorish temple, about which and the face of the rock below some Noisette and Multiflora climbers were vying with each other; and just at the entrance of the further path a white dog-rose had thrown itself over the way, covering the lower branches of the trees with its blossoms.

Fleda stood spell bound a good while, with a breath oppressed with pleasure. But what she had seen excited her to see more, and a dim recollection of the sea-view from somewhere in the walk drew her on. Roses met her now frequently. Now and then a climber, all alone, seemed to have sought protection in a tree by the path-side, and to have displayed itself thence in the very wantonness of security, hanging out its flowery wreaths, fearless of hand or knife. Clusters of Noisettes, or of French or Damask roses, where the ground was open enough, stood without a rival and needing no foil, other than the beautiful surrounding of dark evergreen foliage. But the distance was not long before she came out upon a wider opening and found what she was seeking--the sight of the sea. The glade, here, was upon the brow of high ground, and the wood disappearing entirely for a space left the eye free to go over the lower tree-tops and the country beyond to the distant shore and sea-line. Roses were here too; the air was full of the sweetness of Damask and Bourbon varieties; and a few beautiful Banksias, happily placed, contrasted without interfering with them. It was very still;--it was very perfect;--the distant country was fresh-coloured with the yet early light which streamed between the trees and laid lines of enchantment upon the green turf; and the air came up from the sea-board and bore the breath of the roses to Fleda every now and then with a gentle puff of sweetness. Such light--she had seen none such light since she was a child. Was it the burst of mental sunshine that had made it so bright?--or was she going to be really a happy child again? No--no,--not that; and yet something very like it. So like it that she almost startled at herself. She went no further. She could not have borne, just then, to see any more; and feeling her heart too full she stood even there, with hands crossed upon her bosom, looking away from the roses to the distant sea-line.

That said something very different. That was very sobering; if she had needed sobering, which she did not. But it helped her to arrange the scattered thoughts which had been pressing confusedly upon her brain. "Look away from the roses" indeed she could not, for the same range of vision took in the sea and them,--and the same range of thought. These might stand for an emblem of the present; that, of the future,--grave, far-off, impenetrable;--and passing as it were the roses of time Fleda fixed upon that image of eternity; and weighing the one against the other, felt, never in her life more keenly, how wild it would be to forget in smelling the roses her preparations for that distant voyage that must be made from the shores where they grow. With one eye upon this brightest bits of earth before her, the other mentally was upon Hugh's grave. The roses could not be sweeter to any one; but in view of the launching away into that distant sea-line, in view of the issues on the other shore, in view of the welcome that might be had there,--the roses might fade and wither, but her happiness could not go with their breath. They were something to be loved, to be used, to be thankful for,--but not to live upon; something too that whispered of an increased burden of responsibility, and never more deeply than at that moment did Fleda remember her mother's prayer; never more simply recognized that happiness could not be made of these things. She might be as happy at Queechy as here. It depended on the sunlight of undying hopes, which indeed would give wonderful colour to the flowers that might be in her way;--on the possession of resources the spring of which would never dry;--on the peace which secures the continual feast of a merry heart. Fleda could take her new honours and advantages very meekly, and very soberly, with all her appreciation of them. The same work of life was to be done here as at Queechy. To fulfil the trust committed to her, larger here--to keep her hope for the future--undeceived by the sunshine of earth to plant her roses where they would bloom everlastingly.

The weight of these things bowed Fleda to the ground and made her bury her face in her hands. But there was one item of happiness from which her thoughts never even in imagination dissevered themselves, and round it they gathered now in their weakness. A strong mind and heart to uphold hers,--a strong hand for here to rest in,--that was a blessing; and Fleda would have cried heartily but that her feelings were too high wrought. They made her deaf to the light sound of footsteps coming over the grass,--till two hands gently touched hers and lifted her up, and then Fleda was at home. But surprised and startled she could hardly lift up her face. Mr. Carleton's greeting was as grave and gentle as if she had been a stray child.

"Do not fancy I am going to thank you for the grace you have shewn me," said he lightly. "I know you would never have done it if circumstances had not been hard pleaders in my cause. I will thank you presently when you have answered one or two questions for me."

"Questions?" said Fleda looking up. But she blushed the next instant at her own simplicity.

He was leading her back on the path she had come. No further however than to the first opening, where the climbing dog-rose hung over the way. There he turned aside crossing the little plot of greensward, and they ascended some steps cut in the rock to the pavilion Fleda had looked at from a distance.

It stood high enough to command the same sea-view. On that side it was entirely open, and of very light construction on the others. Several people were there; Fleda could hardly tell how many; and when Lord Peterborough was presented to her she did not find out that he was her morning's acquaintance. Her eye only took in besides that there were one or two ladies, and a clergyman in the dress of the Church of England; she could not distinguish. Yet she stood beside Mr. Carleton with all her usual quiet dignity, though her eye did not leave the ground and her words were in no higher key than was necessary, and though she could hardly bear the unchanged easy tone of his. The birds were in a perfect ecstasy all about them; the soft breeze came through the trees, gently waving the branches and stirring the spray wreaths of the roses, the very fluttering of summer's drapery; some roses looked in at the lattice, and those which could not be there sent in their congratulations on the breath of the wind, while the words were spoken that bound them together.

Mr. Carleton then dismissing his guests to the house, went with Fleda again the other way. He had felt the extreme trembling of the hand which he took, and would not go in till it was quieted. He led her back to the very rose-bush where he had found her, and in his own way, presently brought her spirit home from its trembling and made it rest; and then suffered her to stand a few minutes quite silent, looking out again over the fair rich spread of country that lay between them and the sea.

"Now tell me, Elfie," said he softly, drawing back with the same old caressing and tranquillizing touch the hair that hung over her brow,--"what you were thinking about when I found you here?--in the very luxury of seclusion--behind a rose-bush."

Fleda looked a quick look, smiled, and hesitated, and then said it was rather a confusion of thoughts.

"It will be a confusion no longer when you have disentangled them for me."

"I don't know--" said Fleda. And she was silent, but so was he, quietly waiting for her to go on.

"Perhaps you will wonder at me, Mr. Carleton," she said, hesitating and colouring.

"Perhaps," he said smiling;--"but if I do I will not keep you in ignorance, Elfie."

"I was almost bewildered, in the first place,--with beauty--and then--"

"Do you like the rose garden?"

"Like it!--I cannot speak of it!"

"I don't want you to speak of it," said he smiling at her. "What followed upon liking it, Elfie?"

"I was thinking," said Fleda, looking resolutely away from him,--"in the midst of all this,--that it is not these things which make people happy."

"There is no question of that," he replied. "I have realized it thoroughly for a few months past."

"No, but seriously, I mean," said Fleda pleadingly.

"And seriously you are quite right, dear Elfie. What then?"

"I was thinking," said Fieda, speaking with some difficulty, "of Hugh's grave,--and of the comparative value of things; and afraid, I believe,--especially--here--"

"Of making a wrong estimate?"

"Yes--and of not doing and being just what I ought."

Mr. Carleton was silent for a minute, considering the brow from which his fingers drew off the light screen.

"Will you trust me to watch over and tell you?"

Fleda did not trust her voice to tell him, but her eyes did it.

"As to the estimate--the remedy is to 'keep ourselves in the love of God;' and then these things are the gifts of our Father's hand and will never be put in competition with him. And they are never so sweet as when taken so."

"Oh I know that!"

"This is a danger I share with you. We will watch over each other."

Fleda was silent with filling eyes.

"We do not seek our happiness in these things," he said tenderly. "I never found it in them. For years, whatever others may have judged, I have felt myself a poor man; because I had not in the world a friend in whom I could have entire sympathy. And if I am rich now, it is not in any treasure that I look to enjoy in this world alone."

"Oh do not, Mr. Carleton!" exclaimed Fleda, bowing her head in distress, and giving his hand an earnest entreaty.

"What shall I not do?" said he half laughing and half gently, bringing her face near enough for his lips to try another kind of eloquence. "You shall not do this, Elfie, for any so light occasion.--Was this the whole burden of those grave thoughts?"

"Not quite--entirely--" she said stammering. "But grave thoughts are not always unhappy."

"Not always. I want to know what gave yours a tinge of that colour this morning."

"It was hardly that.--You know what Foster says about 'power to its very last particle being duty'--I believe it frightened me a little."

"If you feel that as strongly as I do, Elfie, it will act as a strong corrective to the danger of false estimates."

"I do feel it," said Fleda. "One of my fears was that I should not feel it enough."

"One of my cares will be that you do not act upon it too fiercely," said he smiling. "The power being limited so is the duty. But you shall have power enough, Elfie, and work enough. I have precisely what I have needed--my good sprite back again."

"With a slight difference."

"What difference?"

"She is to act under direction now."

"Not at all--only under safe control," he said laughing.

"I am very glad of the difference, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a grave and grateful remembrance of it.

"If you think the sprite's old office is gone, you are mistaken," said he. "What were your other fears?--one was that you should not feel enough your responsibility, and the other that you might forget it."

"I don't know that there were any other particular fears," said Fleda;--"I had been thinking of all these things--"

"And what else?"

Her colour and her silence begged him not to ask. He said no more, and let her stand still again looking off through the roses, while her mind more quietly and lightly went over the same train of thoughts that had moved it before; gradually calmed; came back from being a stranger to being at home, at least in one presence; and ended, her action even before her look told him where, as her other hand unconsciously was joined to the one already on his arm. A mute expression of feeling the full import of which he read, even before her eye coming back from its musings was raised to him, perhaps unconsciously too, with all the mind in it; its timidity was not more apparent than its simplicity of clinging affection and dependence. Mr. Carleton's answer was in three words, but in the tone and manner that accompanied them there was a response to every part of her appeal; so perfect that Fleda was confused at her own frankness.

They began to move towards the house, but Fleda was in a maze again and could hardly realize anything. "His wife"!--was she that?--had so marvellous a change really been wrought in her?--the little asparagus cutter of Queechy transformed into the mistress of all this domain, and of the stately mansion of which they caught glimpses now and then, as they drew near it by another approach into which Mr. Carleton had diverged. And his wife!--that was the hardest to realize of all.

She was as far from realizing it when she got into the house. They entered now at once into the breakfast-room where the same party were gathered whom she had met once before that morning. Mr. Carleton the elder, and Lord Peterborough and Lady Peterborough, she had met without seeing. But Fleda could look at them now; and if her colour came and went as frankly as when she was a child, she could speak to them and meet their advances with the same free and sweet self-possession as then; the rare dignity of a little wood-flower, that is moved by a breath, but recovers as easily and instantly its quiet standing. There were one or two who looked a little curiously at first to see whether this new member of the family were worthy of her place and would fill it to satisfy them. Not Mr. Carleton; he never sought to ascertain the value of anything that belonged to him by a popular vote; and his own judgment always stood carelessly alone. But Mrs. Carleton was less sure of her own ground or of others. For five minutes she noted Fleda's motions and words, her blushes and smiles, as she stood talking to one and another;--for five minutes, and then with a little smile at her sister Mrs. Carleton moved off to the breakfast-table, well pleased that Lady Peterborough was too engaged to answer her. Fleda had won them all. Mr. Carleton's intervening shield of grace and kindness was only needed here against the too much attention or attraction that might distress her. He was again, now they were in presence of others, exactly what he had been to her when she was a child, the same cool and efficient friend and protector. Nobody in the room shewed less thought of her except in action; a great many little things done for her pleasure or comfort, so quietly that nobody knew it but one person, and she hardly noticed it at the time. All could not have the same tact.

There was an uninterrupted easy flow of talk at the table, which Fleda heard just enough to join in where it was necessary; the rest of the time she sat in a kind of abstraction, dipping enormous strawberries one by one into white sugar, with a curious want of recognition between them and the ends of her fingers; it never occurred to her that they had picked baskets full.

"I have done something for which you will hardly thank me, Mr. Carleton," said Lord Peterborough. "I have driven this lady to tears within the first hour of her being in the house."

"If she will forgive you, I will, my lord," Mr. Carleton answered carelessly.

"I will confess myself though," continued his lordship looking at the face that was so intent over the strawberries. "I was under the impression when I first saw a figure in the window that it was Lady Peterborough. I own as soon as I found it was a stranger I had my suspicions--which did not lack confirmation in the course of the interview--I trust I am forgiven the means I used."

"It seems you had your curiosity too, my lord," said Mr. Carleton the uncle.

"Which ought in all justice to have lacked gratification," said Lady Peterborough. "I hope Fleda will not be too ready to forgive you."

"I expect forgiveness nevertheless," said he looking at Fleda. "Must I wait for it?"

"I am much obliged to you, sir."

And then she gave him a very frank smile and blush as she added, "I beg pardon--you know my tongue is American."

"I don't like that," said his lordship gravely.

"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," said the elder Carleton. "The heart being English, we may hope the tongue will become so too."

"I will not assure you of that, sir," Fleda said laughingly, though her cheeks showed the conversation was not carried on without effort. Oddly enough nobody saw it with any dissatisfaction.

"Of what, madam?" said Lord Peterborough.

"That I will not always keep a rag of the stars and stripes flying somewhere."

But that little speech had almost been too much for her equanimity.

"Like Queen Elizabeth who retained the crucifix when she gave up the profession of popery."

"Very unlike indeed!" said Fleda, endeavouring to understand what Mr. Carleton was saying to her about wood strawberries and hautbois.

"Will you allow that, Carleton?"

"What, my lord?"

"A rival banner to float alongside of St. George's?"

'"The flags are friendly, my lord."

"Hum--just now,--they may seem so.--Has your little standard-bearer anything of a rebellious disposition?"

"Not against any lawful authority, I hope," said Fleda.

"Then there is hope for you, Mr. Carleton, that you will be able to prevent the introduction of mischievous doctrines."

"For shame, Lord Peterborough!" said his wife,--"what atrocious suppositions you are making. I am blushing, I am sure, for your want of discernment."

"Why--yes--" said his lordship, looking at another face whose blushes were more unequivocal,--"it may seem so--there is no appearance of anything untoward, but she is a woman after all. I will try her. Mrs. Carleton, don't you think with my Lady Peterborough that in the present nineteenth century women ought to stand more on that independent footing from which lordly monopoly has excluded them?"

The first name Fleda thought belonged to another person, and her downcast eyelids prevented her seeing to whom it was addressed. It was no matter, for any answer was anticipated.

"The boast of independence is not engrossed by the boldest footing, my lord."

"She has never considered the subject," said Lady Peterborough.

"It is no matter," said his lordship. "I must respectfully beg an answer to my question."

The silence made Fleda look up.

"Don't you think that the rights of the weak ought to be on a perfect equality with those of the strong?"

"The rights of the weak as such--yes, my lord."

The gentlemen smiled; the ladies looked rather puzzled.

"I have no more to say, Mr. Carleton," said his lordship, "but that we must make an Englishwoman of her!"

"I am afraid she will never be a perfect cure," said Mr. Carleton smiling.

"I conceive it might require peculiar qualities in the physician,--but I do not despair. I was telling her of some of your doings this morning, and happy to see that they met with her entire disapproval."

Mr. Carleton did not even glance towards Fleda and made no answer, but carelessly gave the conversation another turn; for which she thanked him unspeakably.

There was no other interruption of any consequence to the well-bred flow of talk and kindliness of manner on the part of all the company, that put Fleda as much as possible at her ease. Still she did not realize anything, and yet she did realize it so strongly that her woman's heart could not rest till it bad eased itself in tears. The superbly appointed table at which she sat,--her own, though Mrs. Carleton this morning presided,--the like of which she had not seen since she was at Carleton before; the beautiful room with its arrangements, bringing back a troop of recollections of that old time; all the magnificence about her, instead of elevating sobered her spirits to the last degree. It pressed home upon her that feeling of responsibility, of the change that come over her; and though beneath it all very happy, Fleda hardly knew it, she longed so to be alone and to cry. One person's eyes, however little seemingly observant of her, read sufficiently well the unusual shaded air of her brow and her smile. But a sudden errand of business called him abroad immediately after breakfast.

The ladies seized the opportunity to carry Fleda up and introduce her to her dressing-room and take account of Lady Peterborough's commission, and ladies and ladies' maids soon formed a busy committee of dress and decorations. It did not enliven Fleda, it wearied her, though she forgave them the annoyance in gratitude for the pleasure they took in looking at her. Even the delight her eye had from the first minute she saw it, in the beautiful room, and her quick sense of the carefulness with which it had been arranged for her, added to the feeling with which she was oppressed; she was very passive in the hands of her friends.

In the midst of all this the housekeeper was called in and formally presented, and received by Fleda with a mixture of frankness and bashfulness that caused Mrs. Fothergill afterwards to pronounce her "a lady of a very sweet dignity indeed."

"She is just such a lady as you might know my master would have fancied," said Mr. Spenser.

"And what kind of a lady is that?" said Mrs. Fothergill.

But Mr. Spenser was too wise to enter into any particulars and merely informed Mrs. Fothergill that she would know in a few days.

"The first words Mrs. Carleton said when Mr. Carleton got home," said the old butler,--"she put both her hands on his arms and cried out, 'Guy, I am delighted with her!'"

"And what did he say?" said Mrs. Fothergill.

"He!" echoed Mr. Spenser in a tone of indignant intelligence,--"what should he say?--He didn't say anything; only asked where she was, I believe."

In the midst of silks, muslins and jewels Mr. Carleton found Fleda still on his return; looking pale and even sad, though nobody but himself through her gentle and grateful bearing would have discerned it. He took her out of the hands of the committee and carried her down to the little library, adjoining the great one, but never thrown open,--his room, as it was called, where more particularly art and taste had accumulated their wealth of attractions.

"I remember this very well," said Fleda. "This beautiful room!"

"It is as free to you as to me, Elfie; and I never gave the freedom of it to any one else."

"I will not abuse it," said Fleda.

"I hope not, my dear Elfie," said he smiling,--"for the room will want something to me now when you are not in it; and a gift is abused that is not made free use of."

A large and deep bay window in the room looked upon the same green lawn and fir wood with the windows of the library. Like those this casement stood open, and Mr. Carleton leading Fleda there remained quietly beside her for a moment, watching her face which his last words had a little moved from its outward composure. Then, gently and gravely as if she had been a child, putting his arm round her shoulders and drawing her to him he whispered,

"My dear Elfie,--you need not fear being misunderstood--"

Fleda started and looked up to see what he meant. But his face said it so plainly, in its perfect intelligence and sympathy with her, that her barrier of self-command and reserve was all broken down; and hiding her head in her hands upon his breast she let the pent-up burden upon her heart come forth in a flood of unrestrained tears. She could not help herself. And when she would fain have checked them after the first burst and bidden them, according to her habit to wait another time, it was out of her power; for the same kindness and tenderness that had set them a flowing, perhaps witting of her intent, effectually hindered its execution. He did not say a single word, but now and then a soft touch of his hand or of his lips upon her brow, in its expressive tenderness would unnerve all her resolution and oblige her to have no reserve that time at least in letting her secret thoughts and feelings be known, as far as tears could tell them. She wept, at first in spite of herself and afterwards in the very luxury of indulged feeling; till she was as quiet as a child, and the weight of oppression was all gone. Mr. Carleton did not move, nor speak, till she did.

"I never knew before how good you were, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda raising her head at length, as soon as she dared, but still held fast by that kind arm.

"What new light have you got on the subject?" said he, smiling.

"Why," said Fleda, trying as hard as ever did sunshine to scatter the remnants of a cloud,--it was a bright cloud too by this time, "I have always heard that men cannot endure the sight of a woman's tears."

"You shall give me a reward then. Elfie."

"What reward?" said Fleda.

"Promise me that you will shed them nowhere else."

"Nowhere else?--"

"But here--in my arms."

"I don't feel like crying any more now," said Fleda evasively;--at least."--for drops were falling rather fast again,--" not sorrowfully."

"Promise me, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton after a pause.

But Fleda hesitated still and looked dubious.

"Come!--" he said smiling,--"you know you promised a little while ago that you would have a particular regard to my wishes."

Fleda's cheeks answered that appeal with sufficient brightness, but she looked down and said demurely,

"I am sure one of your wishes is that I should not say anything rashly."

"Well?--"

"One cannot answer for such wilful things as tears."

"And for such wilful things as men?" said he smiling.

But Fleda was silent.

"Then I will alter the form of my demand. Promise me that no shadow of anything shall come over your spirit that you do not let me either share or remove."

There was no trifling in the tone,--full of gentleness as it was; there could be no evading its requisition. But the promise demanded was a grave one. Fleda was half afraid to make it. She looked up, in the very way he had seen her do when a child, to find a warrant for her words before she uttered them. But the full, clear, steadfast eye into which she looked for two seconds, authorized as well as required the promise; and hiding her face again on his breast Fleda gave it, amid a gush of tears every one of which was illumined with heart-sunshine.

The End.

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