"Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the
stream of delight."
SIDNEY.
Fleda had not been a year in Paris, when her uncle suddenly
made up his mind to quit it and go home. Some trouble in money
affairs, felt or feared, brought him to this step, which a
month before he had no definite purpose of ever taking. There
was cloudy weather in the financial world of New York, and he
wisely judged it best that his own eyes should be on the spot
to see to his own interests. Nobody was sorry for this
determination. Mrs. Rossitur always liked what her husband
liked, but she had at the same time a decided predilection for
home. Marion was glad to leave her convent for the gay world,
which her parents promised she should immediately enter. And
Hugh and Fleda had too lively a spring of happiness within
themselves to care where its outgoings should be.
So home they came, in good mood, bringing with them all manner
of Parisian delights that Paris could part with furniture,
that at home at least they might forget where they were;
dresses, that, at home or abroad, nobody might forget where
they had been; pictures, and statuary, and engravings, and
books, to satisfy a taste really strong and well cultivated.
And, indeed, the other items were quite as much for this
purpose as for any other. A French cook for Mr. Rossitur, and
even Rosaline for his wife, who declared she was worth all the
rest of Paris. Hugh cared little for any of these things; he
brought home a treasure of books and a flute, to which he was
devoted. Fleda cared for them all, even Monsieur Emile and
Rosaline, for her uncle's and aunt's sake; but her special joy
was a beautiful little King Charles, which had been sent her
by Mr. Carleton a few weeks before. It came with the kindest
of letters, saying, that some matters had made it inexpedient
for him to pass through Paris on his way home, but that he
hoped, nevertheless, to see her soon. That intimation was the
only thing that made Fleda sorry to leave Paris. The little
dog was a beauty, allowed to be so not only by his mistress
but by every one else, of the true black and tan colours; and
Fleda's dearly loved and constant companion.
The life she and Hugh led was little changed by the change of
place. They went out and came in as they had done in Paris,
and took the same quiet but intense happiness in the same
quiet occupations and pleasures; only the Tuileries and Champs
Elysées had a miserable substitute in the Battery, and no
substitute at all anywhere else. And the pleasant drives in
the environs of Paris were missed too, and had nothing in New
York to supply their place. Mrs. Rossitur always said it was
impossible to get out of New York by land, and not worth the
trouble to do it by water. But, then, in the house Fleda
thought there was a great gain. The dirty Parisian hotel was
well exchanged for the bright, clean, well-appointed house in
State street. And if Broadway was disagreeable, and the Park a
weariness to the eyes, after the dressed gardens of the French
capital, Hugh and Fleda made it up in the delights of the
luxuriously furnished library, and the dear at-home feeling of
having the whole house their own.
They were left, those two children, quite as much to
themselves as ever. Marion was going into company, and she and
her mother were swallowed up in the consequent necessary calls
upon their time. Marion never had been anything to Fleda. She
was a fine, handsome girl, outwardly, but seemed to have more
of her father than her mother in her composition, though
colder-natured, and more wrapped up in self than Mr. Rossitur
would be called by anybody that knew him. She had never done
anything to draw Fleda towards her, and even Hugh had very
little of her attention. They did not miss it. They were
everything to each other.
Everything for now morning and night there was a sort of
whirlwind in the house which carried the mother and daughter
round and round, and permitted no rest; and Mr. Rossitur
himself was drawn in. It was worse than it had been in Paris.
There, with Marion in her convent, there were often evenings
when they did not go abroad nor receive company, and spent the
time quietly and happily in each other's society. No such
evenings now: if by chance there were an unoccupied one, Mrs.
Rossitur and her daughter were sure to be tired, and Mr.
Rossitur busy.
Hugh and Fleda in those bustling times retreated to the
library; Mr. Rossitur would rarely have that invaded; and
while the net was so eagerly cast for pleasure among the gay
company below, pleasure had often slipped away, and hid
herself among the things on the library table, and was dancing
on every page of Hugh's book, and minding each stroke of
Fleda's pencil, and cocking the spaniel's ears whenever his
mistress looked at him. King, the spaniel, lay on a silk
cushion on the library table, his nose just touching Fleda's
fingers. Fleda's drawing was mere amusement; she and Hugh were
not so burdened with studies that they had not always their
evenings free, and, to tell truth, much more than their
evenings. Masters, indeed, they had; but the heads of the
house were busy with the interests of their grown-up child,
and, perhaps, with other interests, and took it for granted
that all was going right with the young ones.
"Haven't we a great deal better time than they have down
stairs, Fleda?" said Hugh, one of these evenings.
"Hum yes" answered Fleda, abstractedly, stroking into
order some old man in her drawing with great intentness.
"King! you rascal keep back and be quiet, Sir!"
Nothing could be conceived more gentle and loving than Fleda's
tone of fault-finding, and her repulse only fell short of a
caress.
"What's he doing?"
"Wants to get into my lap."
"Why don't you let him?"
"Because I don't choose to a silk cushion is good enough for
his majesty. King!" (laying her soft cheek against the little
dog's soft head, and forsaking her drawing for the purpose.)
"How you do love that dog!" said Hugh.
"Very well why shouldn't I? provided he steals no love
from anybody else," said Fleda, still caressing him.
"What a noise somebody is making down stairs!" said Hugh. " I
don't think I should ever want to go to large parties, Fleda;
do you?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, whose natural taste for society
was strongly developed; "it would depend upon what kind of
parties they were."
"I shouldn't like them, I know, of whatever kind," said Hugh.
"What are you smiling at?"
"Only Mr. Pickwick's face, that I am drawing here."
Hugh came round to look and laugh, and then began again.
"I can't think of anything pleasanter than this room as we are
now."
"You should have seen Mr. Carleton's library," said Fleda, in
a musing tone, going on with her drawing.
"Was it so much better than this?"
Fleda's eyes gave a slight glance at the room, and then looked
down again with a little shake of her head sufficiently
expressive.
"Well," said Hugh, "you and I do not want any better than
this; do we, Fleda?"
Fleda's smile a most satisfactory one was divided between
him and King.
"I don't believe," said Hugh, "you would have loved that dog
near so well if anybody else had given him to you."
"I don't believe I should! not a quarter," said Fleda, with
sufficient distinctness.
"I never liked that Mr. Carleton as well as you did."
"That is because you did not know him," said Fleda, quietly.
"Do you think he was a good man, Fleda?"
"He was very good to me," said Fleda, "always. What rides I
did have on that great black horse of his!"
"A black horse?"
"Yes, a great black horse, strong, but so gentle, and he went
so delightfully. His name was Harold. Oh, I should like to see
that horse! When I wasn't with him, Mr. Carleton used to ride
another, the greatest beauty of a horse, Hugh a brown
Arabian so slender and delicate her name was Zephyr, and
she used to go like the wind, to be sure. Mr. Carleton said he
wouldn't trust me on such a fly-away thing."
"But you didn't use to ride alone?" said Hugh.
"O no! and I wouldn't have been afraid if he had chosen to
take me on any one."
"But do you think, Fleda, he was a good man as I mean?"
"I am sure he was better than a great many others," answered
Fleda, evasively "the worst of him was infinitely better
than the best of half the people down stairs Mr. Sweden
included."
"Sweden! you don't call his name right."
"The worse it is called the better, in my opinion," said
Fleda.
"Well, I don't like him; but what makes you dislike him so
much?"
"I don't know partly because Uncle Rolf and Marion like him
so much, I believe I don't think there is any moral
expression in his face."
"I wonder why they like him," said Hugh.
It was a somewhat irregular and desultory education that the
two children gathered under this system of things. The masters
they had were rather for accomplishments and languages than
for anything solid the rest they worked out for themselves.
Fortunately they both loved books, and rational books; and
hours and hours, when Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter were
paying or receiving visits, they, always together, were stowed
away behind the book-cases or in the library window, poring
patiently over pages of various complexion the soft turning
of the leaves, or Fleda's frequent attentions to King, the
only sound in the room. They walked together, talking of what
they had read, though, indeed, they ranged beyond that into
nameless and numberless fields of speculation, where, if they
sometimes found fruit, they as often lost their way. However,
the habit of ranging was something. Then when they joined the
rest of the family at the dinner-table, especially if others
were present, and most especially if a certain German
gentleman happened to be there, who, the second winter after
their return, Fleda thought came very often, she and Hugh
would be sure to find the strange talk of the world that was
going on unsuited and wearisome to them, and they would make
their escape up-stairs again to handle the pencil, and to play
the flute, and to read, and to draw plans for the future,
while King crept upon the skirts of his mistress's gown, and
laid his little head on her feet. Nobody ever thought of
sending them to school. Hugh was a child of frail health, and
though not often very ill, was often near it; and as for
Fleda, she and Hugh were inseparable, and besides, by this
time her uncle and aunt would almost as soon have thought of
taking the mats off their delicate shrubs in winter, as of
exposing her to any atmosphere less genial than that of home.
For Fleda, this doubtful course of mental training wrought
singularly well. An uncommonly quick eye, and strong memory,
and clear head, which she had even in childhood, passed over
no field of truth or fancy without making their quiet
gleanings; and the stores thus gathered, though somewhat
miscellaneous and unarranged, were both rich and uncommon, and
more than any one or she herself knew. Perhaps such a mind
thus left to itself knew a more free and luxuriant growth than
could ever have flourished within the confinement of rules
perhaps a plant at once so strong and so delicate was safest
without the hand of the dresser at all events it was
permitted to spring and to put forth all its native
gracefulness alike unhindered and unknown. Cherished as little
Fleda dearly was, her mind kept company with no one but
herself and Hugh. As to externals; music was uncommonly
loved by both the children, and by both cultivated with great
success. So much came under Mrs. Rossitur's knowledge; also
every foreign Signor and Madame that came into the house to
teach them spoke with enthusiasm of the apt minds and flexible
tongues that honoured their instructions. In private and in
public, the gentle, docile, and affectionate children answered
every wish, both of taste and judgment. And perhaps, in a
world where education is not understood, their guardians might
be pardoned for taking it for granted that all was right where
nothing appeared that was wrong certainly they took no pains
to make sure of the fact. In this case, one of a thousand,
their neglect was not punished with disappointment. They never
found out that Hugh's mind wanted the strengthening that early
skilful training might have given it. His intellectual tastes
were not so strong as Fleda's his reading was more
superficial his gleanings not so sound, and in far fewer
fields, and they went rather to nourish sentiment and fancy
than to stimulate thought, or lay up food for it. But his
parents saw nothing of this.
The third winter had not passed, when Fleda's discernment saw
that Mr. Sweden, as she called him, the German gentleman,
would not cease coming to the house till he had carried off
Marion with him. Her opinion on the subject was delivered to
no one but Hugh.
That winter introduced them to a better acquaintance. One
evening Dr. Gregory, an uncle of Mrs. Rossitur's, had been
dining with her, and was in the drawing-room. Mr. Schwiden had
been there too, and he and Marion, and one or two other young
people, had gone out to some popular entertainment. The
children knew little of Dr. Gregory, but that he was a very
respectable-looking elderly gentleman, a little rough in his
manners. The doctor had not long been returned from a stay of
some years in Europe, where he had been collecting rare books
for a fine public library, the charge of which was now
entrusted to him. After talking some time with Mr. and Mrs.
Rossitur, the doctor pushed round his chair to take a look at
the children.
"So that's Amy's child," said he. "Come here, Amy."
"That is not my name," said the little girl, coming forward.
"Isn't it? It ought to be. What is, then?"
"Elfleda."
"Elfleda! where in the name of all that is auricular did you
get such an outlandish name?"
"My father gave it to me, Sir," said Fleda, with a dignified
sobriety which amused the old gentleman.
"Your father! hum I understand. And couldn't your father
find a cap that fitted you without going back to the old-
fashioned days of King Alfred?"
"Yes, Sir; it was my grandmother's cap."
"I am afraid your grandmother's cap isn't all of her that's
come down to you," said he, tapping his snuff-box, and looking
at her with a curious twinkle in his eyes. "What do you call
yourself? Haven't you some variations of this tongue-twisting
appellative to serve for every day, and save trouble?"
"They call me Fleda," said the little girl, who could not help
laughing.
"Nothing better than that?"
Fleda remembered two prettier nicknames which had been her's;
but one had been given by dear lips long ago, and she was not
going to have it profaned by common use; and "Elfie" belonged
to Mr. Carleton. She would own to nothing but Fleda.
"Well, Miss Fleda," said the doctor, "are you going to
school?"
"No, Sir."
"You intend to live without such a vulgar thing as learning?"
"No, Sir. Hugh and I have our lessons at home."
"Teaching each other, I suppose?"
"O no, Sir," said Fleda, laughing; "Mme. Lascelles and Mr.
Schweppenhesser, and Signor Barytone come to teach us, besides
our music masters."
"Do you ever talk German with this Mr. What's-his-name, who
has just gone out with your cousin Marion!"
"I never talk to him at all, Sir."
"Don't you? Why not? Don't you like him?"
Fleda said, "Not particularly," and seemed to wish to let the
subject pass, but the doctor was amused, and pressed it.
"Why, why don't you like him?" said he; "I am sure he's a
fine-looking dashing gentleman; dresses as well as anybody,
and talks as much as most people why don't you like him?
Isn't he a handsome fellow eh?"
"I dare say he is, to many people," said Fleda.
"She said she didn't think there was any moral expression in
his face," said Hugh, by way of settling the matter.
"Moral expression!" cried the doctor, "moral expression! and
what if there isn't, you Elf! what if there isn't?"
"I shouldn't care what other kind of expression it had," said
Fleda, colouring a little.
Mr. Rossitur "pished" rather impatiently. The doctor glanced
at his niece, and changed the subject.
"Well, who teaches you English, Miss Fleda? you haven't told
me that yet."
"Oh, that we teach ourselves," said Fleda, smiling, as if it
was a very innocent question.
"Hum! you do! Pray how do you teach yourselves?"
"By reading, Sir."
"Reading! And what do you read? what have you read in the last
twelve months, now?"
"I don't think I could remember all exactly," said Fleda.
"But you have got a list of them all," said Hugh, who chanced
to have been looking over said list a day or two before, and
felt quite proud of it.
"Let's have it, let's have it," said the doctor. And Mrs.
Rossitur, laughing, said, "Let's have it;" and even her
husband commanded Hugh to go and fetch it; so poor Fleda,
though not a little unwilling, was obliged to let the list be
forthcoming. Hugh brought it, in a neat little book covered
with pink blotting paper.
"Now for it!" said the doctor; "let us see what this English
amounts to. Can you stand fire, Elfleda?"
" 'Jan. 1. Robinson Crusoe.' * [* A true list made by a child
of that age.]
"Hum that sounds reasonable, at all events."
"I had it for a New Year's present," remarked Fleda, who stood
by with downcast eyes, like a person undergoing an
examination.
" 'Jan. 2. Histoire de France.'
"What History of France is this?"
Fleda hesitated, and then said it was by Lacretelle.
"Lacretelle? what? of the Revolution?"
"No, Sir; it is before that; it is in five or six large
volumes."
"What, Louis XV.'s time," said the doctor, muttering to
himself.
" 'Jan. 27. 2 ditto, ditto.'
" 'Two' means the second volume, I suppose?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Hum if you were a mouse, you would gnaw through the wall in
time, at that rate. This is in the original?"
"Yes Sir."
" 'Feb. 3. Paris. L. E. K.'
"What do these hieroglyphics mean?"
"That stands for the 'Library of Entertaining Knowledge,' "
said Fleda.
"But how is this? do you go hop, skip, and jump through these
books, or read a little, and then throw them away'? Here it is
only seven days since you began the second volume of
Lacretelle not time enough to get through it."
"Oh no, Sir," said Fleda, smiling: "I like to have several
books that I am reading in at once; I mean at the same time,
you know; and then if I am not in the mood of one I take up
another."
"She reads them all through," said Hugh, "always, though she
reads them very quick."
"Hum I understand," said the old doctor, with a humorous
expression, going on with the list.
" 'March 3. 3 Hist. de France.'
"But you finish one of these volumes, I suppose, before you
begin another; or do you dip into different parts of the same
work at once?"
"Oh no, Sir; of course not!"
" 'Mar. 5. Modern Egyptians. L. E. K. Ap. 13.'
"What are these dates on the right, as well as on the left?"
"Those on the right show when I finished the volume."
"Well, I wonder what you were cut out for!" said the doctor.
"A Quaker! you aren't a Quaker, are you?"
"No, Sir," said Fleda, laughing.
"You look like it," said he.
" 'Feb. 24. Five Penny Magazines, finished Mar. 4.'
"They are in paper numbers, you know, Sir."
" 'April 4. 4 Hist. de. F.'
"Let us see the third volume was finished, March 29 I
declare you keep it up pretty well."
" 'Ap. 19. Incidents of Travel.'
"Whose is that?"
"It is by Mr. Stephens."
"How did you like it?"
"Oh, very much, indeed."
"Ay, I see you did; you finished it by the first of May. 'Tour
to the Hebrides' what, Johnson's?"
"Yes Sir."
"Read it all fairly through?"
"Yes, Sir; certainly."
He smiled, and went on.
" 'May 12. Peter Simple.'"
There was quite a shout at the heterogeneous character of
Fleda's reading, which she, not knowing exactly what to make
of it, heard rather abashed.
" 'Peter Simple!' " said the doctor, settling himself to go on
with his list; "well, let us see. 'World without Souls.' Why,
you Elf! read in two days."
"It is very short, you know, Sir."
"What did you think of it?"
"I liked parts of it very much."
He went on, still smiling.
" 'June 15. Goldsmith's Animated Nature.'
" 'June I8. 1 Life of Washington.'
"What Life of Washington?"
"Marshall's."
"Hum. 'July 9. 2 Goldsmith's An. Na.' As I live, begun the
very day the first volume was finished! Did you read the whole
of that?"
"Oh yes, Sir. I liked that book very much."
" 'July 12. 5 Hist. de France.'
"Two histories on hand at once! Out of all rule, Miss Fleda!
We must look after you."
"Yes Sir; sometimes I wanted to read one, and sometimes I
wanted to read the other."
"And you always do what you want to do, I suppose?"
"I think the reading does me more good in that way."
" 'July 15. Paley's Natural Theology!' "
There was another shout. Poor Fleda's eyes filled with tears.
"What in the world put that book into your head, or before
your eyes?" said the doctor.
"I don't know, Sir I thought I should like to read it," said
Fleda, drooping her eyelids, that the bright drops under them
might not be seen.
"And finished in eleven days, as I live!" said the doctor,
wagging his head. " 'July 19. 3 Goldsmith's A. N.'
" 'Aug. 6. 4 Do. Do.' "
"That is one of Fleda's favourite books," put in Hugh.
"So it seems. '6 Hist. de France.' What does this little
cross mean?"
"That shows when the book is finished," said Fleda, looking on
the page "the last volume, I mean."
" 'Retrospect of Western Travel' 'Goldsmith's A. N., last
vol.' 'Mémoires de Sully' in the French ?"
"Yes, Sir."
" 'Life of Newton' What's this? 'Sep. 8. 1 Fairy Queen!'
not Spenser's?"
"Yes, Sir, I believe so the Fairy Queen, in five volumes."
The doctor looked up comically at his niece and her husband,
who were both sitting or standing close by.
" 'Sep. 10. Paolo e Virginia' in what language?"
"Italian, Sir; I was just beginning, and I haven't finished it
yet."
" 'Sep. 16. Milner's Church History!' What the deuce! 'Vol.
2. Fairy Queen.' Why, this must have been a favourite book,
too."
"That's one of the books Fleda loves best," said Hugh; "she
went through that very fast."
"Over it, you mean, I reckon; how much did you skip, Fleda?"
"I didn't skip at all," said Fleda; "I read every word of it."
" ' Sep. 20. 2 Mém. de Sully.' Well, you're an industrious
mouse, I'll say that for you. What's this? 'Don Quixote!'
'Life of Howard.' 'Nov. 17. 3 Fairy Queen.' 'Nov. 29. 4
Fairy Queen.' 'Dec. 8. 1 Goldsmith's England.' Well, if
this list of books is a fair exhibit of your taste and
capacity, you have a most happily proportioned set of
intellectuals. Let us see history, fun, facts, nature,
theology, poetry and divinity! upon my soul! and poetry
and history the leading features! a little fun as much as
you could lay your hand on, I'll warrant, by that pinch in the
corner of your eye. And here, the eleventh of December, you
finished the Fairy Queen; and ever since, I suppose, you have
been imagining yourself the 'faire Una,' with Hugh standing
for Prince Arthur or the Red-cross Knight haven't you?"
"No, Sir. I didn't imagine anything about it."
"Don't tell me. What did you read it for?"
"Only because I liked it, Sir. I liked it better than any
other book I read last year."
"You did! Well, the year ends, I see, with another volume of
Sully. I wont enter upon this year's list. Pray, how much of
all these volumes do you suppose you remember? I'll try and
find out next time I come to see you. I can give a guess, if
you study with that little pug in your lap."
"He is not a pug!" said Fleda, in whose arms King was lying
luxuriously "and he never gets into my lap, besides."
"Don't he! Why not?"
"Because I don't like it, Sir. I don't like to see dogs in
laps."
"But all the ladies in the land do it, you little Saxon! it is
universally considered a mark of distinction."
"I can't help what all the ladies in the land do," said Fleda.
"That wont alter my liking; and I don't think a lady's lap is
a place for a dog."
"I wish you were my daughter!' said the old doctor, shaking
his head at her with a comic fierce expression of countenance,
which Fleda perfectly understood and laughed at accordingly.
Then as the two children with the dog went off into the other
room, he said, turning to his niece and Mr. Rossitur
"If that girl ever takes a wrong turn with the bit in her
teeth, you'll be puzzled to hold her. What stuff will you make
the reins of?"
"I don't think she ever will take a wrong turn," said Mr.
Rossitur.
"A look is enough to manage her, if she did," said his wife. "
Hugh is not more gentle."
"I should be inclined rather to fear her not having stability
of character enough," said Mr. Rossitur. "She is so very meek
and yielding, I almost doubt whether anything would give her
courage to take ground of her own, and keep it."
"Hum well, well!" said the old doctor, walking off after the
children. "Prince Arthur, will you bring this damsel up to my
den some of these days? the 'faire Una' is safe from the
wild beasts, you know; and I'll show her books enough to
build herself a house with, if she likes."
The acceptance of this invitation led to some of the
pleasantest hours of Fleda's city life. The visits to the
great library became very frequent. Dr. Gregory and the
children were little while in growing fond of each other; he
loved to see them, and taught them to come at such times as
the library was free of visitors and his hands of engagements.
Then he delighted himself with giving them pleasure,
especially Fleda, whose quick curiosity and intelligence were
a constant amusement to him. He would establish the children
in some corner of the large apartments, out of the way behind
a screen of books and tables; and there, shut out from the
world, they would enjoy a kind of fairyland pleasure over some
volume or set of engravings that they could not see at home.
Hours and hours were spent so. Fleda would stand clasping her
hands before Audubon, or rapt over a finely illustrated book
of travels, or going through and through, with Hugh, the works
of the best masters of the pencil and the graver. The doctor
found he could trust them, and then all the treasures of the
library were at their disposal. Very often he put chosen
pieces of reading into their hands; and it was pleasantest of
all when he was not busy and came and sat down with them; for
with all his odd manner he was extremely kind, and could and
did put them in the way to profit greatly by their
opportunities. The doctor and the children had nice times
there together.
They lasted for many months, and grew more and more worth. Mr.
Schwiden carried off Marion, as Fleda had foreseen he would,
before the end of spring; and after she was gone, something
like the old pleasant Paris life was taken up again. They had
no more company now than was agreeable, and it was picked not
to suit Marion's taste, but her father's a very different
matter. Fleda and Hugh were not forbidden the dinner-table,
and so had the good of hearing much useful conversation, from
which the former, according to custom, made her steady,
precious gleanings. The pleasant evenings in the family were
still better enjoyed than they used to be. Fleda was older;
and the snug, handsome American house had a home-feeling to
her that the wide Parisian saloons never knew. She had become
bound to her uncle and aunt by all but the ties of blood;
nobody in the house ever remembered that she was not born
their daughter; except, indeed, Fleda herself, who remembered
everything, and with whom the forming of any new affections or
relations somehow never blotted out or even faded the register
of the old. It lived in all its brightness; the writing of
past loves and friendships was as plain as ever in her heart;
and often, often the eye and the kiss of memory fell upon it.
In the secret of her heart's core; for still, as at the first,
no one had a suspicion of the movings of thought that were
beneath that childish brow. No one guessed how clear a
judgment weighed and decided upon many things. No one dreamed,
amid their busy, bustling, thoughtless life, how often, in the
street, in her bed, in company and alone, her mother's last
prayer was in Fleda's heart; well cherished; never forgotten.
Her education and Hugh's meanwhile went on after the old
fashion. If Mr. Rossitur had more time, he seemed to have no
more thought for the matter; and Mrs. Rossitur, fine-natured
as she was, had never been trained to self-exertion, and, of
course, was entirely out of the way of training others. Her
children were pieces of perfection, and needed no oversight;
her house was a piece of perfection too. If either had not
been, Mrs. Rossitur would have been utterly at a loss how to
mend matters, except in the latter instance, by getting a
new housekeeper; and as Mrs. Renney, the good woman who held
that station, was in everybody's opinion another treasure,
Mrs. Rossitur's mind was uncrossed by the shadow of such a
dilemma. With Mrs. Renney, as with every one else, Fleda was
held in highest regard always welcome to her premises, and
to those mysteries of her trade which were sacred from other
intrusion. Fleda's natural inquisitiveness carried her often
to the housekeeper's room, and made her there the same curious
and careful observer that she had been in the library or at
the Louvre.
"Come," said Hugh, one day when he had sought and found her in
Mrs. Renney's precincts "come away, Fleda! What do you want
to stand here and see Mrs. Renney roll butter and sugar for?"
"My dear Mr. Rossitur," said Fleda, "you don't understand
quelquechoses. How do you know but I may have to get my living
by making them, some day?"
"By making what?" said Hugh.
"Quelquechoses Anglice, kickshaws alias, sweet trifles,
denominated merrings."
"Pshaw, Fleda!"
"Miss. Fleda is more likely to get her living by eating them,
Mr. Hugh, isn't she?" said the housekeeper.
"I hope to decline both lines of life," said Fleda,
laughingly, as she followed Hugh out of the room. But her
chance remark had grazed the truth sufficiently near.
Those years in New York were a happy time for little Fleda a
time when mind and body flourished under the sun of
prosperity. Luxury did not spoil her; and any one that saw her
in the soft furs of her winter wrappings, would have said that
delicate cheek and frame were never made to know the
unkindliness of harsher things.