" 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood,
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;
On the beech's pride, and the oak's brown side,
Lord Richard's axe is ringing."
LADY OF THE LAKE.
Philetus came, and was inducted into office and the little
room immediately; and Fleda felt herself eased of a burden.
Barby reported him stout and willing, and he proved it by what
seemed a perverted inclination for bearing the most enormous
logs of wood he could find into the kitchen.
"He will hurt himself!" said Fleda.
"I'll protect him! against anything but buckwheat batter,"
said Barby, with a grave shake of her head. "Lazy folks takes
the most pains, I tell him. But it would be good to have some
more ground, Fleda, for Philetus says he don't care for no
dinner when he has griddles to breakfast, and there aint
anything much cheaper than that."
"Aunt Lucy, have you any change in the house?" said Fleda,
that same day.
"There isn't but three and sixpence," said Mrs. Rossitur, with
a pained, conscious look. "What is wanting, dear?"
"Only candles Barby has suddenly found we are out, and she
wont have any more made before to-morrow. Never mind."
"There is only that," repeated Mrs. Rossitur. "Hugh has a
little money due to him from last summer, but he hasn't been
able to get it yet. You may take that, dear."
"No," said Fleda, "we mustn't. We might want it more."
"We can sit in the dark for once, said Hugh, "and try to make
an uncommon display of what Dr. Quackenboss calls 'sociality!'
"
"No," said Fleda, who had stood busily thinking, "I am going
to send Philetus down to the post-office for the paper, and
when it comes, I am not to be balked of reading it; I've made
up my mind. We'll go right off into the woods and get some
pine knots, Hugh come! They make a lovely light. You get us
a couple of baskets and the hatchet; I wish we had two; and
I'll be ready in no time. That'll do!"
It is to be noticed, that Charlton had provided against any
future deficiency of news in his family. Fleda skipped away,
and in five minutes returned arrayed for the expedition, in
her usual out-of-door working trim, namely, an old dark merino
cloak, almost black, the effect of which was continued by the
edge of an old dark mousseline below, and rendered decidedly
striking by the contrast of a large whitish yarn shawl worn
over it; the whole crowned with a little close-fitting hood
made of some old silver-grey silk, shaped tight to the head,
without any bow or furbelow to break the outline. But such a
face within side of it! She came almost dancing into the room.
"This is Miss Ringgan! as she appeared when she was going to
see the pine-trees. Hugh, don't you wish you had a picture of
me?"
"I have got a tolerable picture of you, somewhere," said Hugh.
"This is somebody very different from the Miss Ringgan that
went to see Mrs. Evelyn, I can tell you," Fleda went on,
gaily. "Do you know, aunt Lucy, I have made up my mind that my
visit to New York was a dream, and the dream is nicely folded
away with my silk dresses. Now, I must go tell that precious
Philetus about the post-office; I am so comforted, aunt Lucy,
whenever I see that fellow staggering into the house under a
great log of wood! I have not heard anything in a long time so
pleasant as the ringing strokes of his axe in the yard. Isn't
life made up of little things?"
"Why don't you put a better pair of shoes on?"
"Can't afford it, Mrs. Rossitur. You are extravagant."
"Go and put on my India-rubbers."
"No, Ma'am the rocks would cut them to pieces. I have
brought my mind down to my shoes."
"It isn't safe, Fleda; you might see somebody."
"Well, Ma'am! But I tell you I am not going to see anybody but
the chick-a-dees and the snow-birds, and there is great
simplicity of manners prevailing among them."
The shoes were changed, and Hugh and Fleda set forth,
lingering a while, however, to give a new edge to their
hatchet Fleda turning the grindstone. They mounted then the
apple-orchard hill, and went a little distance along the edge
of the table-land, before striking off into the woods. They
had stood still a minute to look over the little white valley
to the snow-dressed woodland beyond.
"This is better than New York, Hugh," said Fleda.
"I am very glad to hear you say that," said another voice.
Fleda turned, and started a little to see Mr. Olmney at her
side, and congratulated herself instantly on her shoes.
"Mrs. Rossitur told me where you had gone, and gave me
permission to follow you, but I hardly hoped to overtake you
so soon."
"We stopped to sharpen our tools," said Fleda. "We are out on
a foraging expedition."
"Will you let me help you?"
"Certainly if you understand the business. Do you know a
pine-knot when you see it?"
He laughed, and shook his head, but avowed a wish to learn.
"Well, it would be a charity to teach you anything wholesome,"
said Fleda; "for I heard one of Mr. Olmney's friends lately
saying that he looked like a person who was in danger of
committing suicide."
"Suicide! One of my friends!" he exclaimed, in the utmost
astonishment.
"Yes," said Fleda, laughing; "and there is nothing like the
open air for clearing away vapours."
"You cannot have known that by experience," said he, looking
at her.
Fleda shook her head, and, advising him to take nothing for
granted, set off into the woods.
They were in a beautiful state. A light snow, but an inch or
two deep, had fallen the night before; the air had been
perfectly still during the day; and though the sun was out,
bright and mild, it had done little but glitter on the earth's
white capping. The light dry flakes of snow had not stirred
from their first resting-place. The long branches of the large
pines were just tipped with snow at the ends; on the smaller
evergreens every leaf and tuft had its separate crest. Stones
and rocks were smoothly rounded over, little shrubs and sprays
that lay along the ground were all doubled in white; and the
hemlock branches, bending with their feathery burden, stooped
to the foreheads of the party, and gave them the freshest of
salutations as they brushed by. The whole wood-scene was
particularly fair and graceful. A light veil of purity, no
more, thrown over the wilderness of stones, and stumps, and
bare ground like the blessing of charity, covering all
roughnesses and unsightlinesses like the innocent, unsullied
nature that places its light shield between the eye and
whatever is unequal, unkindly, and unlovely in the world.
"What do you think of this for a misanthropical man, Mr.
Olmney? there's a better tonic to be found in the woods than
in any remedies of man's devising."
"Better than books?" said he.
"Certainly! No comparison."
"I have to learn that yet."
"So I suppose," said Fleda. "The very danger to be
apprehended, as I hear, Sir, is from your running a tilt into
some of those thick folios of yours, head foremost. There's no
pitch there, Hugh you may leave it alone. We must go on
there are more yellow pines higher up."
"But who could give such a strange character of me to you?"
said Mr. Olmney.
"I am sure your wisdom would not advise me to tell you that,
Sir. You will find nothing there, Mr. Olmney."
They went gaily on, careering about in all directions, and
bearing down upon every promising stump or dead pine-tree they
saw in the distance. Hugh and Mr. Olmney took turns in the
labour of hewing out the fat pine knots, and splitting down
the old stumps to get at the pitchy heart of the wood; and the
baskets began to grow heavy. The whole party were in excellent
spirits, and as happy as the birds that filled the woods, and
whose cheery "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" was heard whenever they
paused to rest, and let the hatchet be still.
"How one sees everything in the colour of one's own
spectacles!" said Fleda.
"May I ask what colour yours are to-day?" said Mr. Olmney.
"Rose, I think," said Hugh.
"No," said Fleda, "they are better than that they are no
worse colour than the snow's own they show me everything
just as it is. It could not be lovelier."
"Then we may conclude, may we not," said Mr. Olmney, "that you
are not sorry to find yourself in Queechy again?"
"I am not sorry to find myself in the woods again. That is not
pitch, Mr. Olmney."
"It has the same colour and weight."
"No, it is only wet see this, and smell of it do you see
the difference? Isn't it pleasant?"
"Everything is pleasant to-day," said he, smiling.
"I shall report you a cure. Come, I want to go a little higher
and show you a view. Leave that, Hugh we have got enough."
But Hugh chose to finish an obstinate stump, and his
companions went on without him. It was not very far up the
mountain, and they came to a fine look-out point the same
where Fleda and Mr. Carleton had paused long before on their
quest after nuts. The wide spread of country was a white waste
now; the delicate beauties of the snow were lost in the far
view; and the distant Catskill showed wintrily against the
fair blue sky. The air was gentle enough to invite them to
stand still, after the exercise they had taken; and as they
both looked in silence, Mr. Olmney observed that his
companion's face settled into a gravity rather at variance
with the expression it had worn.
"I should hardly think," said he, softly, "that you were
looking through white spectacles, if you had not told us so."
"Oh a shade may come over what one is looking at, you know,"
said Fleda. But seeing that he still watched her inquiringly,
she added
"I do not think a very wide landscape is ever gay in its
effect upon the mind do you?"
"Perhaps I do not know," said he, his eyes turning to it
again, as if to try what the effect was.
"My thoughts had gone back," said Fleda, "to a time a good
while ago, when I was a child, and stood here in summer
weather and I was thinking that the change in the landscape
is something like that which years make in the mind."
"But you have not, for a long time at least, known any very
acute sorrow?"
"No," said Fleda, "but that is not necessary. There is a
gentle kind of discipline which does its work, I think, more
surely."
"Thank God for _gentle_ discipline!" said Mr. Olmney; "if you do
not know what those griefs are that break down mind and body
together."
"I am not unthankful, I hope, for anything," said Fleda,
gently; "but I have been apt to think that, after a crushing
sorrow, the mind may rise up again, but that a long-continued
though much lesser pressure in time breaks the spring."
He looked at her again with a mixture of incredulous and
tender interest, but her face did not belie her words, strange
as they sounded from so young and in general so bright-seeming
a creature.
"There shall no evil happen to the just," he said, presently,
and with great sympathy.
Fleda flashed a look of gratitude at him it was no more, for
she felt her eyes watering, and turned them away.
"You have not, I trust, heard any bad news?"
"No, Sir not at all."
"I beg pardon for asking, but Mrs. Rossitur seemed to be in
less good spirits than usual." He had some reason to say so,
having found her in a violent fit of weeping.
"You do not need to be told," he went on, "of the need there
is that a cloud should now and then come over this lower scene
the danger that, if it did not, our eyes would look nowhere
else?"
There is something very touching in hearing a kind voice say
what one has often struggled to say to one's-self.
"I know it, Sir," said Fleda, her words a little choked "and
one may not wish the cloud away but it does not the less
cast a shade upon the face. I guess Hugh has worked his way
into the middle of that stump by this time, Mr. Olmney."
They rejoined him; and the baskets being now sufficiently
heavy, and arms pretty well tired, they left the further
riches of the pine woods unexplored, and walked sagely
homewards. At the brow of the table-land, Mr. Olmney left them
to take a shorter cut to the high road, having a visit to make
which the shortening day warned him not to defer.
"Put down your basket, and rest a minute, Hugh," said Fleda.
"I had a world of things to talk to you about, and this
blessed man has driven them all out of my head."
"But you are not sorry he came along with us?"
"O no. We had a very good time. How lovely it is, Hugh! Look
at the snow down there without a track; and the woods have
been dressed by the fairies. Oh, look how the sun is glinting
on the west side of that hillock!"
"It is twice as bright since you have come home," said Hugh.
"The snow is too beautiful to-day. Oh, I was right! One may
grow morbid over books, but I defy anybody, in the company of
those chick-a-dees. I should think it would be hard to keep
quite sound in the city."
"You are glad to be here again, aren't you?" said Hugh.
"Very! O, Hugh! it is better to be poor, and have one's feet
on these hills, than to be rich, and shut up to brick walls!"
"It is best as it is," said Hugh, quietly.
"Once," Fleda went on "one fair day, when I was out driving
in New York, it did come over me with a kind of pang, how
pleasant it would be to have plenty of money again, and be at
ease; and then, as I was looking off over that pretty north
river to the other shore, I bethought me 'A little that a
righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.'
"
Hugh did not answer, for the face she turned to him, in its
half-tearful, half-bright submission, took away his speech.
"Why, you cannot have enjoyed yourself as much as we thought,
Fleda, if you dislike the city so much."
"Yes, I did. Oh, I enjoyed a great many things. I enjoyed
being with the Evelyns. You don't know how much they made of
me every one of them father and mother, and all the three
daughters and uncle Orrin. I have been well petted, I can
tell you, since I have been gone."
"I am glad they showed so much discrimination," said Hugh;
"they would be puzzled to make too much of you."
"I must have been in a remarkably discriminating society,"
said Fleda, "for everybody was very kind."
"How do you like the Evelyns, on a nearer view?"
"Very much, indeed; and I believe they really love me. Nothing
could possibly be kinder, in all ways of showing kindness. I
shall never forget it."
"Who were you driving with that day?" said Hugh.
"Mr. Thorn."
"Did you see much of him?"
"Quite as much as I wished. Hugh, I took your advice."
"About what?" said Hugh.
"I carried down some of my scribblings, and sent them to a
magazine."
"Did you!" said Hugh, looking delighted. "And will they
publish them?"
"I don't know," said Fleda; "that's another matter. I sent
them, or uncle Orrin did, when I first went down; and I have
heard nothing of them yet."
"You showed them to uncle Orrin?"
"Couldn't help it, you know. I had to."
"And what did he say to them?"
"Come! I'm not going to be cross-questioned," said Fleda,
laughing. "He did not prevent my sending them."
"And if they take them, do you expect they will give anything
for them the magazine people?"
"I am sure, if they don't, they shall have no more; that is my
only possible inducement to let them be printed. For my own
pleasure, I would far rather not."
"Did you sign with your own name?"
"My own name! Yes, and desired it to be printed in large
capitals. What are you thinking of? No! I hope you'll
forgive me, but I signed myself what our friend the doctor
calls 'Yugh.' "
"I'll forgive you, if you'll do one thing for me."
"What?"
"Show me all you have in your portfolio Do, Fleda! to-
night, by the light of the pitch-pine knots. Why shouldn't you
give me that pleasure? And, besides, you know Molière had an
old woman?"
"Well," said Fleda, with a face that to Hugh was extremely
satisfactory, "we'll see I suppose you might as well read my
productions in manuscript as in print. But they are in a
terribly scratchy condition they go sometimes for weeks in
my head before I find time to put them down you may guess,
polishing is pretty well out of the question. Suppose we try
to get home with these baskets."
Which they did.
"Has Philetus got home?" was Fleda's first question.
"No," said Mrs. Rossitur, "but Dr. Quackenboss has been here,
and brought the paper; he was at the post-office this morning,
he says. Did you see Mr. Olmney?"
"Yes, Ma'am, and I feel he has saved me from a lame arm
those pine-knots are so heavy."
"He is a lovely young man!" said Mrs. Rossitur, with uncommon
emphasis.
"I should have been blind to the fact, aunt Lucy, if you had
not made me change my shoes. At present, no disparagement to
him, I feel as if a cup of tea would be rather more lovely
than anything else."
"He sat with me some time," said Mrs. Rossitur; "I was afraid
he would not overtake you."
Tea was ready, and only waiting for Mrs. Rossitur to come down
stairs, when Fleda, whose eye was carelessly running along the
columns of the paper, uttered a sudden shout, and covered her
face with it. Hugh looked up in astonishment, but Fleda was
beyond anything but exclamations, laughing and flushing to the
very roots of her hair.
"What is the matter, Fleda?"
"Why," said Fleda, "how comical! I was just looking over the
list of articles in the January number of the _Excelsior_"
"The _Excelsior!_" said Hugh.
"Yes the magazine I sent my things to I was running over
their advertisement here, where they give a special puff of
the publication in general, and of several things in
particular, and I saw here they speak of 'A tale of
thrilling interest, by Mrs. Eliza Lothbury, unsurpassed,' and
so forth, and so forth; 'another valuable communication from
Mr. Charleston, whose first acute and discriminating paper all
our leaders will remember; the beginning of a new tale from
the infallibly graceful pen of Miss Delia Lawriston: we are
sure it will be so and so; '_The Wind's Voices_,' _by our new
correspondent_, '_Hugh_,' _has a delicate sweetness that would do
no discredit to some of our most honoured names!_' What do you
think of that?"
What Hugh thought he did not say, but he looked delighted, and
came to read the grateful words for himself.
"I did not know but they had declined it utterly," said Fleda;
"it was so long since I had sent it, and they had taken no
notice of it; but it seems they kept it for the beginning of a
new volume."
" 'Would do no discredit to some of our most honoured names!'
" said Hugh. "Dear Fleda, I am very glad! But it is no more
than I expected."
"Expected!" said Fleda. "When you had not seen a line! Hush,
my dear Hugh, aren't you hungry?"
The tea, with this spice to their appetites, was wonderfully
relished; and Hugh and Fleda kept making despatches of secret
pleasure and sympathy to each other's eyes; though Fleda's
face, after the first flush had faded, was perhaps rather
quieter than usual. Hugh's was illuminated.
"Mr. Skillcorn is a smart man," said Barby, coming in with a
package; "he has made out to go two miles in two hours, and
get back again safe."
"More from the post-office!" exclaimed Fleda, pouncing upon
it. "O yes, there has been another mail. A letter for you,
aunt Lucy, from uncle Rolf. We'll forgive him, Barby and
here's a letter for me, from uncle Orrin, and yes the
_Excelsior_. Hugh, uncle Orrin said he would send it. Now for
those blessed pineknots. Aunt Lucy, you shall be honoured with
the one whole candle the house contains."
The table soon cleared away, the basket of fat fuel was
brought in; and one or two splinters being delicately
insinuated between the sticks on the fire, a very brilliant
illumination sprang out. Fleda sent a congratulatory look over
to Hugh on the other side of the fireplace, as she cosily
established herself on her little bench at one corner with her
letter: he had the magazine. Mrs. Rossitur between them at the
table, with her one candle, was already insensible to all
outward things.
And soon the other two were as delightfully absorbed. The
bright light of the fire shone upon three motionless and rapt
figures, and getting no greeting from them, went off and
danced on the old cupboard doors and paper-hangings, in a
kindly hearty joviality, that would have put any number of
stately wax candles out of countenance. There was no poverty
in the room that night. But the people were too busy to know
how cosy they were, till Fleda was ready to look up from her
note, and Hugh had gone twice carefully over the new poem
when there was a sudden giving out of the pine splinters. New
ones were supplied in eager haste and silence, and Hugh was
beginning "The Wind's Voices," for the third time, when a
soft-whispered "Hugh!" across the fire, made him look over to
Fleda's corner. She was holding up, with both hands, a five-
dollar bank note, and just showing him her eyes over it.
"What's that?" said Hugh, in an energetic whisper.
"I don't know!" said Fleda, shaking her head comically; "I am
told 'The Wind's Voices' have blown it here, but, privately, I
am afraid it is a windfall of another kind."
"What?" said Hugh, laughing.
"Uncle Orrin says it is the first-fruits of what I sent to the
_Excelsior_, and that more will come; but I do not feel at all
sure that it is entirely the growth of that soil."
"I dare say it is," said Hugh; "I am sure it is worth more
than that. Dear Fleda, I like it so much!"
Fleda gave him such a smile of grateful affection not at all
as if she deserved his praise, but as if it was very pleasant
to have.
"What put it into your head? anything in particular?"
"No nothing I was looking out of the window one day, and
seeing the willow-tree blow; and that looked over my shoulder;
as you know Hans Andersen says his stories did."
"It is just like you! exactly as it can be."
"Things put themselves in my head," said Fleda, tucking
another splinter into the fire. "Isn't this better than a
chandelier?"
"Ten times!"
"And so much pleasanter for having got it ourselves. What a
nice time we had, Hugh!"
"Very. Now for the portfolio, Fleda come mother is fast;
she wont see or hear anything. What does father say, mother?"
In answer to this they had the letter read, which, indeed,
contained nothing remarkable beyond its strong expressions of
affection to each one of the little family a cordial which
Mrs. Rossitur drank and grew strong upon in the very act of
reading. It is pity the medicine of kind words is not more
used in the world it has so much power. Then, having folded
up her treasure and talked a little while about it, Mrs.
Rossitur caught up the magazine like a person who had been
famished in that kind; and soon she and it and her tallow
candle formed a trio apart from all the world again. Fleda and
Hugh were safe to pass most mysterious-looking little papers
from hand to hand right before her, though they had the care
to read them behind newspapers, and exchanges of thought and
feeling went on more swiftly still, and softly, across the
fire. Looks, and smiles, and whispers, and tears too, under
cover of a _Tribune_ and an _Express_. And the blaze would die
down just when Hugh had got to the last verse of something,
and then while impatiently waiting for the new pine splinters
to catch, he would tell Fleda how much he liked it, or how
beautiful he thought it, and whisper inquiries and critical
questions; till the fire reached the fat vein, and leaped up
in defiant emulation of gas-lights unknown, and then he would
fall to again with renewed gusto. And Fleda hunted out in her
portfolio what bits to give him first, and bade him, as she
gave them, remember this and understand that, which was
necessary to be borne in mind in the reading. And through all
the brightening and fading blaze, and all the whispering,
congratulating, explaining, and rejoicing going on at her
side, Mrs. Rossitur and her tallow candle were devoted to each
other, happily and engrossingly. At last, however, she flung
the magazine from her, and turning from the table sat looking
into the fire with a rather uncommonly careful and unsatisfied
brow.
"What did you think of the second piece of poetry there,
mother?" said Hugh "that ballad? 'The Wind's Voices,' it
is called."
" 'The Wind's Voices?' I don't know I didn't read it, I
believe."
"Why, mother! I liked it very much. Do read it read it
aloud."
Mrs. Rossitur took up the magazine again abstractedly, and
read
" 'Mamma, what makes your face so sad?
The sound of the wind makes me feel glad;
But whenever it blows, as grave you look
As if you were reading a sorrowful book.'
" 'A sorrowful book I am reading, dear
A book of weeping, and pain, and fear
A book deep printed on my heart,
Which I cannot read but the tears will start.
" 'That breeze to my ear was soft and mild,
Just so, when I was a little child;
But now I hear in its freshening breath
The voices of those that sleep in death.'
" 'Mamma,' said the child, with shaded brow,
What is this book you are reading now?
And why do you read what makes you cry?'
'My child, it comes up before my eye;
" ' 'Tis the memory, love, of a far-off day,
When my life's best friend was taken away;
Of the weeks and months that my eyes were dim,
Watching for tidings watching for him.
" 'Many a year has come and pass'd
Since a ship sailed over the ocean fast,
Bound for a port on England's shore
She sail'd but was never heard of more.'
" 'Mamma' and she closer press'd her side
'Was that the time when my father died?
Is it his ship you think you see?
Dearest mamma wont you speak to me?'
"The lady paused, but then calmly said
Yes, Lucy the sea was his dying bed!
And now, whenever I hear the blast,
I think again of that storm long past.
" 'The winds' fierce howlings hurt not me,
But I think how they beat on the pathless sea
Of the breaking mast of the parting rope
Of the anxious strife, and the failing hope.'
" 'Mamma,' said the child, with streaming eyes,
My father has gone above the skies;
And you tell me this world is mean and base
Compared with heaven that blessed place.'
" 'My daughter, I know I believe it all
I would not his spirit to earth recal.
The bless'd one he his storm was brief
Mine, a long tempest of tears and grief.
" 'I have you, my darling I should not sigh
I have one star more in my cloudy sky
The hope that we both shall join him there,
In that perfect rest from weeping and care.' "
"Well, mother; how do you like it?" said Hugh, whose eyes gave
tender witness to his liking for it.
"It is pretty" said Mrs. Rossitur.
Hugh exclaimed, and Fleda, laughing, took it out of her hand.
"Why, mother," said Hugh "it is Fleda's!"
"Fleda's!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur, snatching the magazine
again. "My dear child, I was not thinking in the least of what
I was reading. Fleda's!"
She read it over anew, with swimming eyes this time, and then
clasped Fleda in her arms, and gave her, not words, but the
better reward of kisses and tears. They remained so a long
time, even till Hugh left them; and then Fleda, released from
her aunt's embrace, still crouched by her side with one arm in
her lap.
They both sat thoughtfully looking into the fire till it had
burnt itself out, and nothing but a glowing bed of coals
remained.
"That is an excellent young man," said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Who?"
"Mr. Olmney. He sat with me some time after you had gone."
"So you said before," said Fleda, wondering at the troubled
expression of her aunt's face.
"He made me wish," said Mrs. Rossitur, hesitating, "that I
could be something different from what I am I believe I
should be a great deal happier."
The last word was hardly spoken. Fleda rose to her knees, and
putting both arms about her aunt, pressed face to face, with a
clinging sympathy that told how very near her spirit was,
while tears from the eyes of both fell without measure.
"Dear aunt Lucy _dear_ aunt Lucy I wish you would I am
sure you would be a great deal happier "
But the mixture of feelings was too much for Fleda; her head
sank lower on her aunt's bosom, and she wept aloud.
"But I don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Rossitur, as
well as she could speak "I am as ignorant as a child!"
"Dear aunty! that is nothing God will teach you, if you ask
him he has promised. Oh, ask him, aunt Lucy! I know you
would be happier. I know it is better a million times to
be a child of God, than to have everything in the world. If
they only brought us that, I would be very glad of all our
troubles indeed I would."
"But I don't think I ever did anything right in my life," said
poor Mrs. Rossitur.
"Dear aunt Lucy!" said Fleda, straining her closer, and with
her very heart gushing out at these words "_dear_ aunty,
Christ came for just such sinners for just such as you and
I."
"_You_," said Mrs. Rossitur, but speech failed utterly, and with
a muttered prayer that Fleda would help her she sunk her head
upon her shoulder, and sobbed herself into quietness, or into
exhaustion. The glow of the fire-light faded away till only a
faint sparkle was left in the chimney.
There was not another word spoken, but when they rose up, with
such kisses as gave and took unuttered affection, counsel, and
sympathy, they bade each other good-night.
Fleda went to her window, for the moon rode high, and her
childish habit had never been forgotten. But surely the face
that looked out that night was as the face of an angel. In all
the pouring moonbeams that filled the air, she could see
nothing but the flood of God's goodness on a dark world. And
her heart that night had nothing but an unbounded and
unqualified thanksgiving for all the "gentle discipline" they
had felt for every sorrow, and weariness, and
disappointment; except, besides, the prayer, almost too deep
to be put into words, that its due and hoped-for fruit might
be brought forth unto perfection.