"Hark: I hear the sound of coaches,
The hour of attack approaches."
GAY.
Mrs. Pritchard had arrayed Fleda in the white muslin, with an
amount of satisfaction and admiration that all the lines of
her face were insufficient to express.
"Now," she said, "you must just run down and let the doctor
see you, afore you take the shine off, or he wont be able to
look at anything else when you get to the place."
"That would be unfortunate!" said Fleda, and she ran down,
laughing, into the room where the doctor was waiting for her;
but her astonished eyes encountering the figure of Dr.
Quackenboss, she stopped short, with an air that no woman of
the world could have bettered. The physician of Queechy, on
his part, was at least equally taken aback.
"Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.
"I I was going to say, Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, with
a most unaffected obeisance, "but a I am afraid, Sir, it
is a deceptive influence!"
"I hope not," said Dr. Gregory, smiling; one corner of his
mouth for his guest and the other for his niece. "Real enough
to do real execution, or I am mistaken, Sir."
"Upon my word, Sir," said Dr. Quackenboss, bowing again, "I
hope a Miss Ringgan will remember the acts of her
executive power at home, and return in time to prevent an
unfortunate termination!"
Dr. Gregory laughed heartily now, while Fleda's cheeks
relieved her dress to admiration.
"Who will complain of her if she don't?" said the doctor. "Who
will complain of her if she don't?"
But Fleda put in her question.
"How are you all at home, Dr. Quackenboss?"
"All Queechy, Sir," answered the doctor, politely, on the
principle of 'first come, first served' "and individuals I
shouldn't like to specify"
"How are you all in Queechy, Dr. Quackenboss?" said Fleda.
"I have the pleasure to say we are coming along as usual,"
replied the doctor, who seemed to have lost his power of
standing up straight. "My sister Flora enjoys but poor health
lately they are all holding their heads up at your house.
Mr. Rossitur has come home."
"Uncle Rolf! Has he?" exclaimed Fleda, the colour of joy quite
supplanting the other. "Oh, I'm very glad!"
"Yes," said the doctor "he's been home now I guess, going
on four days."
"I am very glad!" repeated Fleda. "But wont you come and see
me another time, Dr. Quackenboss? I am obliged to go out."
The doctor professed his great willingness, adding that he had
only come down to the city to do two or three chores, and
thought she might perhaps like to take the opportunity which
would afford him such very great gratification.
"No, indeed, faire Una," said Dr. Gregory, when they were on
their way to Mrs. Thorn's "they've got your uncle at home
now, and we've got you; and I mean to keep you till I'm
satisfied. So you may bring home that eye that has been
squinting at Queechy ever since you have been here, and make
up your mind to enjoy yourself; I shan't let you go till you
do."
"I ought to enjoy myself, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, squeezing
his arm gratefully.
"See you do," said he.
The pleasant news from home had given Fleda's spirits the
needed spur, which the quick walk to Mrs. Thorn's did not take
off.
"Did you ever see Fleda look so well, Mamma?" said Florence,
as the former entered the drawing-room.
"That is the loveliest and best face in the room," said Mr.
Evelyn; "and she looks like herself to-night."
"There is a matchless simplicity about her," said a gentleman,
standing by.
"Her dress is becoming," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Why, where did you ever see her, Mr. Stackpole, except at our
house?" said Constance.
"At Mrs. Decatur's I have had that pleasure and once at
her uncle's."
"I didn't know you ever noticed ladies' faces, Mr. Stackpole,"
said Florence.
"How Mrs. Thorn does look at her!" said Constance, under her
breath. "It is too much."
It was almost too much for Fleda's equanimity, for the colour
began to come.
"And there goes Mr. Carleton!" said Constance. "I expect
momentarily to hear the company strike up, 'Sparkling and
Bright.' "
"They should have done that some time ago, Miss Constance,"
said the gentleman.
Which compliment, however, Constance received with hardly
disguised scorn, and turned her attention again to Mr.
Carleton.
"I trust I do not need presentation," said his voice and his
smile at once, as he presented himself to Fleda.
How little he needed it, the flash of feeling which met his
eyes said sufficiently well. But apparently the feeling was a
little too deep, for the colour mounted, and the eyes fell,
and the smile suddenly died on the lips. Mr. Thorn came up to
them, and releasing her hand, Mr. Carleton stepped back and
permitted him to lead her away.
"What do think of _that_ face?" said Constance, finding herself
a few moments after at his side.
" 'That' must define itself," said he, "or I can hardly give a
safe answer."
"What face? Why, I mean, of course, the one Mr. Thorn carried
off just now."
"You are her friend, Miss .Constance," he said, coolly. "May I
ask for your judgment upon it before I give mine?"
"Mine? why, I expected every minute that Mr. Thorn would make
the musicians play 'Sparkling and Bright,' and tell Miss
Ringgan that to save trouble he had directed them to express
what he was sure were the sentiments of the whole company in
one burst."
He smiled a little, but in a way that Constance could not
understand, and did not like.
"Those are common epithets," he said.
"Must I use uncommon?" said Constance, significantly.
"No; but these may say one thing or another."
"I have said one thing," said Constance; "and now you may say
the other."
"Pardon me you have said nothing. These epithets are
deserved by a great many faces, but on very different grounds;
and the praise is a different thing, accordingly."
"Well, what is the difference?" said Constance.
"On what do you think this lady's title to it rests?"
"On what? why, on that bewitching little air of the eyes and
mouth, I suppose."
"Bewitching is a very vague term," said he, smiling again,
more quietly. "But you have had an opportunity of knowing it
much better of late than I to which class of bright faces
would you refer this one? Where does the light come from?"
"I never studied faces in a class," said Constance, a little
scornfully. "Come from? a region of mist and clouds, I
should say, for it is sometimes pretty well covered up."
"There are some eyes whose sparkling is nothing more than the
play of light upon a bright bead of glass."
"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of
herself, after delaying as long as she dared.
"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of
outward circumstances, and passes away with them."
"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her
outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that
reflection would not utterly absorb."
She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions
were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be
gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was
upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and they were slowly sauntering down
the rooms too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished
for a trifle.
"There is the broad day-light of mere animal spirits," he went
on, seeming rather to be suggesting these things for her
consideration than eager to set forth any opinions of his own
"there is the sparkling of mischief, and the fire of hidden
passions there is the passing brilliance of wit, as
satisfactory and resting as these gaslights and there is now
and then the light of refined affections out of a heart
unspotted from the world, as pure and abiding as the stars,
and, like them, throwing its soft ray especially upon the
shadows of life."
"I have always understood," said Constance, "that cat's eyes
are brightest in the dark."
"They do not love the light, I believe," said Mr. Carleton,
calmly.
"Well," said Constance, not relishing the expression of her
companion's eye, which, from glowing, had suddenly be come
cool and bright "where would you put me, Mr. Carleton, among
all these illuminators of the social system?"
"You may put yourself where you please, Miss Constance," he
said, again turning upon her an eye so deep and full in its
meaning, that her own and her humour fell before it; for a
moment she looked most unlike the gay scene around her.
"Is not that the best brightness," he said speaking low, "that
will last forever? and is not that lightness of heart best
worth having which does not depend on circumstances, and will
find its perfection just when all other kinds of happiness
fail utterly?"
"I can't conceive," said Constance, presently rallying, or
trying to rally herself "what you and I have to do in a
place where people are enjoying themselves at this moment, Mr.
Carleton!"
He smiled at that, and led her out of it into the
conservatory, close to which they found themselves. It was a
large and fine one, terminating the suite of rooms in this
direction. Few people were there; but, at the far end stood a
group, among whom Fleda and Mr. Thorn were conspicuous. He was
busying himself in putting together a quantity of flowers for
her; and Mrs. Evelyn and old Mr. Thorn stood looking on; with
Mr. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole was an Englishman, of certainly
not very prepossessing exterior, but somewhat noted as an
author, and a good deal sought after in consequence. At
present he was engaged by Mrs. Evelyn. Mr. Carleton and
Constance sauntered up towards them, and paused at a little
distance to look at some curious plants.
"Don't try for that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman
was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb fuchsia
that hung high. "You are endangering sundry things besides
yourself."
"I have learned, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, as with much ado he
grasped the beautiful cluster, "that what we take the most
pains for is apt to be reckoned the best prize a truth I
should never think of putting into a lady's head if I believed
it possible that a single one of them was ignorant of its
practical value."
"I have this same rose in my garden at home," said Fleda.
"You are a great gardener, Miss Fleda, I hear," said the old
gentleman. "My son says you are an adept in it."
"I am very fond of it, Sir," said Fleda, answering him with an
entirely different face.
"I thought the delicacy of American ladies was beyond such a
masculine employment as gardening," said Mr. Stackpole, edging
away from Mrs. Evelyn.
"I guess this young lady is an exception to the rule," said
old Mr. Thorn.
"I guess she is an exception to most rules that you have got
in your note-book, Mr. Stackpole," said the younger man. "But
there is no guessing about the garden, for I have with my own
eyes seen these gentle hands at one end of a spade, and her
foot at the other a sight that, I declare, I don't know
whether I was most filled with astonishment or admiration."
"Yes," said Fleda, half laughing and colouring, "and he
ingenuously confessed in his surprise that he didn't know
whether politeness ought to oblige him to stop and shake
hands, or to pass by without seeing me; evidently showing that
he thought I was about something equivocal."
The laugh was now turned against Mr. Thorn, but he went on
cutting his geraniums with a grave face.
"Well," said he at length, "I think it is something of very
equivocal utility. Why should such gentle hands and feet spend
their strength in clod-breaking, when rough ones are at
command?"
There was nothing equivocal about Fleda's merriment this time.
"I have learned, Mr. Thorn, by sad experience, that the rough
hands break more than the clods. One day I set Philetus to
work among my flowers; and the first thing I knew, he had
pulled up a fine passion-flower which didn't make much show
above ground, and was displaying it to me with the grave
commentary, 'Well! that root did grow to a great haigth!' "
"Some mental clod-breaking to be done up there, isn't there?"
said Thorn, in a kind of aside. "I cannot express my
admiration at the idea of your dealing with those boors, as it
has been described to me."
"They do not deserve the name, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda. "They
are many of them most sensible and excellent people, and
friends that I value very highly."
"Ah! your goodness would make friends of everything."
"Not of boors, I hope," said Fleda, coolly. "Besides, what do
you mean by the name?"
"Anybody incapable of appreciating that of which you alone
should be unconscious," he said, softly.
Fleda stood impatiently tapping her flowers against her left
hand.
"I doubt their power of appreciation reaches a point that
would surprise you, Sir."
"It does indeed if I am mistaken in my supposition," he
said, with a glance which Fleda refused to acknowledge.
"What proportion, do you suppose," she went on, "of all these
roomfuls of people behind us without saying anything
uncharitable what proportion of them, if compelled to amuse
themselves for two hours at a bookcase, would pitch upon
Macaulay's Essays, or anything like them, to spend the time?"
"Hum really, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, "I should want to
brush up my Algebra considerably before I could hope to find
x, y, and z in such a confusion of the alphabet."
"Or extract the small sensible root of such a quantity of
light matter," said Mr. Stackpole.
"Will you bear with my vindication of my country friends?
Hugh and I sent for a carpenter to make some new arrangement
of shelves in a cupboard where we kept our books; he was one
of these boors, Mr. Thorn, in no respect above the rest. The
right stuff for his work was wanting, and while it was sent
for, he took up one of the volumes that were lying about, and
read perseveringly until the messenger returned. It was a
volume of Macaulay's Miscellanies; and afterwards he borrowed
the book of me."
"And you lent it to him?" said Constance.
"Most assuredly; and with a great deal of pleasure."
"And is this no more than a common instance, Miss Ringgan?"
said Mr. Carleton.
"No, I think not," said Fleda; the quick blood in her cheeks
again answering the familiar voice and old associations; "I
know several of the farmers' daughters around us that have
studied Latin and Greek; and philosophy is a common thing; and
I am sure there is more sense "
She suddenly checked herself, and her eye which had been
sparkling grew quiet.
"It is very absurd!" said Mr. Stackpole.
"Why, Sir?"
"Oh, these people have nothing to do with such things do
them nothing but harm!"
"May I ask again, what harm?" said Fleda, gently.
"Unfit them for the duties of their station, and make them
discontented with it."
"By making it pleasanter?"
"No, no not by making it pleasanter."
"By what then, Mr. Stackpole?" said Thorn, to draw him on, and
to draw her out, Fleda was sure.
"By lifting them out of it."
"And what objection to lifting them out of it?" said Thorn.
"You can't lift every body out of it," said the gentleman,
with a little irritation in his manner "that station must be
filled there must always be poor people."
"And what degree of poverty ought to debar a man from the
pleasures of education and a cultivated taste, such as he can
attain?"
"No, no, not that," said Mr. Stackpole; "but it all goes to
fill them with absurd notions about their place in society,
inconsistent with proper subordination."
Fleda looked at him, but shook her head slightly, and was
silent.
"Things are in very different order on our side the water,"
said Mr. Stackpole, hugging himself.
"Are they?" said Fleda.
"Yes we understand how to keep things in their places a
little better."
"I did not know," said Fleda, quietly, "that it was by _design_
of the rulers of England that so many of her lower class are
in the intellectual condition of our slaves."
"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "what do you say
to that, Sir?"
Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of
apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.
"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier,"
pursued Mr. Stackpole; "only serves to give them uppish and
dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."
"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all
are contented, because none can get on, and in a republic,
none are contented, because all can get on.' "
"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.
"That might do very well if the world were in a state of
perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent
and getting on. And the uppishness, I am afraid, is a national
fault, Sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.' "
"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan
has followed the example of her friends, the farmers'
daughters? or led them in it?"
"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda, colouring.
"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn,
who was leisurely pruning the prickles from the stem of a
rose.
"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the
birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me
afterwards gravely, that he was afraid I was studying too many
things at once! when I was innocent of all ornithology but
what my eyes and ears had picked up in the wood, except some
childish reminiscences of Audubon."
"That is just the right sort of learning for a lady," said Mr.
Stackpole, smiling at her, however; "women have nothing to do
with books."
"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.
"Nothing, Sir; it is one of those positions that are
unanswerable."
"But, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that
doctrine, Sir. I do not believe in it at all."
"That is unfortunate for my doctrine," said the gentleman.
"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing
to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"
"Not needed, Ma'am; a woman, as somebody says, knows
intuitively all that is really worth knowing."
"Of what use is a mine that is never worked?" said Mr.
Carleton.
"It is worked," said Mr. Stackpole. "Domestic life is the true
training for the female mind. One woman will learn more wisdom
from the child on her breast than another will learn from ten
thousand volumes."
"It is very doubtful how much wisdom the child will ever learn
from her," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"A woman who never saw a book," pursued Mr. Stackpole,
unconsciously quoting his author, "may be infinitely superior,
even in all those matters of which books treat, to the woman
who has read, and read intelligently, a whole library."
"Unquestionably; and it is, likewise, beyond question, that a
silver sixpence may be worth more than a washed guinea."
"But a woman's true sphere is in her family in her home
duties, which furnish the best and most appropriate training
for her faculties pointed out by nature itself."
"Yes!" said Mr. Carleton "and for those duties, some of the
very highest and noblest that are entrusted to human agency,
the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought
to its last point of perfectness. The wealth of a woman's
mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought
out and fashioned for its various ends, while yet those ends
are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And, for
her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home,
her home stores should be exhaustless the stores she cannot
go abroad to seek. I would add to strength beauty, and to
beauty grace, in the intellectual proportions, so far as
possible. It were ungenerous in man to condemn the _best_ half
of human intellect to insignificance, merely because it is not
his own."
Mrs. Evelyn wore a smile of admiration that nobody saw, but
Fleda's face was a study while Mr. Carleton was saying this.
Her look was fixed upon him with such intent satisfaction and
eagerness, that it was not till he had finished that she
became aware that those dark eyes were going very deep into
hers, and suddenly put a stop to the inquisition.
"Very pleasant doctrine to the ears that have an interest in
it," said Mr. Stackpole, rather discontentedly.
"The man knows little of his own interest," said Mr. Carleton,
"who would leave that ground waste, or would cultivate it only
in the narrow spirit of a utilitarian. He needs an influence
in his family not more refreshing than rectifying; and no man
will seek that in one greatly his inferior. He is to be pitied
who cannot fall back upon his home with the assurance that he
has there something better than himself."
"Why, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said Mrs. Evelyn, with every line of
her mouth saying funny things "I am afraid you have sadly
neglected your own interest have you anything at Carleton
better than yourself?"
Suddenly cool again, he laughed, and said, "You were there,
Mrs. Evelyn."
"But, Mr. Carleton," pursued the lady, with a mixture of
insinuation and fun "why were you never married?"
"Circumstances have always forbade it," he answered, with a
smile, which Constance declared was the most fascinating thing
she ever saw in her life.
Fleda was arranging her flowers, with the help of some very
unnecessary suggestions from the donor.
"Mr. Lewis," said Constance, with a kind of insinuation very
different from her mother's, made up of fun and dating, "Mr.
Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany, while my
attention was distracted by listening to your _spirituel_
conversation."
"Well, Miss Constance?"
"And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if
I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory, and in
that case he would never give me another."
It was impossible to help laughing at the distressful position
of the young lady's eyebrows, and, with at least some measure
of outward grace, Mr. Thorn set about complying with her
request. Fleda again stood tapping her left hand with her
flowers, wondering a little that somebody else did not come
and speak to her, but he was talking to Mrs. Evelyn and Mr.
Stackpole. Fleda did not wish to join them, and nothing better
occurred to her than to arrange her flowers over again; so,
throwing them all down before her on a marble slab, she began
to pick them up one by one, and put them together, with, it
must be confessed, a very indistinct realization of the
difference between myrtle and lemon blossoms; and as she
seemed to be laying acacia to rose, and disposing some sprigs
of beautiful heath behind them, in reality she was laying
kindness alongside of kindness, and looking at the years
beyond years where their place had been. It was with a little
start that she suddenly found the person of her thoughts
standing at her elbow, and talking to her in bodily presence.
But while he spoke with all the ease and simplicity of old
times, almost making Fleda think it was but last week they had
been strolling through the Place de la Concorde together,
there was a constraint upon her that she could not get rid of,
and that bound eye and tongue. It might have worn off, but his
attention was presently claimed again by Mrs. Evelyn, and
Fleda thought best, while yet Constance's bouquet was
unfinished, to join another party, and make her escape into
the drawing-rooms.