"It is a hard matter for friends to meet: but mountains may be
removed with earthquakes, and so encounter."
AS YOU LIKE IT.
"What have we to do to-night?" said Florence, at breakfast the
next morning.
"You have no engagement, have you?" said her mother.
"No, Mamma," said Constance, arching her eyebrows "we are to
taste the sweets of domestic life you, as head of the
family, will go to sleep in the _dormeuse_, and Florence and I
shall take turns in yawning by your side."
"And what will Fleda do?" said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing.
"Fleda, Mamma, will be wrapped in remorseful recollections of
having enacted a mob last evening, and have enough occupation
in considering how she shall repair damages."
"Fleda , my dear, she is very saucy," said Mrs. Evelyn,
sipping her tea with great comfort.
"Why should we yawn to-night any more than last night?" said
Fleda a question which Edith would certainly have asked if
she had not been away at school. The breakfast was too late
for both her and her father.
"Last night, my dear, your fractious disposition kept us upon
half breath; there wasn't time to yawn. I meant to have eased
my breast by laughing afterwards, but that expectation was
stifled."
"What stifled it?"
"I was afraid!" said Constance, with a little flutter of her
person up and down in her chair.
"Afraid of what?"
"And besides, you know, we can't have our drawing-rooms filled
with distinguished foreigners every evening we are not at
home. I shall direct the fowling-piece to be severe in his
execution of orders to-night, and let nobody in. I forgot!"
exclaimed Constance, with another flutter "it is Mr. Thorn's
night! My dearest mamma, will you consent to have the dormeuse
wheeled round with its back to the fire? and Florence and I
will take the opportunity to hear little Edith's lessons in
the next room, unless Mr. Decatur comes. I must endeavour to
make the Manton comprehend what he has to do."
"But what is to become of Mr. Evelyn?" said Fleda; "you make
Mrs. Evelyn the head of the family very unceremoniously."
"Mr. Evelyn, my dear," said Constance, gravely, "makes a
futile attempt semi-weekly to beat his brains out with a club;
and every successive failure encourages him to try again; the
only effect being a temporary decapitation of his family; and
I believe this is the night on which he periodically turns a
frigid eye upon their destitution."
"You are too absurd!" said Florence, reaching over for a
sausage.
"Dear Constance!" said Fleda, half laughing, "why do you talk
so?"
"Constance, behave yourself," said her mother.
"Mamma," said the young lady, "I am actuated by a benevolent
desire to effect a diversion of Miss Ringgan's mind from its
gloomy meditations, by presenting to her some more real
subjects of distress."
"I wonder if you ever looked at such a thing," said Fleda.
"What 'such a thing'?"
"As a real subject of distress."
"Yes; I have one incessantly before me in your serious
countenance. Why in the world, Fleda, don't you look like
other people?"
"I suppose, because I don't feel like them."
"And why don't you? I am sure you ought to be as happy as most
people."
"I think I am a great deal happier," said Fleda.
"Than I am?" said the young lady, with arched eyebrows. But
they went down, and her look softened in spite of herself, at
the eye and smile which answered her.
"I should be very glad, dear Constance, to know you were as
happy as I."
"Why do you think I am not?" said the young lady, a little
tartly.
"Because no happiness would satisfy me that cannot last."
"And why can't it last?"
"It is not built upon lasting things."
"Pshaw!" said Constance, "I wouldn't have such a dismal kind
of happiness as yours, Fleda, for anything."
"Dismal!" said Fleda, smiling; "because it can never
disappoint me? or because it isn't noisy?"
"My dear little Fleda," said Constance, in her usual manner,
"you have lived up there among the solitudes till you have got
morbid ideas of life, which it makes me melancholy to observe.
I am very much afraid they verge towards stagnation."
"No, indeed!" said Fleda, laughing; "but, if you please, with
me the stream of life has flowed so quietly, that I have
looked quite to the bottom, and know how shallow it is, and
growing shallower; I could not venture my bark of happiness
there; but with you it is like a spring torrent the foam and
the roar hinder your looking deep into it."
Constance gave her a significant glance; a strong contrast to
the earnest simplicity of Fleda's face, and presently inquired
if she ever wrote poetry.
"Shall I have the pleasure, some day, of discovering your
uncommon signature in the secular corner of some religious
newspaper?"
"I hope not," said Fleda, quietly.
Joe Manton just then brought in a bouquet for Miss Evelyn, a
very common enlivener of the breakfast-table, all the more
when, as in the present case, the sisters could not divine
where it came from. It moved Fleda's wonder to see how very
little the flowers were valued for their own sake; the
probable cost, the probable giver, the probable _éclat_, were
points enthusiastically discussed and thoroughly appreciated;
but the sweet messengers themselves were carelessly set by for
other eyes, and seemed to have no attraction for those they
were destined to. Fleda enjoyed them at a distance, and could
not help thinking that Heaven sends almonds to those that have
no teeth.
"This camellia will just do for my hair to-morrow night!" said
Florence; "just what I want with my white muslin."
"I think I will go with you to-morrow, Florence," said Fleda;
"Mrs. Decatur has asked me so often."
"Well, my dear, I shall be made happy by your company," said
Florence abstractedly, examining her bouquet. "I am afraid it
hasn't stem enough, Constance; never mind I'll fix it
where is the end of this myrtle? I shall be very glad, of
course, Fleda, my dear, but" picking her bouquet to pieces
"I think it right to tell you, privately, I am afraid you will
find it very stupid."
"Oh, I dare say she will not," said Mrs. Evelyn; "she can go
and try, at any rate; she would find it very stupid with me
here alone, and Constance at the concert; I dare say she will
find some one there whom she knows."
"But the thing is, Mamma, you see, at these _conversaziones_
they never talk anything but French and German I don't know
_of course_ I should be delighted to have Fleda with me, and I
have no doubt Mrs. Decatur would be very glad to have her; but
I am afraid she wont enjoy herself."
"I do not want to go where I shall not enjoy myself," said
Fleda, quietly; "that is certain."
"Of course, you know, dear, I would a great deal rather have
you than not; I only speak for what I think would be for your
pleasure."
"I would do just as I felt inclined, Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"I shall let her encounter the dullness alone, Ma'am," said
Fleda, lightly.
But it was not in a light mood that she put on her bonnet
after dinner, and set out to pay a visit to her uncle at the
library; she had resolved that she would not be near the
_dormeuse_ in whatsoever relative position that evening. Very,
very quiet she was; her grave little face walked through the
crowd of busy, bustling, anxious people, as if she had nothing
in common with them; and Fleda felt that she had very little.
Half unconsciously, as she passed along the streets, her eye
scanned the countenances of that moving panorama; and the
report it brought back made her draw closer within herself.
She wondered that her feet had ever tripped lightly up those
library stairs.
"Ha! my fair Saxon," said the doctor, "what has brought you
down here to-day?"
"I felt in want of something fresh, uncle Orrin, so I thought
I would come and see you."
"Fresh!" said he. "Ah! you are pining for green fields, I
know. But, you little piece of simplicity, there are no green
fields now at Queechy, they are two feet deep with snow by
this time."
"Well, I am sure _that_ is fresh," said Fleda, smiling.
The doctor was turning over great volumes one after another in
a delightful confusion of business.
"When do you think you shall go north, uncle Orrin?"
"North?" said he "what do you want to know about the north?"
"You said, you know, Sir, that you would go a little out of
your way to leave me at home."
"I wont go out of my way for anybody. If I leave you there, it
will be in my way. Why, you are not getting home-sick?"
"No Sir, not exactly; but I think I will go with you when you
go."
"That wont be yet awhile; I thought those people wanted you to
stay till January."
"Ay, but suppose I want to do something else?"
He looked at her with a comical kind of indecision, and said
"You don't know what you want; I thought when you came in you
needn't go further than the glass to see something fresh; but
I believe the sea-breezes haven't had enough of you yet. Which
part of you wants freshening?" he said, in his mock-fierce
way.
Fleda laughed, and said she didn't know.
"Out of humour, I guess," said the doctor. "I'll talk to you.
Take this and amuse yourself awhile with something that isn't
fresh till I get through, and then you shall go home with me."
Fleda carried the large volume into one of the reading-rooms,
where there was nobody, and sat down at the baize-covered
table. But the book was not of the right kind, or her mood was
not, for it failed to interest her. She sat nonchalantly
turning over the leaves; but mentally she was busy turning
over other leaves, which had by far most of her attention. The
pages that memory read the record of the old times passed in
that very room, and the old childish light-hearted feelings
that were, she thought, as much beyond recall. Those pleasant
times, when the world was all bright and friends all fair, and
the light heart had never been borne down by the pressure of
care, nor sobered by disappointment, nor chilled by
experience. The spirit will not spring elastic again from
under that weight; and the flower that has closed upon its own
sweetness will not open a second time to the world's breath.
Thoughtfully, softly, she was touching and feeling of the
bands that years had fastened about her heart they would not
be undone though so quietly and almost stealthily they had
been bound there. She was remembering the shadows that, one
after another, had been cast upon her life, till now one soft
veil of a cloud covered the whole; no storm-cloud certainly,
but also there was nothing left of the glad sunlight that her
young eyes rejoiced in. At Queechy the first shadow had
fallen; it was a good while before the next one, but then they
came thick. There was the loss of some old comforts and
advantages, that could have been borne; then, consequent upon
that, the annoyances and difficulties that had wrought such a
change in her uncle, till Fleda could hardly look back and.
believe that he was the same person. Once manly, frank, busy,
happy and making his family so now reserved, gloomy,
irritable, unfaithful to his duty, and selfishly throwing down
the burden they must take up, but were far less able to bear.
And so Hugh was changed too; not in loveliness of character
and demeanour, nor even much in the always gentle and tender
expression of countenance; but the animal spirits and frame,
that should have had all the strong cherishing and bracing
that affection and wisdom together could have applied, had
been left to wear themselves out under trials his father had
shrunk from, and other trials his father had made. And Mrs.
Rossitur it was hard for Fleda to remember the face she wore
at Paris the bright eye and joyous corners of the mouth,
that now were so utterly changed. All by his fault that made
it so hard to bear. Fleda had thought all this a hundred
times; she went over it now as one looks at a thing one is
well accustomed to; not with new sorrow, only in a subdued
mood of mind just fit to make the most of it. The familiar
place took her back to the time when it became familiar; she
compared herself sitting there, and feeling the whole world a
blank, except for the two or three at home, with the child who
had sat there years before in that happy time "when the
feelings were young and the world was new."
Then the Evelyns why should they trouble one so inoffensive,
and so easily troubled as her poor little self? They did not
know all they were doing; but if they had eyes, they must see
a little of it. Why could she not have been allowed to keep
her old free, simple feeling with everybody, instead of being
hampered, and constrained, and miserable, from this
pertinacious putting of thoughts in her head that ought not to
be there? It had made her unlike herself, she knew, in the
company of several people. And perhaps _they_ might be sharp-
sighted enough to read it; but, even if not, how it had
hindered her enjoyment! She had taken so much pleasure in the
Evelyns last year, and in her visit; well, she would go home
and forget it, and maybe they would come to their right minds
by the next time she saw them.
"What pleasant times we used to have here once, uncle Orrin!"
she said, with half a sigh, the other half quite made up by
the tone in which she spoke. But it was not, as she thought,
uncle Orrin that was standing by her side, and looking up as
she finished speaking Fleda saw, with a start, that it was
Mr. Carleton. There was such a degree of life and pleasantness
in his eyes, that, in spite of the start, her own quite
brightened.
"That is a pleasure one may always command," he said,
answering part of her speech.
"Ay, provided one has one's mind always under command," said
Fleda. "It is possible to sit down to a feast with a want of
appetite."
"In such a case, what is the best tonic?"
His manner, even in those two minutes, had put Fleda perfectly
at her ease, ill-bred eyes and ears being absent. She looked
up and answered, with such entire trust in him, as made her
forget that she had ever had any cause to distrust herself.
"For me," she said, "as a general rule, nothing is better than
to go out of doors into the woods or the garden they are
the best fresheners I know of. I can do myself good there at
times when books are a nuisance."
"You are not changed from your old self," he said.
The wish was strong upon Fleda to know whether _he_ was, but it
was not till she saw the answer in his face that she knew how
plainly hers had asked the question. And then she was so
confused that she did not know what the answer had been.
"I find it so, too," he said. "The influences of pure nature
are the best thing I know for some moods after the company
of a good horse."
"And you on his back, I suppose?"
"That was my meaning. What is the doubt thereupon?" said he,
laughing.
"Did I express any doubt?"
"Or my eyes were mistaken."
"I remember they never used to be that," said Fleda.
"What was it?"
"Why," said Fleda, thinking that Mr. Carleton had probably
retained more than one of his old habits, for she was
answering with her old obedience "I was doubting what the
influence is in that case worth analyzing, I think. I am
afraid the good horse's company has little to do with it."
"What, then, do you suppose?" said he, smiling.
"Why," said Fleda "it might be but I beg your pardon, Mr.
Carleton! I am astonished at my own presumption."
"Go on, and let me know why," he said, with that happiness of
manner which was never resisted. Fleda went on, reassuring her
courage now and then with a glance.
"The relief _might_ spring, Sir, from the gratification of a
proud feeling of independence or from a dignified sense of
isolation or an imaginary riding down of opposition or the
consciousness of being master of what you have in hand."
She would have added to the general category, "the running
away from one's-self;" but the eye and bearing of the person
before her forbade even such a thought as connected with him.
He laughed, but shook his head.
"Perhaps, then," said Fleda, "it may be nothing worse than the
working off of a surplus of energy or impatience that leaves
behind no more than can be managed."
"You have learned something of human nature since I had the
pleasure of knowing you," he said, with a look at once amused
and penetrating.
"I wish I hadn't," said Fleda.
Her countenance absolutely fell.
"I sometimes think," said he, turning over the leaves of her
book, "that these are the best companionship one can have
the world at large is very unsatisfactory."
"O, how much!" said Fleda, with a long breath. "The only
pleasant thing that my eyes rested upon as I came through the
streets this afternoon, was a huge bunch of violets that
somebody was carrying. I walked behind them as long as I
could."
"Is your old love for Queechy in full force?" said Mr.
Carleton, still turning over the leaves, and smiling.
"I believe so I should be very sorry to live here long at
home I can always go out and find society that refreshes me."
"You have set yourself a high standard," he said, with no
displeased expression of the lips.
"I have been charged with that," said Fleda; "but is it
possible to set too high a standard, Mr. Carleton?"
"One may leave one's-self almost alone in the world."
"Well, even then," said Fleda, "I would rather have only the
image of excellence than be contented with inferiority."
"Isn't it possible to do both?" said he, smiling again.
"I don't know," said Fleda; "perhaps I am too easily
dissatisfied I believe I have grown fastidious, living alone
I have sometimes almost a disgust at the world and
everything in it."
"I have often felt so," he said; "but I am not sure that it is
a mood to be indulged in likely to further our own good or
that of others."
"I am sure it is not," said Fleda; "I often feel vexed with
myself for it; but what can one do, Mr. Carleton?"
"Don't your friends the flowers help you in this?"
"Not a bit," said Fleda "they draw the other way; their
society is so very pure and satisfying, that one is all the
less inclined to take up with the other."
She could not tell quite what to make of the smile with which
he began to speak; it half abashed her.
"When I spoke, a little while ago," said he, "of the best cure
for an ill mood, I was speaking of secondary means simply
the only really humanizing, rectifying, peace-giving thing I
ever tried, was looking at time in the light of eternity, and
shaming or melting my coldness away in the rays of the Sun of
Righteousness."
Fleda's eyes, which had fallen on her book, were raised again
with such a flash of feeling that it quite prevented her
seeing what was in his. But the feeling was a little too
strong the eyes went down, lower than ever, and the features
showed that the utmost efforts of self-command were needed to
control them.
"There is no other cure," he went on in the same tone; "but
disgust and weariness and selfishness shrink away and hide
themselves before a word or a look of the Redeemer of men.
When we hear him say, 'I have bought thee thou art mine,' it
is like one of those old words of healing, 'Thou art loosed
from thine infirmity' 'Be thou clean' and the mind takes
sweetly the grace and the command together, 'That he who
loveth God love his brother also.' Only the preparation of the
gospel of peace can make our feet go softly over the
roughnesses of the way."
Fleda did not move, unless her twinkling eyelashes might seem
to contradict that.
"I need not tell you," Mr. Carleton went on, a little lower,
"where this medicine is to be sought."
"It is strange," said Fleda, presently, "how well one may
know, and how well one may forget. But I think the body has a
great deal to do with it sometimes these states of feeling,
I mean."
"No doubt it has; and in these cases the cure is a more
complicated matter. I should think the roses would be useful
there?"
Fleda's mind was crossed by an indistinct vision of peas,
asparagus, and sweet corn; she said nothing.
"An indirect remedy is sometimes the very best that can be
employed. However, it is always true that the more our eyes
are fixed upon the source of light, the less we notice the
shadows that things we are passing fling across our way."
Fleda did not know how to talk for a little while; she was too
happy. Whatever kept Mr. Carleton from talking, he was silent
also. Perhaps it was the understanding of her mood.
"Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, after a little time, "did you ever
carry out that plan of a rose-garden that you were talking of
a long while ago?"
"You remember it?" said he, with a pleased look. "Yes, that
was one of the first things I set about, after I went home
but I did not follow the regular fashion of arrangement that
one of your friends is so fond of."
"I should not like that for anything," said Fleda, "and least
of all for roses."
"Do you remember the little shrubbery path that opened just in
front of the library windows leading, at the distance of half
a mile, to a long, narrow, winding glen?"
"Perfectly well," said Fleda, "through the wood of
evergreens Oh, I remember the glen very well."
"About half way from the house," said he, smiling at her eyes,
"a glade opens, which merges at last in the head of the glen
I planted my roses there the circumstances of the ground
were very happy for disposing them according to my wish."
"And how far?"
"The roses? Oh, all the way, and some distance down the
glen. Not a continuous thicket of them," he added, smiling
again "I wished each kind to stand so that its peculiar
beauty should be fully relieved and appreciated; and that
would have been lost in a crowd."
"Yes, I know it," said Fleda; "one's eye rests upon the chief
objects of attraction, and the others are hardly seen they
do not even serve as foils. And they must show beautifully
against that dark background of firs and larches!"
"Yes; and the windings of the ground gave me every sort of
situation and exposure. I wanted room, too, for the different
effects of masses of the same kind growing together, and of
fine individuals or groups standing alone, where they could
show the full graceful development of their nature."
"What a pleasure! What a beauty it must be!"
"The ground is very happy many varieties of soil and
exposure were needed for the plants of different habits, and I
found or made them all. The rocky beginnings of the glen even
furnished me with south walls for the little tea-roses, and
the Macartneys, and musk roses; the banksias I kept nearer
home."
"Do you know them all, Mr. Carleton?"
"Not quite," said he, smiling at her.
"I have seen one banksia the Macartney is a name that tells
me nothing."
"They are evergreens with large white flowers very
abundant and late in the season, but they need the shelter of
a wall with us."
"I should think you would say 'with me,' " said Fleda. "I
cannot conceive that the head-quarters of the rose tribe
should be anywhere else."
"One of the queens of the tribe is there, in the neighbourhood
of the Macartneys the difficult _rosa sulphurea_ it finds
itself so well accommodated, that it condescends to play its
part to perfection. Do you know that?"
"Not at all."
"It is one of the most beautiful of all, though not my
favourite it has large double yellow flowers, shaped like
the Provence very superb, but as wilful as any queen of them
all."
"Which is your favourite, Mr. Carleton?"
"Not that which shows itself most splendid to the eye, but
which offers fairest indications to the fancy."
Fleda looked a little wistfully, for there was a smile rather
of the eye than of the lips, which said there was a hidden
thought beneath.
"Don't you assign characters to your flowers?" said he,
gravely.
"Always."
"That _rosa sulphurea_ is a haughty high-bred beauty, that
disdains even to show herself beautiful, unless she is pleased
I love better what comes nearer home to the charities and
wants of every-day life."
He had not answered her, Fleda knew; she thought of what he
had said to Mrs. Evelyn about liking beauty, but not _beauties_.
"Then." said he, smiling again in that hidden way, "the head
of the glen gave me the soil I needed for the Bourbons and
French roses."
"Bourbons?" said Fleda.
"Those are exceeding fine a hybrid between the Chinese and
the _rose-à-quatre-saisons_ I have not confined them all to
the head of the glen; many of them are in richer soil, grafted
on standards."
"I like standard roses," said Fleda, "better than any."
"Not better than climbers?"
"Better than any climbers I ever saw except the banksia."
"There is hardly a more elegant variety than that, though it
is not strictly a climber; and, indeed, when I spoke, I was
thinking as much of the training roses. Many of the _noisettes_
are very fine. But I have the climbers all over in some
parts nothing else, where the wood closes in upon the path
there the evergreen roses or the Ayrshire, cover the ground
under the trees, or are trained up the trunks, and allowed to
find their own way through the branches down again the
_multiflora_ in the same manner. I have made the _boursault_ cover
some unsightly rocks that were in my way. Then in wider parts
of the glade, nearer home, are your favourite standards the
damask, and Provence, and moss, which, you know, are varieties
of the _centifolia_, and the _noisette_ standards some of them
are very fine, and the Chinese roses, and countless hybrids
and varieties of all these, with many Bourbons; and your
beautiful American yellow rose, and the Austrian briar and
eglantine, and the Scotch, and white and dog roses, in their
innumerable varieties, change admirably well with the others,
and relieve the eye very happily."
"Relieve the eye!" said Fleda; "my imagination wants
relieving! Isn't there I have a fancy that there is a view
of the sea from some parts of that walk, Mr. Carleton?"
"Yes you have a good memory," said he, smiling. "On one side
the wood is rather dense, and in some parts of the other side;
but elsewhere the trees are thinned off towards the south-
west, and in one or two points the descent of the ground and
some cutting have given free access to the air and free range
to the eye, bounded only by the sea-line in the distance; if,
indeed, that can be said to bound anything."
"I haven't seen it since I was a child," said Fleda. "And for
how long a time in the year is this literally a garden of
roses, Mr. Carleton?"
"The perpetual roses are in bloom for eight months the
damask and the Chinese, and some of their varieties; the
Provence roses are in blossom all the summer."
"Ah! we can do nothing like that in this country," said Fleda,
shaking her head; "our winters are unmanageable."
She was silent a minute, turning over the leaves of her book
in an abstracted manner.
"You have struck out upon a grave path of reflection," said
Mr. Carleton, gently, "and left me bewildered among the
roses."
"I was thinking," said Fleda, looking up and laughing, "I was
moralizing to myself upon the curious equalization of
happiness in the world; I just sheered off from a feeling of
envy, and comfortably reflected that one measures happiness by
what one knows not by what one does not know; and so, that
in all probability I have had near as much enjoyment in the
little number of plants that I have brought up and cherished,
and know intimately, as you, Sir, in your superb walk through
fairy-land."
"Do you suppose," said he, laughing, "that I leave the whole
care of fairy-land to my gardener? No, you are mistaken; when
the roses are to act as my correctors, I find I must become
theirs. I seldom go among them without a pruning knife, and
never without wishing for one. And you are certainly right so
far that the plants on which I bestow most pains give me the
most pleasure. There are some that no hand but mine ever
touches, and those are by far the best loved of my eye."
A discussion followed partly natural, partly moral on the
manner of pruning various roses, and on the curious connection
between care and complacency, and the philosophy of the same.
"The rules of the library are to shut up at sundown, Sir,"
said one the bookmen, who had come into the room.
"Sundown!" exclaimed Fleda, jumping up; "is my uncle not here,
Mr. Frost?"
"He has been gone half an hour, Ma'am."
"And I was to have gone home with him; I have forgotten
myself."
"If that is at all the fault of my roses," said Mr. Carleton,
smiling, "I will do my best to repair it."
"I am not disposed to call it a fault," said Fleda, tying her
bonnet-strings; "it is rather an agreeable thing once in a
while. I shall dream of those roses, Mr. Carleton."
"That would be doing them too much honour."
Very happily she had forgotten herself; and during all the
walk home her mind was too full of one great piece of joy,
and, indeed, too much engaged with conversation to take up her
own subject again. Her only wish was that they might not meet
any of the Evelyns; Mr. Thorn, whom they did meet, was a
matter of entire indifference.
The door was opened by Dr. Gregory himself. To Fleda's utter
astonishment, Mr. Carleton accepted his invitation to come in.
She went up stairs to take off her things, in a kind of maze.
"I thought he would go away without my seeing him; and now,
what a nice time I have had in spite of Mrs. Evelyn!"
That thought slipped in without Fleda's knowledge, but she
could not get it out again.
"I don't know how much it has been her fault either, but one
thing is certain I never could have had it at her house. How
very glad I am! how _very_ glad I am! that I have seen him,
and heard all this from his own lips. But how very funny that
he will be here to tea!"
"Well!" said the doctor, when she came down, "you _do_ look
freshened up, I declare. Here is this girl, Sir, was coming to
me a little while ago, complaining that she wanted something
_fresh_, and begging me to take her back to Queechy, forsooth,
to find it with two feet of snow on the ground. Who wants to
see you at Queechy?" he said, facing round upon her with a
look half fierce, half quizzical.
Fleda laughed, but was vexed to feel that she could not help
colouring, and colouring exceedingly, partly from the
consciousness of his meaning, and partly from a vague notion
that somebody else was conscious of it, too. Dr. Gregory,
however, dashed right off into the thick of conversation with
his guest, and kept him busily engaged till tea-time. Fleda
sat still on the sofa, looking and listening with simple
pleasure memory served her up a rich entertainment enough.
Yet she thought her uncle was the most heartily interested of
the two in the conversation; there was a shade more upon Mr.
Carleton, not than he often wore, but than he had worn a
little while ago. Dr. Gregory was a great bibliopole, and in
the course of the hour hauled out, and made his guest
overhaul, no less than several musty old folios, and Fleda
could not help fancying that he did it with an access of
gravity greater even than the occasion called for. The grace
of his manner, however, was unaltered; and at tea, she did not
know whether she had been right or not. Demurely as she sat
there behind the tea-urn for Dr. Gregory still engrossed all
the attention of his guest, as far as talking was concerned
Fleda was again inwardly smiling to herself at the oddity and
the pleasantness of the chance that had brought those three
together in such a quiet way, after all the weeks she had been
seeing Mr. Carleton at a distance. And she enjoyed the
conversation, too; for though Dr. Gregory was a little fond of
his hobby, it was still conversation worthy the name.
"I have been so unfortunate in the matter of the drives," Mr.
Carleton said, when he was about to take leave, and standing
before Fleda, "that I am half afraid to mention it again."
"I could not help it both those times, Mr. Carleton," said
Fleda, earnestly.
"Both the last? or both the first?" said he, smiling.
"The last!" said Fleda.
"I have had the honour of making such an attempt twice within
the last ten days to my disappointment."
"It was not by my fault then, either, Sir," Fleda said,
quietly.
But he knew very well from the expression of her face a moment
before, where to put the emphasis her tongue would not make.
"Dare I ask you to go with me, to-morrow?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, with the old childish sparkle of
her eye; "but if you ask me, Sir, I will go."
He sat down beside her immediately, and Fleda knew, by his
change of eye, that her former thought had been right.
"Shall I see you at Mrs. Decatur's, to-morrow?"
"No, Sir."
"I thought I understood," said he, in an explanatory tone,
"from your friends, the Miss Evelyns, that they were going."
"I believe they are, and I did think of it; but I have changed
my mind, and shall stay at home with Mrs. Evelyn."
After some further conversation, the hour for the drive was
appointed, and Mr. Carleton took leave.
"Come for me twice, and Mrs. Evelyn refused without consulting
me!" thought Fleda. "What could make her do so? How very rude
he must have thought me! And how glad I am I have had an
opportunity of setting that right!"
So, quitting Mrs. Evelyn, her thoughts went off upon a long
train of wandering over the afternoon's talk.
"Wake up!" said the doctor, laying his hand kindly upon her
shoulder; "you'll want something fresh again presently. What
mine of profundity are you digging into now?"
Fleda looked up, and came back from her profundity with a
glance and smile as simple as a child's.
"Dear uncle Orrin, how came you to leave me alone in the
library?"
"Was that what you were trying to discover?"
"Oh no, Sir! But why did you, uncle Orrin? I might have been
left utterly alone."
"Why," said the doctor, "I was going out, and a friend, that I
thought I could confide in, promised to take care of you."
"A friend! Nobody came near me," said Fleda.
"Then I'll never trust anybody again," said the doctor. "But
what were you hammering at, mentally, just now? Come, you
shall tell me."
"O nothing, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, looking grave again,
however; "I was thinking that I had been talking too much to-
day."
"Talking too much? why, whom have you been talking to?"
"Oh, nobody but Mr. Carleton."
"Mr. Carleton! Why, you didn't say six and a quarter words
while he was here."
"No, but I mean in the library, and walking home."
"Talking too much! I guess you did," said the doctor; "your
tongue is like
'the music of the spheres,
So loud it deafens human ears.'
How came you to talk too much? I thought you were too shy to
talk at all in company."
"No, Sir, I am not; I am not at all shy unless people frighten
me. It takes almost nothing to do that; but I am very bold if
I am not frightened."
"Were you frightened this afternoon?"
"No, Sir?"
"Well, if you weren't frightened, I guess nobody else was,"
said the doctor.