Heav'n bless thee;
Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.
Shakspeare.
One of the greatest of Fleda's pleasures was when Mr. Carleton came to
take her out with him. He did that often. Fleda only wished he would have
taken Hugh too, but somehow he never did. Nothing but that was wanting to
make the pleasure of those times perfect. Knowing that she saw the _common
things_ in other company, Guy was at the pains to vary the amusement when
she went with him. Instead of going to Versailles or St. Cloud, he would
take her long delightful drives into the country and shew her some old or
interesting place that nobody else went to see. Often there was a history
belonging to the spot, which Fleda listened to with the delight of eye and
fancy at once. In the city, where they more frequently walked, still he
shewed her what she would perhaps have seen under no other guidance. He
made it his business to give her pleasure; and understanding the
inquisitive active little spirit he had to do with he went where his own
tastes would hardly have led him. The Quai aux Fleurs was often visited,
but also the Halle aux Blés, the great Halle aux Vins, the Jardin des
Plantes, and the Marché des Innocens. Guy even took the trouble, more for
her sake than his own, to go to the latter place once very early in the
morning, when the market-bell had not two hours sounded, while the
interest and prettiness of the scene were yet in their full life. Hugh was
in company this time, and the delight of both children was beyond words,
as it would have been beyond anybody's patience that had not a strong
motive to back it. They never discovered that Mr. Carleton was in a hurry,
as indeed he was not. They bargained for fruit with any number of people,
upon all sorts of inducements, and to an extent of which they had no
competent notion, but Hugh had his mother's purse, and Fleda was skilfully
commissioned to purchase what she pleased for Mrs. Carleton. Verily the
two children that morning bought pleasure, not peaches. Fancy and
Benevolence held the purse strings, and Economy did not even look on. They
revelled too, Fleda especially, amidst the bright pictures of the odd, the
new, and the picturesque, and the varieties of character and incident,
that were displayed around them; even till the country people began to go
away and the scene to lose its charm. It never lost it in memory; and many
a time in after life Hugh and Fleda recurred to something that was seen
or done "that morning when we bought fruit at the Innocens."
Besides these scenes of everyday life, which interested and amused Fleda
to the last degree, Mr. Carleton shewed her many an obscure part of Paris
where deeds of daring and of blood had been, and thrilled the little
listener's ear with histories of the Past. He judged her rightly. She
would rather at any time have gone to walk with him, than with anybody
else to see any show that could be devised. His object in all this was in
the first place to give her pleasure, and in the second place to draw out
her mind into free communion with his own, which he knew could only be
done by talking sense to her. He succeeded as he wished. Lost in the
interest of the scenes he presented to her eye and mind, she forgot
everything else and shewed him herself; precisely what he wanted to see.
It was strange that a young man, an admired man of fashion, a flattered
favourite of the gay and great world, and furthermore a reserved and proud
repeller of almost all who sought his intimacy, should seek and delight in
the society of a little child. His mother would have wondered if she had
known it. Mrs. Rossitur did marvel that even Fleda should have so won upon
the cold and haughty young Englishman; and her husband said he probably
chose to have Fleda with him because he could make up his mind to like
nobody else. A remark which perhaps arose from the utter failure of every
attempt to draw him and Charlton nearer together. But Mr. Rossitur was
only half right. The reason lay deeper.
Mr. Carleton had admitted the truth of Christianity, upon what he
considered sufficient grounds, and would now have steadily fought for it,
as he would for anything else that he believed to be truth. But there he
stopped. He had not discovered nor tried to discover whether the truth of
Christianity imposed any obligation upon him. He had cast off his
unbelief, and looked upon it now as a singular folly. But his belief was
almost as vague and as fruitless as his infidelity had been. Perhaps, a
little, his bitter dissatisfaction with the world and human things, or
rather his despondent view of them, was mitigated. If there was, as he now
held, a Supreme Orderer of events, it might be, and it was rational to
suppose there would be, in the issues of time, an entire change wrought in
the disordered and dishonoured state of his handiwork. There might be a
remedial system somewhere,--nay, it might be in the Bible; he meant to
look some day. But that _he_ had anything to do with that change--that the
working of the remedial system called for hands--that _his_ had any charge
in the matter had never entered into his imagination or stirred his
conscience. He was living his old life at Paris, with his old
dissatisfaction, perhaps a trifle less bitter. He was seeking pleasure in
whatever art, learning, literature, refinement, and luxury can do for a
man who has them all at command; but there was something within him that
spurned this ignoble existence and called for higher aims and worthier
exertion. He was not vicious, he never had been vicious, or, as somebody
else said, his vices were all refined vices; but a life of mere
self-indulgence although pursued without self-satisfaction, is constantly
lowering the standard and weakening the forces of virtue,--lessening the
whole man. He felt it so; and to leave his ordinary scenes and occupations
and lose a morning with little Fleda was a freshening of his better
nature; it was like breathing pure air after the fever heat of a sick
room; it was like hearing the birds sing after the meaningless jabber of
Bedlam. Mr. Carleton indeed did not put the matter quite so strongly to
himself. He called Fleda his good angel. He did not exactly know that the
office this good angel performed was simply to hold a candle to his
conscience. For conscience was not by any means dead in him; it only
wanted light to see by. When he turned from the gay and corrupt world in
which he lived, where the changes were rung incessantly upon
self-interest, falsehood, pride, and the various more or less refined
forms of sensuality, and when he looked upon that pure bright little face,
so free from selfishness, those clear eyes so innocent of evil, the
peaceful brow under which a thought of double-dealing had never hid, Mr.
Carleton felt himself in a healthier region. Here as elsewhere, he
honoured and loved the image of truth; in the broad sense of truth;--that
which suits the perfect standard of right. But his pleasure in this case
was invariably mixed with a slight feeling of self-reproach; and it was
this hardly recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his
mental eye-sight under the light of a bright example, that made him call
the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity,
uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was
he? how far wandering from his beloved Idol!
One other feeling saddened the pleasure he had in her society--a belief
that the ground of it could not last. "If she could grow up so!"--he said
to himself. "But it is impossible. A very few years, and all that clear
sunshine of the mind will be overcast;--there is not a cloud now!"--
Under the working of these thoughts Mr. Carleton sometimes forgot to
talk to his little charge, and would walk for a length of way by her
side wrapped up in sombre musings. Fleda never disturbed him then, but
waited contentedly and patiently for him to come out of them, with her
old feeling wondering what he could be thinking of and wishing he were
as happy as she. But he never left her very long; he was sure to waive
his own humour and give her all the graceful kind attention which nobody
else could bestow so well. Nobody understood and appreciated it better
than Fleda.
One day, some months after they had been in Paris, they were sitting in
the Place de la Concorde, Mr. Carleton was in one of these thinking fits.
He had been giving Fleda a long detail of the scenes that had taken place
in that spot--a history of it from the time when it had lain an unsightly
waste;--such a graphic lively account as he knew well how to give. The
absorbed interest with which she had lost everything else in what he was
saying had given him at once reward and motive enough as he went on.
Standing by his side, with one little hand confidingly resting on his
knee, she gazed alternately into his face and towards the broad
highly-adorned square by the side of which they had placed themselves, and
where it was hard to realize that the ground had once been soaked in blood
while madness and death filled the air; and her changing face like a
mirror gave him back the reflection of the times he held up to her view.
And still standing there in the same attitude after he had done she had
been looking out towards the square in a fit of deep meditation. Mr.
Carleton had forgotten her for awhile in his own thoughts, and then the
sight of the little gloved hand upon his knee brought him back again.
"What are you musing about, Elfie, dear?" he said cheerfully, taking the
hand in one of his.
Fleda gave a swift glance into his face, as if to see whether it would be
safe for her to answer his question; a kind of exploring look, in which
her eyes often acted as scouts for her tongue. Those she met pledged their
faith for her security; yet Fleda's look went back to the square and then
again to his face in silence.
"How do you like living in Paris?" said he. "You should know by
this time."
"I like it very much indeed," said Fleda.
"I thought you would."
"I like Queechy better though," she went on gravely, her eyes turning
again to the square.
"Like Queechy better! Were you thinking of Queechy just now when I
spoke to you?"
"Oh no!"--with a smile.
"Were you going over all those horrors I have been distressing you with?"
"No," said Fleda;--"I _was_ thinking of them, awhile ago."
"What then?" said he pleasantly. "You were looking so sober I should like
to know how near your thoughts were to mine."
"I was thinking," said Fleda, gravely, and a little unwillingly, but Guy's
manner was not to be withstood,--"I was wishing I could be like the
disciple whom Jesus loved."
Mr. Carleton let her see none of the surprise he felt at this answer.
"Was there one more loved than the rest?"
"Yes--the Bible calls him 'the disciple whom Jesus loved.' That was John."
"Why was he preferred above the others?"
"I don't know. I suppose he was more gentle and good than the others, and
loved Jesus more. I think aunt Miriam said so when I asked her once."
Mr. Carleton thought Fleda had not far to seek for the fulfilment
of her wish.
"But how in the world, Elfie, did you work round to this gentle and good
disciple from those scenes of blood you set out with?"
"Why," said Elfie,--"I was thinking how unhappy and bad people are,
especially people here, I think; and how much must be done before they
will all be brought right;--and then I was thinking of the work Jesus gave
his disciples to do; and so I wished I could be like _that_
disciple.--Hugh and I were talking about it this morning."
"What is the work he gave them to do?" said Mr. Carleton, more and more
interested.
"Why," said Fleda, lifting her gentle wistful eyes to his and then looking
away,--"to bring everybody to be good and happy."
"And how in the world are they to do that?" said Mr. Carleton, astonished
to see his own problem quietly handled by this child.
"By telling them about Jesus Christ, and getting them to believe and love
him," said Fleda, glancing at him again,--"and living so beautifully that
people cannot help believing them."
"That last is an important clause," said Mr. Carleton thoughtfully. "But
suppose people will not hear when they are spoken to, Elfie?"
"Some will, at any rate," said Fleda,--"and by and by everybody will."
"How do you know?"
"Because the Bible says so."
"Are you sure of that, Elfie?"
"Why yes, Mr. Carleton--God has promised that the world shall be full of
good people, and then they will be all happy. I wish it was now."
"But if that be so, Elfie, God can make them all good without our help?"
"Yes, but I suppose he chooses to do it with our help, Mr. Carleton," said
Fleda with equal naïveté and gravity.
"But is not this you speak of," said he, half smiling,--"rather the
business of clergymen? you have nothing to do with it?"
"No," said Fleda,--"everybody has something to do with it, the Bible says
so; ministers must do it in their way and other people in other ways;
everybody has his own work. Don't you remember the parable of the ten
talents, Mr. Carleton?"
Mr. Carleton was silent for a minute.
"I do not know the Bible quite as well as you do, Elfie," he said
then,--"nor as I ought to do."
Elfie's only answer was by a look somewhat like that he well remembered on
shipboard he had thought was angel-like,--a look of gentle sorrowful
wistfulness which she did not venture to put into words. It had not for
that the less power. But he did not choose to prolong the conversation.
They rose up and began to walk homeward, Elfie thinking with all the
warmth of her little heart that she wished very much Mr. Carleton knew the
Bible better; divided between him and "that disciple" whom she and Hugh
had been talking about.
"I suppose you are very busy now, Elfie," observed her companion, when
they had walked the length of several squares in silence.
"O yes!" said Fleda. "Hugh and I are as busy as we can be. We are busy
every minute."
"Except when you are on some chase after pleasure?"
"Well," said Fleda laughing,--"that is a kind of business; and all the
business is pleasure too. I didn't mean that we were always busy about
_work_. O Mr. Carleton we had such a nice time the day before
yesterday!"--And she went on to give him the history of a very successful
chase after pleasure which they had made to St. Cloud.
"And yet you like Queechy better?"
"Yes," said Fleda, with a gentle steadiness peculiar to herself,--if I had
aunt Lucy and Hugh and uncle Rolf there and everybody that I care for, I
should like it a great deal better."
"Unspotted" yet, he thought.
"Mr. Carleton," said Fleda presently,--"do you play and sing every day
here in Paris?"
"Yes," said he smiling,--"about every day. Why?"
"I was thinking how pleasant it was at your house, in England."
"Has Carleton the honour of rivalling Queechy in your liking?"
"I haven't lived there so long, you know," said Fleda. "I dare say it
would if I had. I think it is quite as pretty a place."
Mr. Carleton smiled with a very pleased expression. Truth and politeness
had joined hands in her answer with a child's grace.
He brought Fleda to her own door and there was leaving her.
"Stop!--O Mr. Carleton," cried Fleda, "come in just for one minute--I want
to shew you something."
He made no resistance to that. She led him to the saloon, where it
happened that nobody was, and repeating "One minute!"--rushed out of the
room. In less than that time she came running back with a beautiful
half-blown bud of a monthly rose in her hand, and in her face such a bloom
of pleasure and eagerness as more than rivalled it. The rose was fairly
eclipsed. She put the bud quietly but with a most satisfied air of
affection into Mr. Carleton's hand. It had come from a little tree which
he had given her on one of their first visits to the Quai aux Fleurs. She
had had the choice of what she liked best, and had characteristically
taken a flourishing little rose-bush that as yet shewed nothing but leaves
and green buds; partly because she would have the pleasure of seeing its
beauties come forward, and partly because she thought having no flowers it
would not cost much. The former reason however was all that she had given
to Mr. Carleton's remonstrances.
"What is all this, Elfie?" said he. "Have you been robbing your
rose tree?"
"No," said Elfie;--"there are plenty more buds! Isn't it lovely? This is
the first one. They've been a great while coming out."
His eye went from the rose to her; he thought the one was a mere emblem of
the other. Fleda was usually very quiet in her demonstrations; it was as
if a little green bud had suddenly burst into a flush of loveliness; and
he saw, it was as plain as possible, that good-will to him had been the
moving power. He was so much struck and moved that his thanks, though as
usual perfect in their kind, were far shorter and graver than he would
have given if he had felt less. He turned away from the house, his mind
full of the bright unsullied purity and single-hearted good-will that had
looked out of that beaming little face; he seemed to see them again in the
flower held in his hand, and he saw nothing else as he went.
Mr. Carleton preached to himself all the way home, and his text was a
rose.
Laugh who will. To many it may seem ridiculous, and to most minds it would
have been impossible, but to a nature very finely wrought and highly
trained, many a voice that grosser senses cannot hear comes with an
utterance as clear as it is sweet-spoken; many a touch that coarser nerves
cannot heed reaches the springs of the deeper life; many a truth that
duller eyes have no skill to see shews its fair features, hid away among
the petals of a rose, or peering out between the wings of a butterfly, or
reflected in a bright drop of dew. The material is but a veil for the
spiritual; but then eyes must be quickened, or the veil becomes an
impassable cloud.
That particular rose was to Mr. Carleton's eye a most perfect emblem and
representative of its little giver. He traced out the points of
resemblance as he went along. The delicacy and character of refinement for
which that kind of rose is remarkable above many of its more superb
kindred; a refinement essential and unalterable by decay or otherwise, as
true a characteristic of the child as of the flower; a delicacy that
called for gentle handling and tender cherishing;--the sweetness, rare
indeed, but asserting itself as it were timidly, at least with equally
rare modesty,--the very style of the beauty, that with all its loveliness
would not startle nor even catch the eye among its more showy neighbours;
and the breath of purity that seemed to own no kindred with earth, nor
liability to infection.
As he went on with his musing, and drawing out this fair character from
the type before him, the feeling of _contrast_, that he had known before,
pressed upon Mr. Carleton's mind, the feeling of self-reproach, and the
bitter wish that he could be again what he once had been, something like
this. How changed now he seemed to himself--not a point of likeness left.
How much less honourable, how much less worth, how much less dignified,
than that fair innocent child. How much better a part she was acting in
life--what an influence she was exerting,--as pure, as sweet-breathed, and
as unobtrusive, as the very rose in his hand. And he--doing no good to an
earthly creature and losing himself by inches.
He reached his room, put the flower in a glass on the table, and walked up
and down before it. It had come to a struggle between the sense of what
was and the passionate wish for what might have been.
"It is late, sir," said his servant opening the door,--"and you were--"
"I am not going out."
"This evening, sir?"
"No--not at all to-day. Spenser!--I don't wish to see any body--let no one
come near me."
The servant retired and Guy went on with his walk and his meditations,
looking back over his life and reviewing, with a wiser ken now, the steps
by which he had come. He compared the selfish disgust with which he had
cast off the world with the very different spirit of little Fleda's look
upon it that morning, the useless, self-pleasing, vain life he was
leading, with her wish to be like the beloved disciple and do something to
heal the troubles of those less happy than herself. He did not very well
comprehend the grounds of her feeling or reasoning, but he began to see,
mistily, that his own had been mistaken and wild.
His steps grew slower, his eye more intent, his brow quiet.
"She is right and I am wrong," he thought. "She is by far the nobler
creature--worth, many such as I. _Like her_ I cannot be--I cannot regain
what I have lost,--I cannot undo what years have done. But I can be
something other than I am! If there be a system of remedy, as there well
may, it may as well take effect on myself first. She says everybody has
his work, I believe her. It must in the nature of things be so. I will
make it my business to find out what mine is, and when I have made that
sure I will give myself to the doing of it. An Allwise Governor must look
for service of me. He shall have it. Whatever my life be, it shall be to
some end. If not what I would, what I can. If not the purity of the rose,
that of tempered steel!"
Mr. Carleton walked his room for three hours; then rung for his servant
and ordered him to prepare everything for leaving Paris the second day
thereafter.
The next morning over their coffee he told his mother of his purpose.
"Leave Paris!--To-morrow!--My dear Guy, that is rather a sudden notice."
"No mother--for I am going alone."
His mother immediately bent an anxious and somewhat terrified look
upon him. The frank smile she met put half her suspicions out of her
head at once.
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing at all--if by 'matter' you mean mischief."
"You are not in difficulty with those young men again?"
"No mother," said he coolly. "I am in difficulty with no one but myself."
"With yourself! But why will you not let me go with you?"
"My business will go on better if I am quite alone."
"What business?"
"Only to settle this question with myself," said he smiling.
"But Guy! you are enigmatical this morning. Is it the question that of all
others I wish to see settled?"
"No mother," said he laughing and colouring a little,--"I don't want
another half to take care of till I have this one under management."
"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Carleton "There is no hidden reason
under all this that you are keeping from me?"
"I won't say that. But there is none that need give you the least
uneasiness. There are one or two matters I want to study out--I cannot do
it here, so I am going where I shall be free."
"Where?"
"I think I shall pass the summer between Switzerland and Germany."
"And when and where shall I meet you again?"
"I think at home;--I cannot say when."
"At home!" said his mother with a brightening face. "Then you are
beginning to be tired of wandering at last?"
"Not precisely, mother,--rather out of humour."
"I shall be glad of anything," said his mother, gazing at him admiringly,
"that brings you home again, Guy."
"Bring me home a better man, I hope, mother," said he kissing her as he
left the room. "I will see you again by and by."
"'A better man!'" thought Mrs. Carleton, as she sat with full eyes, the
image of her son filling the place where his presence had been;--"I would
be willing never to see him better and be sure of his never being worse!"
Mr. Carleton's farewell visit found Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur not at home.
They had driven out early into the country to fetch Marion from her
convent for some holiday. Fleda came alone into the saloon to receive him.
"I have your rose in safe keeping, Elfie," he said. "It has done me more
good than ever a rose did before."
Fleda smiled an innocently pleased smile. But her look changed when he
added,
"I have come to tell you so and to bid you good-bye."
"Are you going away, Mr. Carleton?"
"Yes."
"But you will be back soon?"
"No, Elfie,--I do not know that I shall ever come back."
He spoke gravely, more gravely than he was used; and Fleda's acuteness saw
that there was some solid reason for this sudden determination. Her face
changed sadly, but she was silent, her eyes never wavering from those that
read hers with such gentle intelligence.
"You will be satisfied to have me go, Elfie, when I tell you that I am
going on business which I believe to be duty. Nothing else takes me away.
I am going to try to do right," said he smiling.
Elfie could not answer the smile. She wanted to ask whether she should
never see him again, and there was another thought upon her tongue too;
but her lip trembled and she said nothing.
"I shall miss my good fairy," Mr. Carleton went on lightly;--"I don't know
how I shall do without her. If your wand was long enough to reach so far I
would ask you to touch me now and then, Elfie."
Poor Elfie could not stand it. Her head sank. She knew she had a wand that
could touch him, and well and gratefully she resolved that its light
blessing should "now and then" rest on his head; but he did not understand
that; he was talking, whether lightly or seriously, and Elfie knew it was
a little of both,--he was talking of wanting her help, and was ignorant of
the help that alone could avail him. "Oh that he knew but that!"--What
with this feeling and sorrow together the child's distress was exceeding
great; and the tokens of grief in one so accustomed to hide them were the
more painful to see. Mr. Carleton drew the sorrowing little creature
within his arm and endeavoured with a mixture of kindness and lightness in
his tone to cheer her.
"I shall often remember you, dear Elfie," he said;--"I shall keep your
rose always and take it with me wherever I go.--You must not make it too
hard for me to quit Paris--you are glad to have me go on such an errand,
are you not?"
She presently commanded herself, bade her tears wait till another time as
usual, and trying to get rid of those that covered her face, asked him,
"What errand?"
He hesitated.
"I have been thinking of what we were talking of yesterday, Elfie,"
he said at length. "I am going to try to discover my duty, and then
to do it."
But Fleda at that clasped his hand, and squeezing it in both hers bent
down her little head over it to hide her face and the tears that streamed
again. He hardly knew how to understand or what to say to her. He half
suspected that there were depths in that childish mind beyond his
fathoming. He was not however left to wait long. Fleda, though she might
now and then be surprised into shewing it, never allowed her sorrow of any
kind to press upon the notice or the time of others. She again checked
herself and dried her face.
"There is nobody else in Paris that will be so sorry for my leaving it,"
said Mr. Carleton, half tenderly and half pleasantly.
"There is nobody else that has so much cause," said Elfie, near bursting
out again, but she restrained herself.
"And you will not come here again, Mr. Carleton?" she said after a
few minutes.
"I do not say that--it is possible--if I do, it will be to see you,
Elfie."
A shadow of a smile passed over her face at that. It was gone instantly.
"My mother will not leave Paris yet," he went on,--"you will see
her often."
But he saw that Fleda was thinking of something else; she scarce seemed to
hear him. She was thinking of something that troubled her.
"Mr. Carleton--" she began, and her colour changed.
"Speak, Elfie."
Her colour changed again. "Mr. Carleton--will you be displeased if I say
something?"
"Don't you know me better than to ask me that, Elfie?" he said gently.
"I want to ask you something,--if you won't mind my saying it."
"What is it?" said he, reading in her face that a request was behind. "I
will do it."
Her eyes sparkled, but she seemed to have some difficulty in going on.
"I will do it, whatever it is," he said watching her.
"Will you wait for one moment, Mr. Carleton?"
"Half an hour."
She sprang away, her face absolutely flashing pleasure through her tears.
It was much soberer, and again doubtful and changing colour, when a few
minutes afterwards she came back with a book in her hand. With a striking
mixture of timidity, modesty, and eagerness in her countenance she came
forward, and putting the little volume, which was her own Bible, into Mr.
Carleton's hands said under her breath, "Please read it." She did not
venture to look up.
He saw what the book was; and then taking the gentle hand which had given
it, he kissed it two or three times. If it had been a princess's he could
not with more respect.
"You have my promise, Elfie," he said. "I need not repeat it?"
She raised her eyes and gave him a look so grateful, so loving, so happy,
that it dwelt for ever in his remembrance. A moment after it had faded,
and she stood still where he had left her, listening to his footsteps as
they went down the stairs. She heard the last of them, and then sank upon
her knees by a chair and burst into a passion of tears. Their time was
now and she let them come. It was not only the losing a loved and
pleasant friend, it was not only the stirring of sudden and disagreeable
excitement;--poor Elfie was crying for her Bible. It had been her
father's own--it was filled with his marks--it was precious to her above
price--and Elfie cried with all her heart for the loss of it. She had
done what she had on the spur of the emergency--she was satisfied she had
done right; she would not take it back if she could; but not the less her
Bible was gone, and the pages that loved eyes had looked upon were for
hers to look upon no more. Her very heart was wrung that she should have
parted with it,--and yet,--what could she do?--It was as bad as the
parting with Mr. Carleton.
That agony was over, and even that was shortened, for "Hugh would find
out that she had been crying." Hours had passed, and the tears were
dried, and the little face was bending over the wonted tasks with a
shadow upon its wonted cheerfulness,--when Rosaline came to tell her that
Victor said there was somebody in the passage who wanted to see her and
would not come in.
It was Mr. Carleton himself. He gave her a parcel, smiled at her without
saying a word, kissed her hand earnestly, and was gone again. Fleda ran to
her own room, and took the wrappers off such a beauty of a Bible as she
had never seen; bound in blue velvet, with clasps of gold and her initials
in letters of gold upon the cover. Fleda hardly knew whether to be most
pleased or sorry; for to have its place so supplied seemed to put her lost
treasure further away than ever. The result was another flood of very
tender tears; in the very shedding of which however the new little Bible
was bound to her heart with cords of association as bright and as
incorruptible as its gold mountings.