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--"
"O 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 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 won't 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 won't go out of my way for anybody. If I leave you there, it will be in
my way. Why you are not getting homesick?"
"No sir, not exactly,--but I think I will go with you when you go."
"That won't 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 notfor 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 the 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.
[Illustration: Fleda saw with a start that it was Mr. Carleton.]
"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
oneself;" 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 oneself 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 quite tell 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 shewed 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 roughness 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--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?--O 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 shew 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 shew 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 shews 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
shew herself beautiful unless she is pleased;--I love better what comes
nearer home to the charities and wants of everyday 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 fairyland."
"Do you suppose," said he laughing, "that I leave the whole care of
fairyland 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 of 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 time, 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?"
"O, 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.