Volume I Part 6 (1/2)

_I_ don't believe there's the like of him left in it.”

”He had been a major a good while, hadn't be, grandpa?”

”Yes. It was just after he was made captain that he went to Albany, and there he saw your mother. She and her sister, your aunt Lucy, were wards of the patroon. I was in Albany, in the legislature, that winter, and I knew them both very well; but your aunt Lucy had been married some years before. She was staying there that winter without her husband ? he was abroad somewhere.”

Fleda was no stranger to these details, and had learned long ago what was meant by ”wards” and ”the patroon.”

”Your father was made a major some years afterwards,” Mr.

Ringgan went on, ”for his fine behaviour out here at the West ? what's the name of the place? ? I forget it just now ?

fighting the Indians. There never was anything finer done.”

”He was brave, wasn't he, grandpa?”

”Brave! ? he had a heart of iron sometimes, for as soft as it was at others. And he had an eye, when he was roused, that I never saw anything that would stand against. But your father had a better sort of courage than the common sort ? he had enough of _that_ ? but this is a rarer thing ? he never was afraid to do what in his conscience he thought was right.

Moral courage I call it, and it is one of the very n.o.blest qualities a man can have.”

”That's a kind of courage a woman may have,” raid Fleda.

”Yes ? you may have that; and I guess it's the only kind of courage you'll ever be troubled with,” said her grandfather, looking laughingly at her. ”However, any man may walk up to the cannon's mouth, but it is only one here and there that will walk out against men's opinions because he thinks it is right. That was one of the things I admired most in your father.”

”Didn't my mother have it too?” said Fleda.

”I don't know ? she had about everything that was good. A sweet pretty creature she was as ever I saw.”

”Was she like aunt Lucy?”

”No, not much. She was a deal handsomer than your aunt is or ever could have been. She was the handsomest woman, I think, that ever I set eyes upon; and a sweet, gentle, lovely creature. _You_'ll never match her,” said Mr. Ringgan, with a curious twist of his head and sly laughing twist of his eyes at Fleda; ? ”you may be as _good_ as she was, but you'll never be as good-looking.”

Fleda laughed, nowise displeased.

”You've got her hazel eyes though,” remarked Mr. Ringgan, after a minute or two, viewing his little grand-daughter with a sufficiently satisfied expression of countenance.

”Grandpa,” said she, ”don't you think Mr. Carleton has handsome eyes?”

”Mr. Carleton? ? hum ? I don't know; I didn't look at his eyes. A very well-looking young man though ? very gentlemanly too.”

Fleda had heard all this and much more about her parents some dozens of times before; but she and her grandfather were never tired of going it over. If the conversation that recalled his lost treasures had of necessity a character of sadness and tenderness, it yet bespoke not more regret that he had lost them than exulting pride and delight in what they had been, ?

perhaps not so much. And Fleda delighted to go back and feed her imagination with stories of the mother whom she could not remember, and of the father whose fair bright image stood in her memory as the embodiment of all that is high and n.o.ble and pure. A kind of guardian angel that image was to little Fleda.

These ideal likenesses of her father and mother, the one drawn from history and recollection, the other from history only, had been her preservative from all the untoward influences and unfortunate examples which had surrounded her since her father's death, some three or four years before, had left her almost alone in her grandfather's house. They had created in her mind a standard of the true and beautiful in character, which nothing she saw around her, after, of course, her grandfather and one other exception, seemed at all to meet; and partly from her own innate fineness of nature, and partly from this pure ideal always present with her, she had shrunk almost instinctively from the few varieties of human nature the country-side presented to her, and was in fact a very isolated little being, living in a world of her own, and clinging with all her strong out-goings of affection to her grandfather only; granting to but one other person any considerable share in her regard or esteem. Little Fleda was not in the least misanthropical; she gave her kindly sympathies to all who came in her way on whom they could possibly be bestowed; but these people were nothing to her; her spirit fell off from them, even in their presence; there was no affinity. She was in truth what her grandfather had affirmed of her father, made of different stuff from the rest of the world. There was no tincture of pride in all this; there was no conscious feeling of superiority; she could merely have told you that she did not care to hear these people talk, that she did not love to be with them; though she _would_ have said so to no earthly creature but her grandfather, if even to him.

”It must be pleasant,” said Fleda, after looking for some minutes thoughtfully into the fire, ? ”it must be a pleasant thing to have a father and mother.”

”Yes, dear!” said her grandfather, sighing, ? ”you have lost a great deal! But there is your aunt Lucy ? you are not dependent altogether on me.”

”Oh, grandpa!” said the little girl, laying one hand again pleadingly on his knee; ? ”I didn't mean ? I mean ? I was speaking in general ? I wasn't thinking of myself in particular.”

”I know, dear!” said he, as before taking the little hand in his own, and moving it softly up and down on his knee. But the action was sad, and there was the same look of sorrowful stern anxiety. Fleda got up and put her arm over his shoulder, speaking from a heart filled too full.

”I don't want aunt Lucy ? I don't care about aunt Lucy, I don't want anything but you, grandpa. I wish you wouldn't talk so.”

”Ah well, dear,” said he, without looking at her, ? he couldn't bear to look at her, ? ”it's well it is so. I sha'n't last a great while ? it isn't likely ? and I am glad to know there is some one you can fall back upon when I am gone.”