Volume I Part 59 (1/2)
”Ay ? I dare say he is,” Earl responded, in precisely the same tone. ”I was down to his house one day last summer to see him.
He wa'n't to hum, though.”
”It would be strange if harm come to a man with such a guardian angel in the house as that man has in his'n.” said Dr. Quackenboss.
”Well she's a pretty creetur!” said Dougla.s.s, looking up with some animation. ”I wouldn't blame any man that sot a good deal by her. I will say I think she's as handsome as my own darter; and a man can't go no furder than that, I suppose.”
”She wont help his farming much, I guess,” said uncle Joshua, ”nor his wife nother.”
Fleda heard Dr. Quackenboss coming through the doorway, and started from her corner, for fear he might find her out there, and know what she had heard.
He very soon found her out in the new place she had chosen, and came up to pay his compliments. Fleda was in a mood for anything but laughing, yet the mixture of the ludicrous which the doctor administered set her nerves a-twitching. Bringing his chair down sideways at one angle and his person at another, so as to meet at the moment of the chair's touching the floor, and with a look and smile, slanting to match, the doctor said ?
”Well, Miss Ringgan, has ? a ? Mrs. Rossitur ? does she feel herself reconciled yet?”
”Reconciled, Sir?' said Fleda.
”Yes ? a ? to Queechy?”
”She never quarrelled with it, Sir,” said Fleda, quite unable to keep from laughing.
”Yes ? I mean ? a ? she feels that she can sustain her spirits in different situations?”
”She is very well, Sir, thank you.”
”It must have been a great change to her ? and to you all ?
coming to this place.”
”Yes, Sir; the country is very different from the city.”
”In what part of New York was Mr. Rossitur's former residence?”
” In State-street, Sir.”
”State-street ? that is somewhere in the direction of the Park?”
”No, Sir, not exactly.”
”Was Mrs. Rossitur a native of the city?”
”Not of New York. Oh, Hugh! my dear Hugh!” exclaimed Fleda, in another tone ? ”what have you been thinking of?”
”Father wanted me,” said Hugh. ”I could not help it, Fleda.”
”You are not going to have the cruelty to take your ? a ?
cousin away, Mr. Rossitur?” said the doctor.
But Fleda was for once happy to be cruel; she would hear no remonstrances. Though her desire for Miss Lucy's ”help” had considerably lessened, she thought she could not in politeness avoid speaking on the subject, after being invited there on purpose. But Miss Lucy said she ”calculated to stay at home this winter,” unless she went to live with somebody at Kenton, for the purpose of attending a course of philosophy lectures that she heard were to be given there. So that matter was settled; and, clasping Hugh's arm, Fleda turned away from the house with a step and heart both lightened by the joy of being out of it.
”I coudn't come sooner, Fleda,” said Hugh.