Volume Ii Part 1 (2/2)
Softly pus.h.i.+ng back the wet hair from his temples, she said ?
”I had one of my fits of doing nothing at home ? I didn't feel very bright, and thought perhaps you didn't ? so, on the principle that two negatives make an affirmative ?”
”I feel bright,” said Hugh, gently.
Fleda's eye came down to his, which was steady and clear as the reflection of the sky in Deepwater lake ? and then hers fell lower.
”Why don't you, dear Fleda?”
”I believe I am a little tired,” Fleda said, trying, but in vain, to command herself and look up ? ”and there are states of body when anything almost is enough to depress one.”
”And what depresses you now?” said he, very steadily and quietly.
”Oh ? I was feeling a little down about things in general,”
said Fleda, in a choked voice, trying to throw off her load with a long breath; ”it's because I am tired, I suppose ?”
”I felt so too, a little while ago,” said Hugh. ”But I have concluded to give all that up, Fleda.”
Fleda looked at him. Her eyes were swimming full, but his were clear and gentle as ever, only glistening a little in sympathy with hers.
”I thought all was going wrong with us,” he went on. ”But I found it was only I that was wrong; and since that, I have been quite happy, Fleda.”
Fleda could not speak to him; his words made her pain worse.
”I told you this rested me,” said he, reaching across her for his book; ”and now I am never weary long. Shall I rest you with it? What have you been troubling yourself about to-day?”
She did not answer while he was turning over the leaves, and he then said, ?
”Do you remember this, Fleda ? '_Truly G.o.d is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart_.' ”
Fleda bent her head down upon her hands.
”I was moody and restless the other day,” said Hugh; ”desponding of everything; and I came upon this psalm; and it made me ashamed of myself. I had been disbelieving it; and because I could not see how things were going to work good, I thought they were going to work evil. I thought we were wearing out our lives alone here in a wearisome way, and I forgot that it must be the very straightest way that we could get home. I am sure we shall not want anything that will do us good; and the rest I am willing to want ? and so are you, Fleda?”
Fleda squeezed his hand ? that was all. For a minute he was silent, and then went on, without any change of tone.
”I had a notion, awhile ago, that I should like if it were possible for me to go to college; but I am quite satisfied now. I have good time and opportunity to furnish myself with a better kind of knowledge, that I shall want where college learning wouldn't be of much use to me; and I can do it, I dare say, better here in this mill, than if we had stayed in New York, and I had lived in our favourite library.”
”But, dear Hugh,” said Fleda, who did not like this speech in any sense of it; ”the two things do not clas.h.!.+ The better man, the better Christian always, other things being equal. The more precious kind of knowledge should not make one undervalue the less?”
”No,” he said; but the extreme quietness and simplicity of his reply smote Fleda's fears; it answered her words and waved her thought. She dared not press him further. She sat looking over the road with an aching heart.
”You haven't taken enough of my medicine,” said Hugh, smiling.
”Listen, Fleda ? '_All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies_.' ”
But that made Fleda cry again.
” 'All his paths,' Fleda; then, whatever may happen to you, and whatever may happen to me, or to any of us, I can trust him. I am willing any one should have the world, if I may have what Abraham had ? '_fear not; I am thy s.h.i.+eld and thy exceeding great reward;_' ? and I believe I shall, Fleda; for it is not the hungry that he has threatened to send empty away.”
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