Volume Ii Part 24 (2/2)

”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 times, 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.

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