Volume Ii Part 34 (1/2)
Her eye half unconsciously reiterated her meaning as she shook hands with Mr. Carleton. And without speaking a word for other people to hear, his look and smile in return were more than an answer. Fleda sat for some time after he was gone, trying to think what it was in eye and lip which had given her so much pleasure. She could not make out anything but approbation ?
the look of loving approbation that one gives to a good child; but she thought it had also something of that quiet intelligence ? a silent communication of sympathy which the others in company could not share.
She was roused from her reverie by Mrs. Evelyn.
”Fleda, my dear, I am writing to your aunt Lucy ? have you any message to send?”
”No, Mrs. Evelyn ? I wrote myself to-day.”
And she went back to her musings.
”I am writing about you, Fleda,” said Mrs. Evelyn again, in a few minutes.
”Giving a good account, I hope, ma'am,” said Fleda, smiling.
”I shall tell her I think sea-breezes have an unfavourable effect upon you,” said Mrs. Evelyn ? ”that I am afraid you are growing pale; and that you have clearly expressed yourself in favour of a garden at Queechy, rather than any lot in the city ? or anywhere else ? so she had better send for you home immediately.”
Fleda tried to find out what the lady really meant; but Mrs.
Evelyn's delighted amus.e.m.e.nt did not consist with making the matter very plain. Fleda's questions did nothing but aggravate the cause of them, to her own annoyance; so she was fain at last to take her light and go to her own.
She looked at her flowers again with a renewal of the first pleasure and of the quieting influence the giver of them had exercised over her that evening; thought again how very kind it was of him to send them, and to choose them so; how strikingly he differed from other people; how glad she was to have seen him again, and how more than glad that he was so happily changed from his old self. And then from that change and the cause of it, to those higher, more tranquillizing, and sweetening influences that own no kindred with earth's dust, and descend like the dew of heaven to lay and fertilize it.
And when she laid herself down to sleep, it was with a spirit grave, but simply happy; every annoyance and unkindness as unfelt now as ever the parching heat of a few hours before when the stars are abroad.
CHAPTER X.
”A snake bedded himself under the threshold of a country house.”
L'ESTRANGE.
To Fleda's very great satisfaction Mr. Thorn was not seen again for several days. It would have been to her very great comfort, too, if he could have been permitted to die out of mind as well as out of sight; but he was brought up before her ”lots of times,” till poor Fleda almost felt as if she was really in the moral neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, every natural growth of pleasure was so withered under the barren spirit of raillery. Sea-breezes were never so disagreeable since winds blew; and nervous and fidgety again whenever Mr.
Carleton was present, Fleda retreated to her work and the table, and withdrew herself as much as she could from notice and conversation; feeling humbled ? feeling sorry, and vexed, and ashamed, that such ideas should have been put into her head, the absurdity of which, she thought, was only equalled by their needlessness. ”As much as she could” she withdrew; but that was not entirely; now and then interest made her forget herself, and quitting her needle she would give eyes and attention to the princ.i.p.al speaker as frankly as he could have desired. Bad weather and bad roads for those days put riding out of the question.
One morning she was called down to see a gentleman, and came eschewing in advance the expected image of Mr. Thorn. It was a very different person.
”Charlton Rossitur! My dear Charlton, how do you do? Where did you come from?”
”You had better ask me what I have come for,” he said, laughing, as he shook hands with her.
”What have you come for?”
”To carry you home.”
”Home?” said Fleda.
”I am going up there for a day or two, and mamma wrote me I had better act as your escort, which, of course, I am most willing to do. See what mamma says to you.”
”When are you going, Charlton?” said Fleda, as she broke the seal of the note he gave her.