Volume Ii Part 55 (1/2)
”But what brought you to town again, Fleda ” said the elder sister.
”What makes you talk so, Constance?” said Fleda.
”I haven't told you the half!” said Constance, demurely. ”And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr.
Carleton said, very seriously, that he knew there was a great element of headstrongness in your character; he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole.”
”Constance, be quiet!” said her sister. ”_Will_ you tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity.”
”Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear,” said Fleda, smiling.
”Tell me.”
”I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance.”
”Who did you come with?”
”One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York.”
”Wasn't your uncle at home?”
”Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring.”
”But was there n.o.body else to do it but you?”
”Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post ?
Fort Hamilton, is it? ? I forget which fort ? he is fast there.”
”He is not so very fast,” said Constance, ”for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work ? (I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) ? or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that ? I don't know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out.”
The mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.
”But where is your other cousin ? Hugh?” said Florence.
”He was not well.”
”Where is your uncle?”
”He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been ? I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough ? to my sorrow.”
”You were not going alone!”
”Oh, no! ? a friend of ours was going to-day.”
”I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. ”But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?”
”Oh, by to-morrow,” said Fleda, smiling; ”but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here. I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity.”
”But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you,” said Constance. ”I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friends.h.i.+p, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits; and if we were to leave you here in an empty house, to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?”
What would he think? Oh, world! Is this it?