Volume Ii Part 66 (1/2)
A glance at Mrs. Evelyn's face, which was opposite her, and at one or two others, which had, undeniably, the air of being _arrested_, was enough for Fleda's quick apprehension. She knew they had been talking of her. Her eye stopped short of Mr.
Carleton's, and she coloured, and hesitated. No one spoke.
”By prosperity, you mean ?”
”Rank and fortune,” said Florence, without looking up.
”Marrying a rich man, for instance,” said Edith, ”and having one's hands full.”
This peculiar statement of the case occasioned a laugh all round, but the silence which followed seemed still to wait upon Fleda's reply.
”Am I expected to give a serious answer to that question?” she said, a little doubtfully.
”Expectations are not stringent things,” said her first questioner, smiling. ”That waits upon your choice.”
”They are horridly stringent, _I_ think,” said Constance.
”We shall all be disappointed, if you don't, Fleda, my dear.”
”By wearing it 'well,' you mean making a good use of it?”
”And gracefully,” said Mrs. Evelyn.
”I think I should say, then,” said Fleda, after some little.
Hesitation, and speaking with evident difficulty ? ”such an a experience as might teach one both the worth and the worthlessness of money.”
Mr. Carleton's smile was a sufficiently satisfied one; but Mrs. Evelyn retorted ?
”The _worth_ and the _worthlessness!_ ? Fleda, my dear, I don't understand ?”
”And what experience teaches one the worth, and what the worthlessness of money?” said Constance; ”mamma is morbidly persuaded that I do not understand the first ? of the second I have an indefinite idea, from never being able to do more than half that I want with it.”
Fleda smiled and hesitated again, in a way that showed she would willingly be excused, but the silence left her no choice but to speak.
”I think,'' she said, modestly, ”that a person can hardly understand the true worth of money ? the ends it can best subserve ? that has not been taught it by his own experience of the want; and” ?
”What follows?” said Mr. Carleton.
”I was going to say, Sir, that there is danger, especially when people have not been accustomed to it, that they will greatly overvalue and misplace the real worth of prosperity; unless the mind has been steadied by another kind of experience, and has learnt to measure things by a higher scale.”
”And how when they _have_ been accustomed to it?” said Florence.
”The same danger, without the 'especially,' ” said Fleda, with a look that disclaimed any a.s.suming.
”One thing is certain,” said Constance, ”you hardly ever see _les nouveaux riches_ make a graceful use of anything. Fleda, my dear, I am seconding all of your last speech that I understand. Mamma, I perceive, is at work upon the rest.”
”I think we ought all to be at work upon it,” said Mrs.
Evelyn, ”for Miss Ringgan has made it out that there is hardly anybody here that is qualified to wear prosperity well.”
”I was just thinking so,” said Florence.