Volume Ii Part 78 (2/2)
”How did you get to Paris?”
”I don't know ? by a bridge of a.s.sociations, I suppose, resting one end on last year, and the other on the time when I was eleven years old.”
”Very intelligible,” said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
”Do you remember that morning, Mr. Carleton, when you took Hugh and me to the Marche des Innocens?”
”Perfectly.”
”I have thanked you a great many times since for getting up so early that morning.”
”I think I was well paid at the time. I remember I thought I had seen one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen in Paris.”
”So I thought!” said Fleda. ”It has been a pleasant picture in my imagination ever since.”
There was a curious curl in the corners of Mr. Carleton's mouth, which made Fleda look an inquiry ? a look so innocently wistful, that his gravity gave way.
”My dear Elfie!” said he, ”you are the very child you were then.”
”Am I?” said Fleda. ”I dare say I am, for I feel so. I have the very same feeling I used to have then, that I am a child, and you taking the care of me into your own hands.”
”One half of that is true, and the other half nearly so.”
”How good you always were to me!” Fleda said, with a sigh.
”Not necessary to balance the debtor and creditor items on both sides,” he said, with a smile, ”as the account bids fair to run a good while.”
A silence again, during which Fleda is clearly not enjoying the landscape nor the fine weather.
”Elfie ? what are you meditating?”
She came back from her meditations with a very frank look.
”I was thinking ? Mr. Carleton ? of your notions about female education.”
”Well?”
They had paused upon a rising ground. Fleda hesitated, and then looked up in his face.
”I am afraid you will find me wanting, and when you do, will you put me in the way of being all you wish me to be?”
Her look was ingenuous and tender, equally. He gave her no answer, except by the eye of grave intentness that fixed hers till she could meet it no longer, and her own fell. Mr.
Carleton recollected himself.
”My dear Elfie,” said he, and whatever the look had meant, Elfie was at no loss for the tone now ? ”what do you consider yourself deficient in?”
Fleda spoke with a little difficulty.
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