"But the fire has gone down it will be cooler now," said Mrs. Thorn.

Which were the first words that fairly entered Fleda's understanding. She was glad to use the screen to hide her face now, not the fire.

Apparently the gentleman and lady found nothing to detain them in the other room, for, after sauntering off to it, they sauntered back again, and placed themselves to talk just opposite her. Fleda had an additional screen now in the person of Miss Tomlinson, who had sought her corner, and was earnest talking across her to Mrs. Thorn, so that she was sure, even if Mr. Carleton's eyes should chance to wander that way, they would see nothing but the unremarkable skirt of her green silk dress, most unlikely to detain them.

The trade in nothings going on over the said green silk was very brisk indeed; but, disregarding the buzz of tongues near at hand, Fleda's quick ears were able to free the barrier, and catch every one of the quiet tones beyond.

"And you leave us the day after to-morrow?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"No, Mrs. Evelyn, I shall wait another steamer."

The lady's brow instantly revealed to Fleda a trap setting beneath to catch his reason.

"I'm very glad!" exclaimed little Edith, who, in defiance of conventionalities and proprieties, made good her claim to be in the drawing-room on all occasions "then you will take me another ride, wont you, Mr. Carleton?"

"You do not flatter us with a very long stay," pursued Mrs. Evelyn.

"Quite as long as I expected longer than I meant it to be," he answered, rather thoughtfully.

"Mr. Carleton," said Constance, sidling up in front of him. "I have been in distress to ask you a question, and I am afraid "

"Of what are you afraid, Miss Constance?"

"That you would reward me with one of your severe looks, which would petrify me; and then, I am afraid I should feel uncomfortable"

"I hope he will!" said Mrs. Evelyn, settling herself back in the corner of the sofa, and with a look at her daughter which was complacency itself "I hope Mr. Carleton will, if you are guilty of any impertinence."

"What is the question, Miss Constance?"

"I want to know what brought you out here?"

"Fie, Constance," said her mother. "I am ashamed of you. Do not answer her, Mr. Carleton."

"Mr. Carleton will answer me, Mamma he looks benevolently upon my faults, which are entirely those of education. What was it, Mr. Carleton?"

"I suppose," said he, smiling, "it might be traced more or less remotely to the restlessness incident to human nature."

"But you are not restless, Mr. Carleton," said Florence, with a glance which might be taken as complimentary.

"And knowing that I am," said Constance, in comic impatience, "you are maliciously prolonging my agonies. It is not what I expected of you, Mr. Carleton."

"My dear," said her father, "Mr. Carleton, I am sure, will fulfil all reasonable expectations. What is the matter?"

"I asked him where a certain tribe of Indians was to be found, Papa, and he told me they were supposed originally to have come across Behring's Strait, one cold winter."

Mr. Evelyn looked a little doubtfully, and Constance with so unhesitating gravity, that the gravity of nobody else was worth talking about.

"But it is so uncommon," said Mrs. Evelyn, when they had done laughing, "to see an Englishman of your class here at all, that when he comes a second time we may be forgiven for wondering what has procured us such an honour."

"Women may always be forgiven for wondering, my dear," said Mr. Evelyn, "or the rest of mankind must live at odds with them."

"Your principal object was to visit our western prairies, wasn't it, Mr. Carleton?" said Florence.

"No," he replied, quietly, "I cannot say that. I should choose to give a less romantic explanation of my movements. From, some knowledge growing out of my former visit to this country, I thought there were certain negotiations I might enter into here with advantage; and it was for the purpose of attending to these, Miss Constance, that I came."

"And have you succeeded?" said Mrs. Evelyn, with an expression of benevolent interest.

"No, Ma'am my information had not been sufficient."

"Very likely," said Mr. Evelyn. "There isn't one man in a hundred whose representations on such a matter are to be trusted at a distance."

"On such a matter," repeated his wife, funnily; "you don't know what the matter was, Mr. Evelyn you don't know what you are talking about."

"Business, my dear business I take only what Mr. Carleton said; it doesn't signify a straw what business. A man must always see with his own eyes."

Whether Mr. Carleton had seen or had not seen, or whether even he had his faculty of hearing in present exercise, a glance at his face was incompetent to discover.

"I never should have imagined," said Constance, eyeing him keenly, "that Mr. Carleton's errand to this country was one of business, and not of romance. I believe it's a humbug!"

For an instant this was answered by one of those looks of absolute composure, in every muscle and feature, which put an effectual bar to all further attempts from without, or revelations from within a look Fleda remembered well, and felt even in her corner. But it presently relaxed, and he said with his usual manner,

"You cannot understand, then, Miss Constance, that there should be any romance about business?"

"I cannot understand," said Mrs. Evelyn, "why romance should not come after business. Mr. Carleton, Sir, you have seen American scenery this summer; isn't American beauty worth staying a little while longer for?"

"My dear," said Mr. Evelyn, "Mr. Carleton is too much of a philosopher to care about beauty every man of sense is."

"I am sure he is not," said Mrs. Evelyn, smoothly. "Mr. Carleton, you are an admirer of beauty, are you not, Sir ?"

"I hope so, Mrs. Evelyn," he said smiling; "but perhaps, I shall shock you by adding not of beauties."

"That sounds very odd," said Florence.

"But let us understand," said Mrs. Evelyn, with the air of a person solving a problem; "I suppose we are to infer that your taste in beauty is of a peculiar kind?"

"That may be a fair inference," he said.

"What is it, then?" said Constance, eagerly.

"Yes what is it you look for in a face?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Let us hear whether America has any chance," said Mr. Thorn, who had joined the group, and placed himself precisely so as to hinder Fleda's view.

"My fancy has no stamp of nationality, in this, at least," he said, pleasantly.

"Now, for instance, the Miss Delancys don't you call them handsome, Mr. Carleton?" said Florence.

"Yes," he said, half smiling.

"But not beautiful? Now, what is it they want?"

"I do not wish, if I could, to make the want visible to other eyes than my own."

"Well, Cornelia Schenck how do you like her face?"

"It is very pretty-featured."

"Pretty-featured! Why, she is called beautiful! She has a beautiful smile, Mr. Carleton!"

"She has only one."

"Only one! and how many smiles ought the same person to have?" cried Florence, impatiently. But that which instantly answered her said forcibly, that a plurality of them was possible.

"I have seen one face," he said, gravely, and his eye seeking the floor, "that had, I think, a thousand."

"Different smiles!" said Mrs. Evelyn, in a constrained voice.

"If they were not all absolutely that, they had so much of freshness and variety that they all seemed new."

"Was the mouth so beautiful?" said Florence.

"Perhaps it would not have been remarked for beauty when it was perfectly at rest, but it could not move with the least play of feeling, grave or gay, that it did not become so in a very high degree. I think there was no touch or shade of sentiment in the mind that the lips did not give with singular nicety; and the mind was one of the most finely wrought I have ever known."

"And what other features went with this mouth?" said Florence.

"The usual complement, I suppose," said Thorn. " 'Item, two lips indifferent red; item, two gray eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth."

"Mr. Carleton, Sir," said Mrs. Evelyn, blandly," as Mr. Evelyn says, women may be forgiven for wondering, wont you answer Florence's question?"

"Mr. Thorn has done it, Mrs. Evelyn, for me."

"But I have great doubts of the correctness of Mr. Thorn's description, Sir; wont you indulge us with yours?"

"Word-painting is a difficult matter, Mrs. Evelyn, in some instances; if I must do it, I will borrow my colours. In general, 'that which made her fairness much the fairer was, that it was but an ambassador of a most fair mind.' "

"A most exquisite picture!" said Thorn; "and the originals don't stand so thick that one is in any danger of mistaking them. Is the painter Shakespeare? I don't recollect."

"I think Sidney, Sir; I am not sure."

"But still, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "this is only in general I want very much to know the particulars; what style of features belonged to this face?"

"The fairest, I think, I have ever known," said Mr. Carleton. "You asked me, Miss Evelyn, what was my notion of beauty; this face was a good illustration of it. Not perfection of outline, though it had that, too, in very uncommon degree; but the loveliness of mind and character to which these features were only an index; the thoughts were invariably telegraphed through eye and mouth more faithfully than words could give them."

"What kind of eyes?" said Florence.

His own grew dark as he answered

"Clear and pure as one might imagine an angel's through which I am sure my good angel many a time looked at me."

Good angels were at a premium among the eyes that were exchanging glances just then.

"And Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "is it fair to ask this paragon is she living, still?"

"I hope so," he answered, with his old light smile, dismissing the subject.

"You spoke so much in the past tense," said Mrs. Evelyn, apologetically.

"Yes; I have not seen it since it was a child's."

"A child's face! Oh," said Florence, "I think you see a great many children's faces with that kind of look."

"I never saw but the one," said Mr. Carleton, drily.

So far Fleda listened, with cheeks that would certainly have excited Mrs. Thorn's alarm, if she had not been happily engrossed with Miss Tomlinson's affairs; though up to the last two minutes the idea of herself had not entered Fleda's head in connection with the subject of conversation. But then, feeling it impossible to make her appearance in public that evening, she quietly slipped out of the open window close by, which led into a little greenhouse on the piazza, and by another door gained the hall and the dressing-room.

When Dr. Gregory came to Mrs. Evelyn's an hour or two after, a figure all cloaked and hooded ran down the stairs and met him in the hall.

"Ready!" said the doctor, in surprise.

"I have been ready some time, Sir," said Fleda.

"Well," said he, "then we'll go straight home, for I've not done my work yet."

"Dear uncle Orrin," said Fleda, "if I had known you had work to do, I wouldn't have come."

"Yes, you would," said he, decidedly.

She clasped her uncle's arm, and walked with him briskly home through the frosty air, looking at the silent lights and shadows on the walls of the street, and feeling a great desire to cry.

"Did you have a pleasant evening?" said the doctor, when they were about half way.

"Not particularly, Sir," said Fleda, hesitating.

He said not another word till they got home, and Fleda went up to her room. But the habit of patience overcame the wish to cry; and though the outside of her little gold-clasped bible awoke it again, a few words of the inside were enough to lay it quietly to sleep.

"Well," said the doctor, as they sat at breakfast the next morning, "where are you going next?"

"To the concert, I must, to-night," said Fleda. "I couldn't help myself."

"Why should you want to help yourself?" said the doctor. "And to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night?"

"No, Sir; I believe not."

"I believe you will," said he, looking at her.

"I am sure I should enjoy myself more at home, uncle Orrin. There is very little rational pleasure to be had in these assemblages."

"Rational pleasure!" said he. "Didn't you have any rational pleasure last night?"

"I didn't hear a single word spoken, Sir, that was worth listening to; at least, that was spoken to me; and the hollow kind of rattle that one hears from every tongue, makes me more tired than anything else, I believe. I am out of tune with it, somehow."

"Out of tune!" said the old doctor, giving her a look made up of humourous vexation and real sadness; "I wish I knew the right tuning-key to take hold of you!"

"I become harmonious rapidly, uncle Orrin, when I am in this pleasant little room alone with you."

"That wont do!" said he, shaking his head at the smile with which this was said "there is too much tension upon the strings. So that was the reason you were all ready waiting for me last night? Well, you must tune up, my little piece of discordance, and go with me to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night I wont let you off."

"With you, Sir!" said Fleda.

"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you, lest you get drawn into something else you don't like."

"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty it is to be a large party, and I have not a dress exactly fit."

"What have you got?" said he, with a comic kind of fierceness.

"I have silks, but they are none of them proper for this occasion they are ever so little old-fashioned."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, Sir," said Fleda; "for I don't want to go."

"You mend a pair of stockings to put on," said he, nodding at her, "and I'll see to the rest."

"Apparently you place great importance in stockings," said Fleda, laughing, "for you always mention them first. But, please don't get anything for me, uncle Orrin please don't! I have plenty for common occasions, and I don't care to go to Mrs. Thorn's."

"I don't care either," said the doctor, working himself into his great coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the aid of St. Crispin?"

He went off, and Fleda did not know whether to cry or to laugh at the vigorous way in which he trod through the hall, and slammed the front door after him. Her spirits just kept the medium, and did neither. But they were in the same doubtful mood still an hour after, when he came back with a paper parcel he had brought home under his arm, and unrolled a fine embroidered muslin; her eyes were very unsteady in carrying their brief messages of thankfulness, as if they feared saying too much. The doctor, however, was in the mood for doing, not talking, by looks or otherwise. Mrs. Pritchard was called into consultation, and with great pride and delight engaged to have the dress and all things else in due order by the following night; her eyes saying all manner of gratulatory things as they went from the muslin to Fleda, and from Fleda to Dr. Gregory.

The rest of the day was, not books, but needlefuls of thread; and from the confusion of laces and draperies, Fleda was almost glad to escape, and go to the concert but for one item; that spoiled it.

They were in their seats early. Fleda managed successfully to place the two Evelyns between her and Mr. Thorn, and then prepared herself to wear out the evening with patience.

"My dear Fleda!" whispered Constance, after some time spent in restless reconnoitring of everything "I don't see my English rose anywhere!"

"Hush!" said Fleda, smiling. "That happened not to be an English rose, Constance."

"What was it?"

"American, unfortunately; it was a Noisette; the variety, I think, that they call 'Conque de Vnus.' "

"My dear little Fleda, you're too wise for anything!" said Constance, with a rather significant arching of her eye-brows. "You mustn't expect other people to be as rural in their acquirements as yourself. I don't pretend to know any rose by sight but the Queechy," she said, with a change of expression, meant to cover the former one.

Fleda's face, however, did not call for any apology. It was perfectly quiet.

"But what has become of him?" said Constance, with her comic impatience. "My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development of elegance, the parterre is become a wilderness to me!"

"Hush, Constance!" Fleda whispered earnestly "you are not safe he may be near you."

"Safe!" ejaculated Constance; but a half backward hasty glance of her eye brought home so strong an impression that the person in question was seated a little behind her, that she dared not venture another look, and became straightway extremely well-behave.

He was there; and being presently convinced that he was in the neighbourhood of his little friend of former days, he resolved with his own excellent eyes to test the truth of the opinion he had formed as to the natural and inevitable effect of circumstances upon her character; whether it could by possibility have retained its great delicacy and refinement, under the rough handling and unkindly bearing of things seemingly foreign to both. He had thought not.

Truffi did not sing, and the entertainment was of a very secondary quality. This seemed to give no uneasiness to the Miss Evelyns, for if they pouted, they laughed and talked in the same breath, and that incessantly. It was nothing to Mr. Carleton, for his mind was bent on something else. And with a little surprise, he saw that it was nothing to the subject of his thoughts, either because her own were elsewhere, too, or because they were in league with a nice taste, that permitted them to take no interest in what was going on. Even her eyes, trained as they had been to recluse habits, were far less busy than those of her companions; indeed, they were not busy at all; for the greater part of the time, one hand was upon the brow, shielding them from the glare of the gas-lights. Ostensibly but the very quiet air of the face led him to guess that the mind was glad of a shield too. It relaxed sometimes. Constance, and Florence, and Mr. Thorn, and Mr. Thorn's mother, were every now and then making demands upon her, and they were met always with an intelligent well-bred eye, and often with a smile of equal gentleness and character; but her observer noticed that though the smile came readily, it went as readily, and the lines of the face quickly settled again into what seemed to be an habitual composure. There were the same outlines, the same characters, he remembered very well; yet there was a difference; not grief had changed them, but life had. The brow had all its fine chiselling and high purity of expression; but now there sat there a hopelessness, or rather a want of hopefulness, that a child's face never knows. The mouth was sweet and pliable as ever, but now often patience and endurance did not quit their seat upon the lip even when it smiled. The eye, with all its old clearness and truthfulness, had a shade upon it that, nine years ago, only fell at the bidding of sorrow; and in every line of the face there was a quiet gravity that went to the heart of the person who was studying it. Whatever causes had been at work, he was very sure, had done no harm to the character; its old simplicity had suffered no change, as every look and movement proved; the very unstudied careless position of the fingers over the eyes showed that the thoughts had nothing to do there.

On one half of his doubt Mr. Carleton's mind was entirely made up; but education? the training and storing of the mind how had that fared? He would know!

Perhaps he would have made some attempt that very evening towards satisfying himself; but noticing that, in coming out, Thorn permitted the Evelyns to pass him, and attached himself determinately to Fleda, he drew back, and resolved to make his observations indirectly, and on more than one point, before he should seem to make them at all.

CHAPTER VI.

"Hark: I hear the sound of coaches, The hour of attack approaches." GAY.

Mrs. Pritchard had arrayed Fleda in the white muslin, with an amount of satisfaction and admiration that all the lines of her face were insufficient to express.

"Now," she said, "you must just run down and let the doctor see you, afore you take the shine off, or he wont be able to look at anything else when you get to the place."

"That would be unfortunate!" said Fleda, and she ran down, laughing, into the room where the doctor was waiting for her; but her astonished eyes encountering the figure of Dr. Quackenboss, she stopped short, with an air that no woman of the world could have bettered. The physician of Queechy, on his part, was at least equally taken aback.

"Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.

"I I was going to say, Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor, with a most unaffected obeisance, "but a I am afraid, Sir, it is a deceptive influence!"

"I hope not," said Dr. Gregory, smiling; one corner of his mouth for his guest and the other for his niece. "Real enough to do real execution, or I am mistaken, Sir."

"Upon my word, Sir," said Dr. Quackenboss, bowing again, "I hope a Miss Ringgan will remember the acts of her executive power at home, and return in time to prevent an unfortunate termination!"

Dr. Gregory laughed heartily now, while Fleda's cheeks relieved her dress to admiration.

"Who will complain of her if she don't?" said the doctor. "Who will complain of her if she don't?"

But Fleda put in her question.

"How are you all at home, Dr. Quackenboss?"

"All Queechy, Sir," answered the doctor, politely, on the principle of 'first come, first served' "and individuals I shouldn't like to specify"

"How are you all in Queechy, Dr. Quackenboss?" said Fleda.

"I have the pleasure to say we are coming along as usual," replied the doctor, who seemed to have lost his power of standing up straight. "My sister Flora enjoys but poor health lately they are all holding their heads up at your house. Mr. Rossitur has come home."

"Uncle Rolf! Has he?" exclaimed Fleda, the colour of joy quite supplanting the other. "Oh, I'm very glad!"

"Yes," said the doctor "he's been home now I guess, going on four days."

"I am very glad!" repeated Fleda. "But wont you come and see me another time, Dr. Quackenboss? I am obliged to go out."

The doctor professed his great willingness, adding that he had only come down to the city to do two or three chores, and thought she might perhaps like to take the opportunity which would afford him such very great gratification.

"No, indeed, faire Una," said Dr. Gregory, when they were on their way to Mrs. Thorn's "they've got your uncle at home now, and we've got you; and I mean to keep you till I'm satisfied. So you may bring home that eye that has been squinting at Queechy ever since you have been here, and make up your mind to enjoy yourself; I shan't let you go till you do."

"I ought to enjoy myself, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, squeezing his arm gratefully.

"See you do," said he.

The pleasant news from home had given Fleda's spirits the needed spur, which the quick walk to Mrs. Thorn's did not take off.

"Did you ever see Fleda look so well, Mamma?" said Florence, as the former entered the drawing-room.

"That is the loveliest and best face in the room," said Mr. Evelyn; "and she looks like herself to-night."

"There is a matchless simplicity about her," said a gentleman, standing by.

"Her dress is becoming," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Why, where did you ever see her, Mr. Stackpole, except at our house?" said Constance.

"At Mrs. Decatur's I have had that pleasure and once at her uncle's."

"I didn't know you ever noticed ladies' faces, Mr. Stackpole," said Florence.

"How Mrs. Thorn does look at her!" said Constance, under her breath. "It is too much."

It was almost too much for Fleda's equanimity, for the colour began to come.

"And there goes Mr. Carleton!" said Constance. "I expect momentarily to hear the company strike up, 'Sparkling and Bright.' "

"They should have done that some time ago, Miss Constance," said the gentleman.

Which compliment, however, Constance received with hardly disguised scorn, and turned her attention again to Mr. Carleton.

"I trust I do not need presentation," said his voice and his smile at once, as he presented himself to Fleda.

How little he needed it, the flash of feeling which met his eyes said sufficiently well. But apparently the feeling was a little too deep, for the colour mounted, and the eyes fell, and the smile suddenly died on the lips. Mr. Thorn came up to them, and releasing her hand, Mr. Carleton stepped back and permitted him to lead her away.

"What do think of that face?" said Constance, finding herself a few moments after at his side.

" 'That' must define itself," said he, "or I can hardly give a safe answer."

"What face? Why, I mean, of course, the one Mr. Thorn carried off just now."

"You are her friend, Miss .Constance," he said, coolly. "May I ask for your judgment upon it before I give mine?"

"Mine? why, I expected every minute that Mr. Thorn would make the musicians play 'Sparkling and Bright,' and tell Miss Ringgan that to save trouble he had directed them to express what he was sure were the sentiments of the whole company in one burst."

He smiled a little, but in a way that Constance could not understand, and did not like.

"Those are common epithets," he said.

"Must I use uncommon?" said Constance, significantly.

"No; but these may say one thing or another."

"I have said one thing," said Constance; "and now you may say the other."

"Pardon me you have said nothing. These epithets are deserved by a great many faces, but on very different grounds; and the praise is a different thing, accordingly."

"Well, what is the difference?" said Constance.

"On what do you think this lady's title to it rests?"

"On what? why, on that bewitching little air of the eyes and mouth, I suppose."

"Bewitching is a very vague term," said he, smiling again, more quietly. "But you have had an opportunity of knowing it much better of late than I to which class of bright faces would you refer this one? Where does the light come from?"

"I never studied faces in a class," said Constance, a little scornfully. "Come from? a region of mist and clouds, I should say, for it is sometimes pretty well covered up."

"There are some eyes whose sparkling is nothing more than the play of light upon a bright bead of glass."

"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of herself, after delaying as long as she dared.

"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of outward circumstances, and passes away with them."

"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that reflection would not utterly absorb."

She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and they were slowly sauntering down the rooms too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished for a trifle.

"There is the broad day-light of mere animal spirits," he went on, seeming rather to be suggesting these things for her consideration than eager to set forth any opinions of his own "there is the sparkling of mischief, and the fire of hidden passions there is the passing brilliance of wit, as satisfactory and resting as these gaslights and there is now and then the light of refined affections out of a heart unspotted from the world, as pure and abiding as the stars, and, like them, throwing its soft ray especially upon the shadows of life."

"I have always understood," said Constance, "that cat's eyes are brightest in the dark."

"They do not love the light, I believe," said Mr. Carleton, calmly.

"Well," said Constance, not relishing the expression of her companion's eye, which, from glowing, had suddenly be come cool and bright "where would you put me, Mr. Carleton, among all these illuminators of the social system?"

"You may put yourself where you please, Miss Constance," he said, again turning upon her an eye so deep and full in its meaning, that her own and her humour fell before it; for a moment she looked most unlike the gay scene around her.

"Is not that the best brightness," he said speaking low, "that will last forever? and is not that lightness of heart best worth having which does not depend on circumstances, and will find its perfection just when all other kinds of happiness fail utterly?"

"I can't conceive," said Constance, presently rallying, or trying to rally herself "what you and I have to do in a place where people are enjoying themselves at this moment, Mr. Carleton!"

He smiled at that, and led her out of it into the conservatory, close to which they found themselves. It was a large and fine one, terminating the suite of rooms in this direction. Few people were there; but, at the far end stood a group, among whom Fleda and Mr. Thorn were conspicuous. He was busying himself in putting together a quantity of flowers for her; and Mrs. Evelyn and old Mr. Thorn stood looking on; with Mr. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole was an Englishman, of certainly not very prepossessing exterior, but somewhat noted as an author, and a good deal sought after in consequence. At present he was engaged by Mrs. Evelyn. Mr. Carleton and Constance sauntered up towards them, and paused at a little distance to look at some curious plants.

"Don't try for that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb fuchsia that hung high. "You are endangering sundry things besides yourself."

"I have learned, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, as with much ado he grasped the beautiful cluster, "that what we take the most pains for is apt to be reckoned the best prize a truth I should never think of putting into a lady's head if I believed it possible that a single one of them was ignorant of its practical value."

"I have this same rose in my garden at home," said Fleda.

"You are a great gardener, Miss Fleda, I hear," said the old gentleman. "My son says you are an adept in it."

"I am very fond of it, Sir," said Fleda, answering him with an entirely different face.

"I thought the delicacy of American ladies was beyond such a masculine employment as gardening," said Mr. Stackpole, edging away from Mrs. Evelyn.

"I guess this young lady is an exception to the rule," said old Mr. Thorn.

"I guess she is an exception to most rules that you have got in your note-book, Mr. Stackpole," said the younger man. "But there is no guessing about the garden, for I have with my own eyes seen these gentle hands at one end of a spade, and her foot at the other a sight that, I declare, I don't know whether I was most filled with astonishment or admiration."

"Yes," said Fleda, half laughing and colouring, "and he ingenuously confessed in his surprise that he didn't know whether politeness ought to oblige him to stop and shake hands, or to pass by without seeing me; evidently showing that he thought I was about something equivocal."

The laugh was now turned against Mr. Thorn, but he went on cutting his geraniums with a grave face.

"Well," said he at length, "I think it is something of very equivocal utility. Why should such gentle hands and feet spend their strength in clod-breaking, when rough ones are at command?"

There was nothing equivocal about Fleda's merriment this time.

"I have learned, Mr. Thorn, by sad experience, that the rough hands break more than the clods. One day I set Philetus to work among my flowers; and the first thing I knew, he had pulled up a fine passion-flower which didn't make much show above ground, and was displaying it to me with the grave commentary, 'Well! that root did grow to a great haigth!' "

"Some mental clod-breaking to be done up there, isn't there?" said Thorn, in a kind of aside. "I cannot express my admiration at the idea of your dealing with those boors, as it has been described to me."

"They do not deserve the name, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda. "They are many of them most sensible and excellent people, and friends that I value very highly."

"Ah! your goodness would make friends of everything."

"Not of boors, I hope," said Fleda, coolly. "Besides, what do you mean by the name?"

"Anybody incapable of appreciating that of which you alone should be unconscious," he said, softly.

Fleda stood impatiently tapping her flowers against her left hand.

"I doubt their power of appreciation reaches a point that would surprise you, Sir."

"It does indeed if I am mistaken in my supposition," he said, with a glance which Fleda refused to acknowledge.

"What proportion, do you suppose," she went on, "of all these roomfuls of people behind us without saying anything uncharitable what proportion of them, if compelled to amuse themselves for two hours at a bookcase, would pitch upon Macaulay's Essays, or anything like them, to spend the time?"

"Hum really, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, "I should want to brush up my Algebra considerably before I could hope to find x, y, and z in such a confusion of the alphabet."

"Or extract the small sensible root of such a quantity of light matter," said Mr. Stackpole.

"Will you bear with my vindication of my country friends? Hugh and I sent for a carpenter to make some new arrangement of shelves in a cupboard where we kept our books; he was one of these boors, Mr. Thorn, in no respect above the rest. The right stuff for his work was wanting, and while it was sent for, he took up one of the volumes that were lying about, and read perseveringly until the messenger returned. It was a volume of Macaulay's Miscellanies; and afterwards he borrowed the book of me."

"And you lent it to him?" said Constance.

"Most assuredly; and with a great deal of pleasure."

"And is this no more than a common instance, Miss Ringgan?" said Mr. Carleton.

"No, I think not," said Fleda; the quick blood in her cheeks again answering the familiar voice and old associations; "I know several of the farmers' daughters around us that have studied Latin and Greek; and philosophy is a common thing; and I am sure there is more sense "

She suddenly checked herself, and her eye which had been sparkling grew quiet.

"It is very absurd!" said Mr. Stackpole.

"Why, Sir?"

"Oh, these people have nothing to do with such things do them nothing but harm!"

"May I ask again, what harm?" said Fleda, gently.

"Unfit them for the duties of their station, and make them discontented with it."

"By making it pleasanter?"

"No, no not by making it pleasanter."

"By what then, Mr. Stackpole?" said Thorn, to draw him on, and to draw her out, Fleda was sure.

"By lifting them out of it."

"And what objection to lifting them out of it?" said Thorn.

"You can't lift every body out of it," said the gentleman, with a little irritation in his manner "that station must be filled there must always be poor people."

"And what degree of poverty ought to debar a man from the pleasures of education and a cultivated taste, such as he can attain?"

"No, no, not that," said Mr. Stackpole; "but it all goes to fill them with absurd notions about their place in society, inconsistent with proper subordination."

Fleda looked at him, but shook her head slightly, and was silent.

"Things are in very different order on our side the water," said Mr. Stackpole, hugging himself.

"Are they?" said Fleda.

"Yes we understand how to keep things in their places a little better."

"I did not know," said Fleda, quietly, "that it was by design of the rulers of England that so many of her lower class are in the intellectual condition of our slaves."

"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "what do you say to that, Sir?"

Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.

"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier," pursued Mr. Stackpole; "only serves to give them uppish and dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."

"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all are contented, because none can get on, and in a republic, none are contented, because all can get on.' "

"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.

"That might do very well if the world were in a state of perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent and getting on. And the uppishness, I am afraid, is a national fault, Sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.' "

"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan has followed the example of her friends, the farmers' daughters? or led them in it?"

"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda, colouring.

"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn, who was leisurely pruning the prickles from the stem of a rose.

"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me afterwards gravely, that he was afraid I was studying too many things at once! when I was innocent of all ornithology but what my eyes and ears had picked up in the wood, except some childish reminiscences of Audubon."

"That is just the right sort of learning for a lady," said Mr. Stackpole, smiling at her, however; "women have nothing to do with books."

"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.

"Nothing, Sir; it is one of those positions that are unanswerable."

"But, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that doctrine, Sir. I do not believe in it at all."

"That is unfortunate for my doctrine," said the gentleman.

"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"

"Not needed, Ma'am; a woman, as somebody says, knows intuitively all that is really worth knowing."

"Of what use is a mine that is never worked?" said Mr. Carleton.

"It is worked," said Mr. Stackpole. "Domestic life is the true training for the female mind. One woman will learn more wisdom from the child on her breast than another will learn from ten thousand volumes."

"It is very doubtful how much wisdom the child will ever learn from her," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"A woman who never saw a book," pursued Mr. Stackpole, unconsciously quoting his author, "may be infinitely superior, even in all those matters of which books treat, to the woman who has read, and read intelligently, a whole library."

"Unquestionably; and it is, likewise, beyond question, that a silver sixpence may be worth more than a washed guinea."

"But a woman's true sphere is in her family in her home duties, which furnish the best and most appropriate training for her faculties pointed out by nature itself."

"Yes!" said Mr. Carleton "and for those duties, some of the very highest and noblest that are entrusted to human agency, the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought to its last point of perfectness. The wealth of a woman's mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought out and fashioned for its various ends, while yet those ends are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And, for her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home, her home stores should be exhaustless the stores she cannot go abroad to seek. I would add to strength beauty, and to beauty grace, in the intellectual proportions, so far as possible. It were ungenerous in man to condemn the best half of human intellect to insignificance, merely because it is not his own."

Mrs. Evelyn wore a smile of admiration that nobody saw, but Fleda's face was a study while Mr. Carleton was saying this. Her look was fixed upon him with such intent satisfaction and eagerness, that it was not till he had finished that she became aware that those dark eyes were going very deep into hers, and suddenly put a stop to the inquisition.

"Very pleasant doctrine to the ears that have an interest in it," said Mr. Stackpole, rather discontentedly.

"The man knows little of his own interest," said Mr. Carleton, "who would leave that ground waste, or would cultivate it only in the narrow spirit of a utilitarian. He needs an influence in his family not more refreshing than rectifying; and no man will seek that in one greatly his inferior. He is to be pitied who cannot fall back upon his home with the assurance that he has there something better than himself."

"Why, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said Mrs. Evelyn, with every line of her mouth saying funny things "I am afraid you have sadly neglected your own interest have you anything at Carleton better than yourself?"

Suddenly cool again, he laughed, and said, "You were there, Mrs. Evelyn."

"But, Mr. Carleton," pursued the lady, with a mixture of insinuation and fun "why were you never married?"

"Circumstances have always forbade it," he answered, with a smile, which Constance declared was the most fascinating thing she ever saw in her life.

Fleda was arranging her flowers, with the help of some very unnecessary suggestions from the donor.

"Mr. Lewis," said Constance, with a kind of insinuation very different from her mother's, made up of fun and dating, "Mr. Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany, while my attention was distracted by listening to your spirituel conversation."

"Well, Miss Constance?"

"And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory, and in that case he would never give me another."

It was impossible to help laughing at the distressful position of the young lady's eyebrows, and, with at least some measure of outward grace, Mr. Thorn set about complying with her request. Fleda again stood tapping her left hand with her flowers, wondering a little that somebody else did not come and speak to her, but he was talking to Mrs. Evelyn and Mr. Stackpole. Fleda did not wish to join them, and nothing better occurred to her than to arrange her flowers over again; so, throwing them all down before her on a marble slab, she began to pick them up one by one, and put them together, with, it must be confessed, a very indistinct realization of the difference between myrtle and lemon blossoms; and as she seemed to be laying acacia to rose, and disposing some sprigs of beautiful heath behind them, in reality she was laying kindness alongside of kindness, and looking at the years beyond years where their place had been. It was with a little start that she suddenly found the person of her thoughts standing at her elbow, and talking to her in bodily presence. But while he spoke with all the ease and simplicity of old times, almost making Fleda think it was but last week they had been strolling through the Place de la Concorde together, there was a constraint upon her that she could not get rid of, and that bound eye and tongue. It might have worn off, but his attention was presently claimed again by Mrs. Evelyn, and Fleda thought best, while yet Constance's bouquet was unfinished, to join another party, and make her escape into the drawing-rooms.

CHAPTER VII.

"Have you observed a sitting hare, List'ning, and, fearful of the storm Of horns and hounds, clap back her ear, Afraid to keep or leave her form? PRIOR.

By the Evelyns' own desire, Fleda's going to them was delayed for a week, because, they said, a furnace was to be brought into the house, and they would be all topsy-turvy till that fuss was over. Fleda kept herself very quiet in the meantime, seeing almost nobody but the person whom it was her especial object to shun. Do her best, she could not quite escape him, and was even drawn into two or three walks and rides, in spite of denying herself utterly to gentlemen at home, and losing, in consequence, a visit from her old friend. She was glad at last to go to the Evelyns, and see company again, hoping that Mr. Thorn would be merged in a crowd.

But she could not merge him, and sometimes was almost inclined to suspect that his constant prominence in the picture must be owing to some mysterious and wilful conjuration going on in the background. She was at a loss to conceive how else it happened that, despite her utmost endeavours to the contrary, she was so often thrown upon his care, and obliged to take up with his company. It was very disagreeable. Mr. Carleton she saw almost as constantly, but, though frequently near, she had never much to do with him. There seemed to be a dividing atmosphere always in the way, and whenever he did speak to her, she felt miserably constrained, and unable to appear like herself. Why was it? she asked herself, in a very vexed state of mind. No doubt, partly from the remembrance of that overheard conversation which she could not help applying, but much more from an indefinable sense that at these times there were always eyes upon her. She tried to charge the feeling upon her consciousness of their having heard that same talk, but it would not the more go off. And it had no chance to wear off, for somehow, the occasions never lasted long something was sure to break them up while an unfortunate combination of circumstances, or of connivers, seemed to give Mr. Thorn unlimited facilities in the same kind. Fleda was quick-witted and skilful enough to work herself out of them once in a while; more often the combination was too much for her simplicity and straightforwardness.

She was a little disappointed and a little surprised at Mr. Carleton's coolness. He was quite equal to withstand or out- general the schemes of any set of manoeuvrers; therefore it was plain he did not care for the society of his little friend and companion of old time. Fleda felt it, especially as she now and then heard him in delightful talk with somebody else, making himself so interesting that, when Fleda could get a chance to listen, she was quite ready to forgive his not talking to her for the pleasure of hearing him talk at all. But at other times she said, sorrowfully to herself, "He will be going home presently, and I shall not have seen him."

One day she had successfully defended herself against taking a drive which Mr. Thorn came to propose, though the proposition had been laughingly backed by Mrs. Evelyn. Raillery was much harder to withstand than persuasion, but Fleda's quiet resolution had proved a match for both. The better to cover her ground, she declined to go out at all, and remained at home, the only one of the family, that fine day.

In the afternoon Mr. Carleton was there. Fleda sat a little apart from the rest, industriously bending over a complicated piece of embroidery belonging to Constance, and in which that young lady had made a great blunder, which she declared her patience unequal to the task of rectifying. The conversation went gaily forward among the others, Fleda taking no part in it beyond an involuntary one. Mr. Carleton's part was rather reserved and grave, according to his manner in ordinary society.

"What do you keep bothering yourself with that for?" said Edith, coming to Fleda's side.

"One must be doing something, you know," said Fleda, lightly.

"No, you mustn't not when you're tired and I know you are. I'd let Constance pick out her own work."

"I promised her I would do it," said Fleda.

"Well, you didn't promise her when. Come! everybody's been out but you, and you have sat here over this the whole day. Why don't you come over there and talk with the rest? I know you want to, for I've watched your mouth going."

"Going! how!"

"Going off at the corners. I've seen it! Come."

But Fleda said she could listen and work at once, and would not budge. Edith stood looking at her a little while in a kind of admiring sympathy, and then went back to the group.

"Mr. Carleton," said the young lady, who was treading with laudable success in the steps of her sister Constance "what has become of that ride you promised to give me?"

"I do not know, Miss Edith," said Mr. Carleton, smiling, "for my conscience never had the keeping of it."

"Hush, Edith!" said her mother; "do you think Mr. Carleton has nothing to do but to take you riding?"

"I don't believe he has much to do," said Edith, securely. "But, Mr. Carleton, you did promise, for I asked you, and you said nothing; and I always have been told that silence gives consent; so what is to become of it?"

"Will you go now, Miss Edith?"

"Now? O, yes! And will you go out to Manhattanville, Mr. Carleton along by the river?"

"If you like. But, Miss Edith, the carriage will hold another cannot you persuade one of these ladies to go with us?"

"Fleda!" said Edith, springing off to her with extravagant capers of joy "Fleda, you shall go! you haven't been out to- day."

"And I cannot go out to-day," said Fleda, gently.

"The air is very fine," said Mr. Carleton, approaching her table, with no want of alacrity in step or tone, her ears knew; "and this weather makes everything beautiful. Has that piece of canvas any claims upon you that cannot be put aside for a little?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda, "but, I am sorry I have a stronger reason that must keep me at home."

"She knows how the weather looks," said Edith; "Mr. Thorn takes her out every other day. It's no use to talk to her, Mr. Carleton when she says she wont, she wont."

"Every other day!" said Fleda.

"No, no," said Mrs. Evelyn, coming up, and with that smile which Fleda had never liked so little as at that minute "not every other day, Edith; what are you talking of? Go, and don't keep Mr. Carleton waiting."

Fleda worked on, feeling a little aggrieved. Mr. Carleton stood still by her table, watching her, while his companions were getting themselves ready; but he said no more, and Fleda did not raise her head till the party were off. Florence had taken her resigned place.

"I dare say the weather will be quite as fine to-morrow, dear Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn, softly.

"I hope it will," said Fleda, in a tone of resolute simplicity.

"I only hope it will not bring too great a throng of carriages to the door," Mrs. Evelyn went on, in a tone of great internal amusement; "I never used to mind it, but I have lately a nervous fear of collisions."

"To-morrow is not your reception-day?" said Fleda.

"No, not mine," said Mrs. Evelyn, softly "but that doesn't signify it may be one of my neighbours."

Fleda pulled away at her threads of worsted, and wouldn't know anything else.

"I have read of the servants of Lot and the servants of Abraham quarrelling," Mrs. Evelyn went on, in the same undertone of delight "because the land was too strait for them I should be very sorry to have anything of the sort happen again, for I cannot imagine where Lot would go to find a plain that would suit him."

"Lot and Abraham, Mamma," said Constance, from the sofa "what on earth are you talking about?"

"None of your business," said Mrs. Evelyn; "I was talking of some country friends of mine that you don't know."

Constance knew her mother's laugh very well, but Mrs. Evelyn was impenetrable.

The next day Fleda ran away, and spent a good part of the morning with her uncle in the library, looking over new books, among which she found herself quite a stranger, so many had made their appearance since the time when she had much to do with libraries or book stores. Living friends, male and female, were happily forgotten in the delighted acquaintance- making with those quiet companions, which, whatever their deficiencies in other respects, are at least never importunate nor variable. Fleda had come home rather late, and was dressing for dinner, with Constance's company and help, when Mrs. Evelyn came into her room.

"My dear Fleda," said the lady, her face and voice as full as possible of fun, "Mr. Carleton wants to know if you will ride with him this afternoon. I told him I believed you were, in general, shy of gentlemen that drove their own horses; that I thought I had noticed you were; but I would come up and see."

"Mrs. Evelyn! you did not tell him that?"

"He said he was sorry to see you looked pale yesterday when he was asking you; and he was afraid that embroidery is not good for you. He thinks you are a very charming girl "

And Mrs. Evelyn went off into little fits of laughter, which unstrung all Fleda's nerves. She stood absolutely trembling.

"Mamma, don't plague her!" said Constance. "He didn't say so."

"He did! upon my word!" said Mrs. Evelyn, speaking with great difficulty "he said she was very charming, and it might be dangerous to see too much of her."

"You made him say that, Mrs. Evelyn," said Fleda, reproachfully.

"Well, I did ask him if you were not very charming, but he answered without hesitation," said the lady "I am only so afraid that Lot will make his appearance "

Fleda turned round to the glass, and went on arranging her hair, with a quivering lip.

"Lot! Mamma," said Constance, somewhat indignantly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Evelyn, in ecstasies; "because the land will not bear both of them. But Mr. Carleton is very much in earnest for his answer, Fleda, my dear what shall I tell it him? You need be under no apprehensions about going he will perhaps tell you that you are charming, but I don't I think he will say anything more. You know, he is a kind of patriarch; and when I asked him if he didn't think it might be dangerous to see too much of you, he said he thought it might to some people, so, you see, you are safe."

"Mrs. Evelyn, how could you use my name so?" said Fleda, with a voice that carried a good deal of reproach.

"My dear Fleda, shall I tell him you will go? You need not be afraid to go riding, only you must not let yourself be seen walking with him."

"I shall not go, Ma'am," said Fleda, quietly.

"I wanted to send Edith with you, thinking it would be pleasanter; but I knew Mr. Carleton's carriage would hold but two to-day. So what shall I tell him?"

"I am not going, Ma'am," repeated Fleda.

"But what shall I tell him? I must give him some reason. Shall I say that you think a sea-breeze is blowing, and you don't like it? or shall I say that prospects are a matter of indifference to you?"

Fleda was quite silent, and went on dressing herself with trembling fingers.

"My dear Fleda," said the lady, bringing her face a little into order, "wont you go? I am very sorry "

"So am I sorry," said Fleda. "I can't go, Mrs. Evelyn."

"I will tell Mr. Carleton you are very sorry," said Mrs. Evelyn, every line of her face drawing again "that will console him; and let him hope that you will not mind sea- breezes by and by, after you have been a little longer in the neighbourhood of them. I will tell him you are a good republican, and have an objection, at present, to an English equipage, but I have no doubt that is a prejudice which will wear off."

She stopped to laugh, while Fleda had the greatest difficulty not to cry. The lady did not seem to see her disturbed brow; but recovering herself after a little, though not readily, she bent forward and touched her lips to it in kind fashion. Fleda did not look up, and saying again, "I will tell him, dear Fleda," Mrs. Evelyn left the room.

Constance, after a little laughing and condoling, neither of which Fleda attempted to answer, ran off, too, to dress herself; and Fleda, after finishing her own toilette, locked her door, sat down, and cried heartily. She thought Mrs. Evelyn had been, perhaps unconsciously, very unkind; and to say that unkindness has not been meant, is but to shift the charge from one to another vital point in the character of a friend, and one, perhaps, sometimes not less grave. A moment's passionate wrong may consist with the endurance of a friendship worth having, better than the thoughtlessness of obtuse wits that can never know how to be kind. Fleda's whole frame was still in a tremor from disagreeable excitement, and she had serious causes of sorrow to cry for. She was sorry she had lost what would have been a great pleasure in the ride and her great pleasures were not often but nothing would have been more impossible than for her to go after what Mrs. Evelyn had said. She was sorry Mr. Carleton should have asked her twice in vain what must he think? she was exceeding sorry that a thought should have been put into her head that never before had visited the most distant dreams of her imagination, so needlessly, so gratuitously she was very sorry, for she could not be free of it again, and she felt it would make her miserably hampered and constrained, in mind and manner both, in any future intercourse with the person in question. And then again, what would he think of that? Poor Fleda came to the conclusion that her best place was at home, and made up her mind to take the first good opportunity of getting there.

She went down to dinner with no traces of either tears or unkindness on her sweet face, but her nerves were quivering all the afternoon she could not tell whether Mrs. Evelyn and her daughters found it out; and it was impossible for her to get back even her old degree of freedom of manner before either Mr. Carleton or Mr. Thorn, all the more, because Mrs. Evelyn was every now and then bringing out some sly allusion, which afforded herself intense delight, and wrought Fleda to the last degree of quietness. Unkind Fleda thought now it was but half from ignorance of the mischief she was doing, and the other half from the mere desire of selfish gratification. The times and ways in which Lot and Abraham were walked into the conversation were incalculable, and unintelligible, except to the person who understood it only too well. On one occasion, Mrs. Evelyn went on with a long rigmarole to Mr. Thorn about sea-breezes, with a face of most exquisite delight at his mystification and her own hidden fun, till Fleda was absolutely trembling. Fleda shunned both the gentlemen, at length, with a kind of nervous horror.

One steamer had left New York, and another, and still Mr. Carleton did not leave it. Why he staid, Constance was as much in a puzzle as ever, for no mortal could guess. Clearly, she said, he did not delight in New York society, for he honoured it as slightly and partially as might be; and it was equally clear, if he had a particular reason for staying, he didn't mean anybody should know it.

"If he don't mean it, you wont find it out, Constance," said Fleda.

"But it is that very consideration, you see, which inflames my impatience to a most dreadful degree. I think our house is distinguished with his regards, though I am sure I can't imagine why, for he never condescends to anything beyond general benevolence when he is here, and not always to that. He has no taste for embroidery, or Miss Ringgan's crewels would receive more of his notice he listens to my spirited conversation with a self-possession which invariably deprives me of mine! and his ear is evidently dull to musical sensibilities, or Florence's harp would have greater charms. I hope there is a web weaving somewhere that will catch him at present he stands in an attitude of provoking independence of all the rest of the world. It is curious," said Constance, with an indescribable face "I feel that the independence of another is rapidly making a slave of me!"

"What do you mean, Constance?' said Edith, indignantly. But the others could do nothing but laugh.

Fleda did not wonder that Mr. Carleton made no more efforts to get her to ride, for the very next day after his last failure he had met her driving with Mr. Thorn. Fleda had been asked by Mr. Thorn's mother, in such a way as made it impossible to get off; but it caused her to set a fresh seal of unkindness to Mrs. Evelyn's behaviour.

One evening, when there was no other company at Mrs. Evelyn's Mr. Stackpole was entertaining himself with a long dissertation upon the affairs of America, past, present, and future. It was a favourite subject; Mr. Stackpole always seemed to have more complacent enjoyment of his easy chair when he could succeed in making every American in the room sit uncomfortably. And this time, without any one to thwart him, he went on to his heart's content disposing of the subject as one would strip a rose of its petals, with as much seeming nonchalance and ease, and with precisely the same design, to make a rose no rose. Leaf after leaf fell under Mr. Stackpole's touch, as if it had been a black frost. The American government was a rickety experiment go to pieces presently; American institutions an alternative between fallacy and absurdity, the fruit of raw minds and precocious theories; American liberty a contradiction; American character a compound of quackery and pretension; American society (except at Mrs. Evelyn's) an anomaly; American destiny the same with that of a cactus, or a volcano a period of rest followed by a period of excitement; not, however, like the former, making successive shoots towards perfection, but, like the latter, grounding every new face of things upon the demolition of that which went before. Smoothly and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half assented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently drumming upon her elbow with the fingers of her other hand, in the sheer necessity of giving some expression to her feelings. Mr. Stackpole at last got his finger upon the sore spot of American slavery, and pressed it hard.

"This is the land of the stars and the stripes!" said the gentleman, in a little fit of virtuous indignation; "this is the land where all are brothers! where 'All men are born free and equal!' "

"Mr. Stackpole," said Fleda, in a tone that called his attention; "are you well acquainted with the popular proverbs of your country?"

"Not particularly," he said. He had never made it a branch of study.

"I am a great admirer of them."

He bowed, and begged to be excused for remarking that he didn't see the point yet.

"Do you remember this one, Sir," said Fleda, colouring a little; " 'Those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?' "

"I have heard it; but, pardon me, though your remark seems to imply the contrary, I am in the dark yet. What unfortunate points of vitrification have I laid open to your fire?"

"I thought they were probably forgotten by you, Sir."

"I shall be exceedingly obliged to you if you will put me in condition to defend myself."

"I think nothing could do that, Mr. Stackpole. Under whose auspices and fostering care was this curse of slavery laid upon America?"

"Why, of course but you will observe, Miss Ringgan, that at that day the world was unenlightened on a great many points; since then, we have cast off the wrong which we then shared with the rest of mankind."

"Ay, Sir, but not until we had first repudiated it, and Englishmen had desired to force it back upon us at the point of the sword. Four times "

"But, my dear Fleda," interrupted Mrs. Evelyn, "the English nation have no slaves, nor slave-trade; they have put an end to slavery entirely, everywhere under their flag."

"They were very slow about it," said Fleda. "Four times the government of Massachusetts abolished the slave-trade under their control, and four times the English government thrust it back upon them. Do you remember what Burke says about that, in his speech on Conciliation with America?"

"It don't signify what Burke says about it," said Mr. Stackpole, rubbing his chin "Burke is not the first authority; but, Miss Ringgan, it is undeniable that slavery, and the slave-trade too, does at this moment exist in the interior of your own country."

"I will never excuse what is wrong, Sir; but I think it becomes an Englishman to be very moderate in putting forth that charge."

"Why?" said he, hastily: "we have done away with it entirely in our own dominions wiped that stain clean off. Not a slave can touch British ground but he breathes free air from that minute."

"Yes, Sir; but candour will allow that we are not in a condition in this country to decide the question by a tour de force."

"What is to decide it, then!" said he, a little arrogantly.

"The progress of truth in public opinion."

"And why not the government, as well as our government!"

"It has not the power, you know, Sir."

"Not the power! well, that speaks for itself."

"Nothing against us, on a fair construction," said Fleda, patiently. "It is well known, to those who understand the subject"

"Where did you learn so much about it, Fleda?" said Mrs. Evelyn, humourously.

"As the birds pick up their supplies, Ma'am here and there. It is well known, Mr. Stackpole, that our constitution never could have been agreed upon, if that question of slavery had not been, by common consent, left where it was with the separate state governments."

"The separate state governments! well, why do not they put an end to it? The disgrace is only shifted."

"Of course, they must first have the consent of the public mind of those states."

"Ah! their consent! and why is their consent wanting?"

"We cannot defend ourselves there," said Mrs. Evelyn. "I wish we could."

"The disgrace, at least, is shifted from the whole to a part. But will you permit me," said Fleda, "to give another quotation from my despised authority, and remind you of an Englishman's testimony, that beyond a doubt that point of emancipation would never have been carried in parliament had the interests of even a part of the electors been concerned in it!"

"It was done, however, and done at the expense of twenty millions of money."

"And I am sure that was very noble," said Florence.

"It was what no nation but the English would ever have done," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"I do not wish to dispute it," said Fleda; "but still it was doing what did not touch the sensitive point of their own well-being."

"We think there is a little national honour concerned in it," said Mr. Stackpole, drily, stroking his chin again.

"So does every right-minded person," said Mrs. Evelyn. "I am sure I do."

"And I am sure so do I," said Fleda; "but I think the honour of a piece of generosity is considerably lessened by the fact that it is done at the expense of another."

"Generosity!" said Mr. Stackpole; "it was not generosity, it was justice there was no generosity about it."

"Then it deserves no honour at all," said Fleda, "if it was merely that; the tardy execution of justice is but the removal of a reproach."

"We Englishmen are of opinion, however," said Mr. Stackpole, contentedly, "that the removers of a reproach are entitled to some honour, which those who persist in retaining it cannot claim."

"Yes," said Fleda, drawing rather a long breath, "I acknowledge that; but I think that, while some of these same Englishmen have shown themselves so unwilling to have the condition of their own factory slaves ameliorated, they should be very gentle in speaking of wrongs which we have far less ability to rectify."

"Ah! I like consistency," said Mr. Stackpole. "America shouldn't dress up poles with liberty caps, till all who walk under are free to wear them. She cannot boast that the breath of her air and the breath of freedom are one."

"Can England?" said Fleda, gently "when her own citizens are not free from the horrors of impressment?"

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Stackpole, half in a pet and half laughing; "why where did you get such a fury against England? you are the first fair antagonist I have met on this side of the water."

"I wish I was a better one, Sir," said Fleda, laughing.

"Miss Ringgan has been prejudiced by an acquaintance with one or two unfortunate specimens," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Ay!" said Mr. Stackpole, a little bitterly; "America is the natural birthplace of prejudice always was."

"Displayed, first, in maintaining the rights against the swords of Englishmen; latterly, how, Mr. Stackpole?"

"It isn't necessary to enlighten you on any part of the subject," said he, a little pointedly.

"Fleda, my dear, you are answered," said Mrs. Evelyn, apparently with great internal amusement.

"Yet you will indulge me so far as to indicate what part of the subject you are upon?" said Fleda, quietly.

"You must grant so much as that to so gentle a requisition, Mr. Stackpole," said the older lady.

"I venture to assume that you do not say that on your own account, Mrs. Evelyn?"

"Not at all I agree with you, that Americans are prejudiced; but I think it will pass off, Mr. Stackpole, as they learn to know themselves and other countries better."

"But how do they deserve such a charge and such a defence? or how have they deserved it?" said Fleda.

"Tell her, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Why," said Mr. Stackpole, "in their absurd opposition to all the old and tried forms of things, and rancorous dislike of those who uphold them; and in their pertinacity on every point where they might be set right, and impatience of hearing the truth."

"Are they singular in that last item?" said Fleda.

"Now," said Mr. Stackpole, not heeding her, "there's your treatment of the aborigines of this country what do call that, for a free people?"

"A powder magazine, communicating with a great one of your own somewhere else; so, if you are a good subject, Sir, you will not carry a lighted candle into it."

"One of our own where?" said he.

"In India," said Fleda with a glance "and there are I don't know how many trains leading to it so, better hands off, Sir."

"Where did you pick up such a spite against us?" said Mr. Stackpole, drawing a little back and eyeing her as one would a belligerent mouse or cricket. "Will you tell me now that Americans are not prejudiced?"

"What do you call prejudice?" said Fleda, smiling.

"Oh, there is a great deal of it, no doubt, here, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, blandly; "but we shall grow out of it in time; it is only the premature wisdom of a young people."

"And young people never like to hear their wisdom rebuked," said. Mr. Stackpole, bowing.

"Fleda, my dear, what for is that little significant shake of your head?" said Mrs. Evelyn, in her amused voice.

"A trifle, Ma'am."

"Covers a hidden rebuke, Mrs. Evelyn, I have no doubt, for both our last remarks. What is it, Miss Fleda? I dare say we can bear it."

"I was thinking, Sir, that none would trouble themselves much about our foolscap if we had not once made them wear it."

"Mr. Stackpole, you are worsted! I only wish Mr. Carleton had been here!" said Mrs. Evelyn, with a face of excessive delight.

"I wish he had," said Fleda, "for then I need not have spoken a word."

"Why," said Mr. Stackpole, a little irritated, "you suppose he would have fought for you against me?"

"I suppose he would have fought for truth against anybody, Sir," said Fleda.

"Even against his own interests?"

"If I am not mistaken in him," said Fleda, "he reckons his own and those of truth identical."

The shout that was raised at this by all the ladies of the family made her look up in wonderment.

"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "what do you say to that, Sir?"

The direction of the lady's eye made Fleda spring up and face about. The gentleman in question was standing quietly at the back of her chair too quietly, she saw, to leave any doubt of his having been there some time. Mr. Stackpole uttered an ejaculation, but Fleda stood absolutely motionless, and nothing could be prettier than her colour.

"What do you say to what you have heard, Mr. Carleton?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

Fleda's eyes were on the floor, but she thoroughly appreciated the tone of the question.

"I hardly know whether I have listened with most pleasure or pain, Mrs. Evelyn."

"Pleasure!" said Constance.

"Pain!" said Mr. Stackpole.

"I am certain Miss Ringgan was pure from any intention of giving pain," said Mrs. Evelyn, with her voice of contained fun. "She has no national antipathies, I am sure unless in the case of the Jews she is too charming a girl for that."

"Miss Ringgan cannot regret less than I a word that she has spoken," said Mr. Carleton, looking keenly at her as she drew back and took a seat a little off from the rest.

"Then why was the pain?" said Mr. Stackpole.

"That there should have been any occasion for them, Sir."

"Well, I wasn't sensible of the occasion, so I didn't feel the pain," said Mr. Stackpole, drily for the other gentleman's tone was almost haughtily significant. "But if I had, the pleasure of such sparkling eyes would have made me forget it. Good evening, Mrs. Evelyn good evening, my gentle antagonist it seems to me you have learned, if it is permissible to alter one of your favourite proverbs, that it is possible to break two windows with one stone. However, I don't feel that I go away with any of mine shattered."

"Fleda, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "what do you say to that?"

"As he is not here, I will say nothing to it, Mrs. Evelyn," said Fleda, quietly drawing off to the table with her work, and again in a tremor from head to foot.

"Why, didn't you see Mr. Carleton come in?" said Edith, following her; "I did he came in long before you had done talking, and mamma held up her finger and made him stop; and he stood at the back of your chair the whole time listening. Mr. Stackpole didn't know he was there either. But what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," said Fleda; but she made her escape out of the room the next instant.

"Mamma," said Edith, "what ails Fleda?"

"I don't know, my love," said Mrs. Evelyn. "Nothing, I hope."

"There does, though," said Edith, decidedly.

"Come here, Edith," said Constance, "and don't meddle with matters above your comprehension. Miss Ringgan has probably hurt her hand with throwing stones."

"Hurt her hand!" said Edith. But she was taken possession of by her eldest sister.

"That is a lovely girl, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, with an indescribable look outwardly benign, but beneath that most keen in its scrutiny.

He bowed rather abstractedly.

"She will make a charming little farmer's wife don't you think so?"

"Is that her lot, Mrs. Evelyn?" he said, with a somewhat incredulous smile.

"Why, no not precisely," said the lady; "you know, in the country, or you do not know, the ministers are half farmers, but I suppose not more than half; just such a mixture as will suit Fleda, I should think. She has not told me in so many words, but it is easy to read so ingenuous a nature as hers, and I have discovered that there is a most deserving young friend of mine settled at Queechy that she is by no means indifferent to. I take it for granted that will be the end of it," said Mrs. Evelyn, pinching her sofa cushion in a great many successive places, with a most composed and satisfied air.

But Mr. Carleton did not seem at all interested in the subject, and presently introduced another.

CHAPTER VIII.

"It is a hard matter for friends to meet: but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter." AS YOU LIKE IT.

"What have we to do to-night?" said Florence, at breakfast the next morning.

"You have no engagement, have you?" said her mother.

"No, Mamma," said Constance, arching her eyebrows "we are to taste the sweets of domestic life you, as head of the family, will go to sleep in the dormeuse, and Florence and I shall take turns in yawning by your side."

"And what will Fleda do?" said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing.

"Fleda, Mamma, will be wrapped in remorseful recollections of having enacted a mob last evening, and have enough occupation in considering how she shall repair damages."

"Fleda , my dear, she is very saucy," said Mrs. Evelyn, sipping her tea with great comfort.

"Why should we yawn to-night any more than last night?" said Fleda a question which Edith would certainly have asked if she had not been away at school. The breakfast was too late for both her and her father.

"Last night, my dear, your fractious disposition kept us upon half breath; there wasn't time to yawn. I meant to have eased my breast by laughing afterwards, but that expectation was stifled."

"What stifled it?"

"I was afraid!" said Constance, with a little flutter of her person up and down in her chair.

"Afraid of what?"

"And besides, you know, we can't have our drawing-rooms filled with distinguished foreigners every evening we are not at home. I shall direct the fowling-piece to be severe in his execution of orders to-night, and let nobody in. I forgot!" exclaimed Constance, with another flutter "it is Mr. Thorn's night! My dearest mamma, will you consent to have the dormeuse wheeled round with its back to the fire? and Florence and I will take the opportunity to hear little Edith's lessons in the next room, unless Mr. Decatur comes. I must endeavour to make the Manton comprehend what he has to do."

"But what is to become of Mr. Evelyn?" said Fleda; "you make Mrs. Evelyn the head of the family very unceremoniously."

"Mr. Evelyn, my dear," said Constance, gravely, "makes a futile attempt semi-weekly to beat his brains out with a club; and every successive failure encourages him to try again; the only effect being a temporary decapitation of his family; and I believe this is the night on which he periodically turns a frigid eye upon their destitution."

"You are too absurd!" said Florence, reaching over for a sausage.

"Dear Constance!" said Fleda, half laughing, "why do you talk so?"

"Constance, behave yourself," said her mother.

"Mamma," said the young lady, "I am actuated by a benevolent desire to effect a diversion of Miss Ringgan's mind from its gloomy meditations, by presenting to her some more real subjects of distress."

"I wonder if you ever looked at such a thing," said Fleda.

"What 'such a thing'?"

"As a real subject of distress."

"Yes; I have one incessantly before me in your serious countenance. Why in the world, Fleda, don't you look like other people?"

"I suppose, because I don't feel like them."

"And why don't you? I am sure you ought to be as happy as most people."

"I think I am a great deal happier," said Fleda.

"Than I am?" said the young lady, with arched eyebrows. But they went down, and her look softened in spite of herself, at the eye and smile which answered her.

"I should be very glad, dear Constance, to know you were as happy as I."

"Why do you think I am not?" said the young lady, a little tartly.

"Because no happiness would satisfy me that cannot last."

"And why can't it last?"

"It is not built upon lasting things."

"Pshaw!" said Constance, "I wouldn't have such a dismal kind of happiness as yours, Fleda, for anything."

"Dismal!" said Fleda, smiling; "because it can never disappoint me? or because it isn't noisy?"

"My dear little Fleda," said Constance, in her usual manner, "you have lived up there among the solitudes till you have got morbid ideas of life, which it makes me melancholy to observe. I am very much afraid they verge towards stagnation."

"No, indeed!" said Fleda, laughing; "but, if you please, with me the stream of life has flowed so quietly, that I have looked quite to the bottom, and know how shallow it is, and growing shallower; I could not venture my bark of happiness there; but with you it is like a spring torrent the foam and the roar hinder your looking deep into it."

Constance gave her a significant glance; a strong contrast to the earnest simplicity of Fleda's face, and presently inquired if she ever wrote poetry.

"Shall I have the pleasure, some day, of discovering your uncommon signature in the secular corner of some religious newspaper?"

"I hope not," said Fleda, quietly.

Joe Manton just then brought in a bouquet for Miss Evelyn, a very common enlivener of the breakfast-table, all the more when, as in the present case, the sisters could not divine where it came from. It moved Fleda's wonder to see how very little the flowers were valued for their own sake; the probable cost, the probable giver, the probable clat, were points enthusiastically discussed and thoroughly appreciated; but the sweet messengers themselves were carelessly set by for other eyes, and seemed to have no attraction for those they were destined to. Fleda enjoyed them at a distance, and could not help thinking that Heaven sends almonds to those that have no teeth.

"This camellia will just do for my hair to-morrow night!" said Florence; "just what I want with my white muslin."

"I think I will go with you to-morrow, Florence," said Fleda; "Mrs. Decatur has asked me so often."

"Well, my dear, I shall be made happy by your company," said Florence abstractedly, examining her bouquet. "I am afraid it hasn't stem enough, Constance; never mind I'll fix it where is the end of this myrtle? I shall be very glad, of course, Fleda, my dear, but" picking her bouquet to pieces "I think it right to tell you, privately, I am afraid you will find it very stupid."

"Oh, I dare say she will not," said Mrs. Evelyn; "she can go and try, at any rate; she would find it very stupid with me here alone, and Constance at the concert; I dare say she will find some one there whom she knows."

"But the thing is, Mamma, you see, at these conversaziones they never talk anything but French and German I don't know of course I should be delighted to have Fleda with me, and I have no doubt Mrs. Decatur would be very glad to have her; but I am afraid she wont enjoy herself."

"I do not want to go where I shall not enjoy myself," said Fleda, quietly; "that is certain."

"Of course, you know, dear, I would a great deal rather have you than not; I only speak for what I think would be for your pleasure."

"I would do just as I felt inclined, Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"I shall let her encounter the dullness alone, Ma'am," said Fleda, lightly.

But it was not in a light mood that she put on her bonnet after dinner, and set out to pay a visit to her uncle at the library; she had resolved that she would not be near the dormeuse in whatsoever relative position that evening. Very, very quiet she was; her grave little face walked through the crowd of busy, bustling, anxious people, as if she had nothing in common with them; and Fleda felt that she had very little. Half unconsciously, as she passed along the streets, her eye scanned the countenances of that moving panorama; and the report it brought back made her draw closer within herself.

She wondered that her feet had ever tripped lightly up those library stairs.

"Ha! my fair Saxon," said the doctor, "what has brought you down here to-day?"

"I felt in want of something fresh, uncle Orrin, so I thought I would come and see you."

"Fresh!" said he. "Ah! you are pining for green fields, I know. But, you little piece of simplicity, there are no green fields now at Queechy, they are two feet deep with snow by this time."

"Well, I am sure that is fresh," said Fleda, smiling.

The doctor was turning over great volumes one after another in a delightful confusion of business.

"When do you think you shall go north, uncle Orrin?"

"North?" said he "what do you want to know about the north?"

"You said, you know, Sir, that you would go a little out of your way to leave me at home."

"I wont go out of my way for anybody. If I leave you there, it will be in my way. Why, you are not getting home-sick?"

"No Sir, not exactly; but I think I will go with you when you go."

"That wont be yet awhile; I thought those people wanted you to stay till January."

"Ay, but suppose I want to do something else?"

He looked at her with a comical kind of indecision, and said

"You don't know what you want; I thought when you came in you needn't go further than the glass to see something fresh; but I believe the sea-breezes haven't had enough of you yet. Which part of you wants freshening?" he said, in his mock-fierce way.

Fleda laughed, and said she didn't know.

"Out of humour, I guess," said the doctor. "I'll talk to you. Take this and amuse yourself awhile with something that isn't fresh till I get through, and then you shall go home with me."

Fleda carried the large volume into one of the reading-rooms, where there was nobody, and sat down at the baize-covered table. But the book was not of the right kind, or her mood was not, for it failed to interest her. She sat nonchalantly turning over the leaves; but mentally she was busy turning over other leaves, which had by far most of her attention. The pages that memory read the record of the old times passed in that very room, and the old childish light-hearted feelings that were, she thought, as much beyond recall. Those pleasant times, when the world was all bright and friends all fair, and the light heart had never been borne down by the pressure of care, nor sobered by disappointment, nor chilled by experience. The spirit will not spring elastic again from under that weight; and the flower that has closed upon its own sweetness will not open a second time to the world's breath. Thoughtfully, softly, she was touching and feeling of the bands that years had fastened about her heart they would not be undone though so quietly and almost stealthily they had been bound there. She was remembering the shadows that, one after another, had been cast upon her life, till now one soft veil of a cloud covered the whole; no storm-cloud certainly, but also there was nothing left of the glad sunlight that her young eyes rejoiced in. At Queechy the first shadow had fallen; it was a good while before the next one, but then they came thick. There was the loss of some old comforts and advantages, that could have been borne; then, consequent upon that, the annoyances and difficulties that had wrought such a change in her uncle, till Fleda could hardly look back and. believe that he was the same person. Once manly, frank, busy, happy and making his family so now reserved, gloomy, irritable, unfaithful to his duty, and selfishly throwing down the burden they must take up, but were far less able to bear. And so Hugh was changed too; not in loveliness of character and demeanour, nor even much in the always gentle and tender expression of countenance; but the animal spirits and frame, that should have had all the strong cherishing and bracing that affection and wisdom together could have applied, had been left to wear themselves out under trials his father had shrunk from, and other trials his father had made. And Mrs. Rossitur it was hard for Fleda to remember the face she wore at Paris the bright eye and joyous corners of the mouth, that now were so utterly changed. All by his fault that made it so hard to bear. Fleda had thought all this a hundred times; she went over it now as one looks at a thing one is well accustomed to; not with new sorrow, only in a subdued mood of mind just fit to make the most of it. The familiar place took her back to the time when it became familiar; she compared herself sitting there, and feeling the whole world a blank, except for the two or three at home, with the child who had sat there years before in that happy time "when the feelings were young and the world was new."

Then the Evelyns why should they trouble one so inoffensive, and so easily troubled as her poor little self? They did not know all they were doing; but if they had eyes, they must see a little of it. Why could she not have been allowed to keep her old free, simple feeling with everybody, instead of being hampered, and constrained, and miserable, from this pertinacious putting of thoughts in her head that ought not to be there? It had made her unlike herself, she knew, in the company of several people. And perhaps they might be sharp- sighted enough to read it; but, even if not, how it had hindered her enjoyment! She had taken so much pleasure in the Evelyns last year, and in her visit; well, she would go home and forget it, and maybe they would come to their right minds by the next time she saw them.

"What pleasant times we used to have here once, uncle Orrin!" she said, with half a sigh, the other half quite made up by the tone in which she spoke. But it was not, as she thought, uncle Orrin that was standing by her side, and looking up as she finished speaking Fleda saw, with a start, that it was Mr. Carleton. There was such a degree of life and pleasantness in his eyes, that, in spite of the start, her own quite brightened.

"That is a pleasure one may always command," he said, answering part of her speech.

"Ay, provided one has one's mind always under command," said Fleda. "It is possible to sit down to a feast with a want of appetite."

"In such a case, what is the best tonic?"

His manner, even in those two minutes, had put Fleda perfectly at her ease, ill-bred eyes and ears being absent. She looked up and answered, with such entire trust in him, as made her forget that she had ever had any cause to distrust herself.

"For me," she said, "as a general rule, nothing is better than to go out of doors into the woods or the garden they are the best fresheners I know of. I can do myself good there at times when books are a nuisance."

"You are not changed from your old self," he said.

The wish was strong upon Fleda to know whether he was, but it was not till she saw the answer in his face that she knew how plainly hers had asked the question. And then she was so confused that she did not know what the answer had been.

"I find it so, too," he said. "The influences of pure nature are the best thing I know for some moods after the company of a good horse."

"And you on his back, I suppose?"

"That was my meaning. What is the doubt thereupon?" said he, laughing.

"Did I express any doubt?"

"Or my eyes were mistaken."

"I remember they never used to be that," said Fleda.

"What was it?"

"Why," said Fleda, thinking that Mr. Carleton had probably retained more than one of his old habits, for she was answering with her old obedience "I was doubting what the influence is in that case worth analyzing, I think. I am afraid the good horse's company has little to do with it."

"What, then, do you suppose?" said he, smiling.

"Why," said Fleda "it might be but I beg your pardon, Mr. Carleton! I am astonished at my own presumption."

"Go on, and let me know why," he said, with that happiness of manner which was never resisted. Fleda went on, reassuring her courage now and then with a glance.

"The relief might spring, Sir, from the gratification of a proud feeling of independence or from a dignified sense of isolation or an imaginary riding down of opposition or the consciousness of being master of what you have in hand."

She would have added to the general category, "the running away from one's-self;" but the eye and bearing of the person before her forbade even such a thought as connected with him. He laughed, but shook his head.

"Perhaps, then," said Fleda, "it may be nothing worse than the working off of a surplus of energy or impatience that leaves behind no more than can be managed."

"You have learned something of human nature since I had the pleasure of knowing you," he said, with a look at once amused and penetrating.

"I wish I hadn't," said Fleda.

Her countenance absolutely fell.

"I sometimes think," said he, turning over the leaves of her book, "that these are the best companionship one can have the world at large is very unsatisfactory."

"O, how much!" said Fleda, with a long breath. "The only pleasant thing that my eyes rested upon as I came through the streets this afternoon, was a huge bunch of violets that somebody was carrying. I walked behind them as long as I could."