They took their revenge in raillery, which was not always good-natured. Mr. Carleton never answered it in any other way than by his look of cold disdain, not always by that; little Fleda could not be quite so unmoved. Many a time her nice sense of delicacy confessed itself hurt, by the deep and abiding colour her cheeks would wear after one of their ill- mannered flings at her. She bore them with a grave dignity peculiar to herself, but the same nice delicacy forbade her to mention the subject to any one; and the young gentlemen contrived to give the little child in the course of the voyage a good deal of pain. She shunned them at last as she would the plague. As to the rest, Fleda liked her life on board ship amazingly. In her quiet way she took al the good that offered and seemed not to recognise the ill.

Mr. Carleton had bought for her a copy of The Rape of the Lock, and Bryant's poems. With these, sitting or lying among her cushions, Fleda amused herself a great deal; and it was an especial pleasure when he would sit down by her and read and talk about them. Still a greater was to watch the sea, in its changes of colour and varieties of agitation, and to get from Mr. Carleton, bit by bit, all the pieces of knowledge concerning it that he had ever made his own. Even when Fleda feared it she was fascinated; and while the fear went off the fascination grew deeper. Daintily nestling among her cushions, she watched with charmed eyes the long rollers that came up in detachments of three to attack the good ship, that like a slandered character rode patiently over them; or the crested green billows, or sometimes the little rippling waves that showed old Ocean's placidest face; while with ears as charmed as if he had been delivering a fairy tale, she listened to all Mr. Carleton could tell her of the green water where the whales feed, or the blue water where Neptune sits in his own solitude, the furthest from land, and the pavement under his feet outdoes the very canopy overhead in its deep colouring; of the transparent seas where the curious mysterious marine plants and animals may be clearly seen many feet down, and in the North where hundreds of feet of depth do not hide the bottom; of the icebergs; and whirling great fields of ice, between which, if a ship get, she had as good be an almond in a pair of strong nut-crackers. How the water grows colder and murkier as it is nearer the shore; how the mountain waves are piled together; and how old Ocean, like a wise man,. however roughened and tumbled outwardly by the currents of life, is always calm at heart. Of the signs of the weather; the out- riders of the winds, and the use the seaman makes of the tidings they bring, and before Mr. Carleton knew where he was, he found himself deep in the science of navigation, and making a star-gazer of little Fleda. Sometimes kneeling beside him as he sat on her mattress, with her hand leaning on his shoulder, Fleda asked, listened, and looked; as engaged, as rapt, as interested, as another child would be in Robinson Crusoe, gravely drinking in knowledge with a fresh healthy taste for it that never had enough. Mr. Carleton was about as amused and as interested as she. There is a second taste of knowledge that some minds get in imparting it, almost as sweet as the first relish. At any rate, Fleda never felt that she had any reason to fear tiring him; and his mother, complaining of his want of sociableness, said she believed Guy did not like to talk to any-body but that little pet of his, and one or two of the old sailors. If left to her own resources, Fleda was never at a loss; she amused herself with her books, or watching the sailors, or watching the sea, or with some fanciful manufacture she had learned from one of the ladies on board, or with what the company about her were saying and doing.

One evening she had been some time alone, looking out upon the restless little waves that were tossing and tumbling in every direction. She had been afraid of them at first, and they were still rather fearful to her imagination. This evening, as heir musing eye watched them rise and fall, her childish fancy likened them to the up-springing chances of life, uncertain, unstable, alike too much for her skill and her strength to manage. She was not more helpless before the attacks of the one than of the other. But then that calm blue heaven that hung over the sea. It was like the heaven of power and love above her destinies; only this was far higher, and more pure and abiding. "He knoweth them that trust in him." "There shall not a hair of your head perish."

Not these words, perhaps, but something like the sense of them, was in little Fleda's head. Mr. Carleton coming up, saw her gazing out upon the water, with an eye that seemed to see nothing.

"Elfie! Are you looking into futurity!"

"No, yes not exactly!" said Fleda, smiling.

"No, yes, and not exactly!" said he, throwing himself down beside her. "What does all that mean?"

"I wasn't exactly looking into futurity," said Fleda.

"What then? Don't tell me you were 'thinking;' I know that already. What?"

Fleda was always rather shy of opening her cabinet of thoughts. She glanced at him, and hesitated, and then yielded to a fascination of eye and smile that rarely failed of its end. Looking off to the sea again as if she had left her thoughts there, she said,

"I was only thinking of that beautiful hymn of Mr. Newton's."

"What hymn?"

"That long one, 'The Lord will provide.' "

"Do you know it? Tell it to me, Elfie; let us see whether I shall think it beautiful."

Fleda knew the whole, and repeated it.

"Though troubles assail, And dangers affright, Though friends should all fail, And foes all unite; Yet one thing secures us Whatever betide, The Scripture assures us 'The Lord will provide.'

"The birds without barn Or storehouse are fed; From them let us learn To trust for our bread. His saints what is fitting Shall ne'er be denied, So long as 'tis written, 'The Lord will provide.'

"His call we obey, Like Abraham of old, Not knowing our way, But faith makes us bold. And though we are strangers, We have a good guide, And trust in all dangers 'The Lord will provide.'

"We may like the ships In tempests be tossed On perilous deeps, But cannot be lost. Though Satan enrages The wind and the tide, The promise engages 'The Lord will provide.'

"When Satan appears To stop up our path, And fills us with fears, We triumph by faith. He cannot take from us, Though oft he has tried, This heart-cheering promise, 'The Lord will provide.'

"He tells us we're weak, Our hope is in vain, The good that we seek We ne'er shall obtain; But when such suggestions Our spirits have tried, This answers all questions, 'The Lord will provide.'

"No strength of our own, Or goodness we claim; But since we have known The Saviour's great name, In this, our strong tower, For safety we hide; The Lord is our power! 'The Lord will provide.'

"When life sinks apace, And death is in view, This word of his grace Shall comfort us through. No fearing nor doubting, With Christ on our side, We hope to die shouting 'The Lord will provide!' "

Guy listened very attentively to the whole. He was very far from understanding the meaning of several of the verses, but the bounding expression of confidence and hope he did understand, and did feel.

"Happy to be so deluded!" he thought. "I almost wish I could share the delusion!"

He was gloomily silent when she had done, and little Fleda's eyes were so full that it was a little while before she could look towards him, and ask in her gentle way, "Do you like it, Mr. Carleton?"

She was gratified by his grave "Yes!"

"But Elfie," said he, smiling again, "you have not told me your thoughts yet. What had these verses to do with the sea you were looking at so hard?"

"Nothing; I was thinking," said Fleda, slowly, "that the sea seemed something like the world I don't mean it was like, but it made me think of it; and I thought how pleasant it is to know that God takes care of his people."

"Don't he take care of everybody?"

"Yes, in one sort of way," said Fleda; "but then it is only his children that he has promised to keep from everything that will hurt them."

"I don't see how that promise is kept, Elfie. I think those who call themselves so meet with as many troubles as the rest of the world, and perhaps more."

"Yes," said Fleda, quickly, "they have troubles, but then God wont let the troubles do them any harm."

A subtle evasion, thought Mr. Carleton. "Where did you learn that, Elfie?"

"The Bible says so," said Fleda.

"Well, how do you know it from that?" said Mr. Carleton, impelled, he hardly knew whether by his bad or his good angel, to carry on the conversation.

"Why," said Fleda, looking as if it were a very simple question, and Mr. Carleton were catechising her, "you know, Mr. Carleton, the Bible was written by men who were taught by God exactly what to say, so there could be nothing in it that is not true."

"How do you know those men were so taught?"

"The Bible says so."

A child's answer! but with a child's wisdom in it, not learnt of the schools. "He that is of God heareth God's words." To little Fleda, as to every simple and humble intelligence, the Bible proved itself; she had no need to go further.

Mr. Carleton did not smile, for nothing would have tempted him to hurt her feelings; but he said, though conscience did not let him do it without a twinge,

"But don't you know, Elfie, there are some people who do not believe the Bible?"

"Ah, but those are bad people," replied Fleda, quickly; "all good people believe it."

A child's reason again, but hitting the mark this time. Unconsciously, little Fleda had brought forward a strong argument for her cause. Mr. Carleton felt it, and rising up, that he might not be obliged to say anything more, he began to pace slowly up and down the deck, turning the matter over.

Was it so? that there were hardly any good men (he thought there might be a few), who did not believe in the Bible and uphold its authority? and that all the worst portion of society was comprehended in the other class? and if so, how had he overlooked it? He had reasoned most unphilosophically, from a few solitary instances that had come under his own eye; but applying the broad principle of induction, it could not be doubted that the Bible was on the side of all that is sound, healthful, and hopeful, in this disordered world. And whatever might be the character of a few exceptions, it was not supposable that a wide system of hypocrisy should tell universally for the best interests of mankind. Summoning history to produce her witnesses, as he went on with his walk up and down, he saw with increasing interest, what he had never seen before, that the Bible had come like the breath of spring upon the moral waste of mind; that the ice-bound intellect and cold heart of the world had waked into life under its kindly influence, and that all the rich growth of the one and the other had come forth at its bidding. And except in that sun-lightened tract, the world was and had been a waste indeed. Doubtless, in that waste, intellect had at different times put forth sundry barren shoots, such as a vigorous plant can make in the absence of the sun, but also like them immature, unsound, and groping vainly after the light in which alone they could expand and perfect themselves; ripening no seed for a future and richer growth. And flowers the wilderness had none. The affections were stunted and overgrown.

All this was so how had he overlooked it? His unbelief had come from a thoughtless, ignorant, one-sided view of life and human things. The disorder and ruin which he saw, where he did not also see the adjusting hand at work, had led him to refuse his credit to the Supreme Fabricator. He thought the waste would never be reclaimed, and did not know how much it already owed to the sun of revelation; but what was the waste where that light had not been! Mr. Carleton was staggered. He did not know what to think. He began to think he had been a fool.

Poor little Fleda was meditating less agreeably the while. With the sure tact of truth, she had discerned that there was more than jest in the questions that had been put to her. She almost feared that Mr. Carleton shared himself the doubts he had so lightly spoken of, and the thought gave her great distress. However, when he came to take her down to tea, with all his usual manner, Fleda's earnest look at him ended in the conviction that there was. nothing very wrong under that face.

For several days, Mr. Carleton pondered the matter of this evening's conversation, characteristically restless till he had made up his mind. He wished very much to draw Fleda to speak further upon the subject, but it was not easy; she never led to it. He sought in vain an opportunity to bring it in easily, and at last resolved to make one..

"Elfie," said he, one morning, when all the rest of the passengers were happily engaged at a distance with the letter- bags "I wish you would let me hear that favourite hymn of yours again; l like it very much."

Fleda was much gratified, and immediately with great satisfaction repeated the hymn. Its peculiar beauty struck him yet more the second time than the first.

"Do you understand those two last verses?" said he, when she had done.

Fleda said "Yes!" rather surprised.

"I do not," he said, gravely.

Fleda paused a minute or two, and then finding that it depended on her to enlighten him, said in her modest way,

"Why, it means that we have no goodness of our own, and only expect to be forgiven, and taken to heaven, for the Saviour's sake."

Mr. Carleton asked, "How for his sake?"

"Why, you know, Mr. Carleton, we don't deserve to go there, and if we are forgiven at all, it must be for what He has done."

"And what is that, Elfie?"

"He died for us," said Fleda, with a look of some anxiety into Mr. Carleton's face.

"Died for us! And what end was that to serve, Elfie?" said he, partly willing to hear the full statement of the matter, and partly willing to see how far her intelligence could give it.

"Because we are sinners," said Fleda, "and God has said that sinners shall die."

"Then how can he keep his word, and forgive at all?"

"Because Christ has died for us," said Fleda, eagerly "instead of us."

"Do you understand the justice of letting one take the place of others?"

"He was willing, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a singular wistful expression, that touched him.

"Still, Elfie," said he, after a minute's silence, "how could the ends of justice be answered by the death of one man in the place of millions?"

"No, Mr. Carleton, but He was God as well as man," Fleda said, with a sparkle in her eye which perhaps delayed her companion's rejoinder.

"What should induce him, Elfie," he said, gently, "to do such a thing for people who had displeased him?"

"Because he loved us, Mr. Carleton."

She answered with so evident a strong and clear appreciation of what she was saying, that it half made its way into Mr. Carleton's mind by the force of sheer sympathy. Her words came almost as something new.

Certainly Mr. Carleton had heard these things before; though perhaps never in a way that appealed so directly to his intelligence and his candour. He was again silent an instant, pondering, and so was Fleda.

"Do you know, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, "there are some people who do not believe that the Saviour was anything more than a man?"

"Yes, I know it," said Fleda; "it is very strange!"

"Why is it strange?"

"Because the Bible says it so plainly."

"But those people hold, I believe, that the Bible does not say it."

"I don't see how they could have read the Bible," said Fleda. "Why, he said so himself."

"Who said so?"

"Jesus Christ. Don't you believe it, Mr. Carleton?"

She saw he did not, and the shade that had come over her face was reflected in his before he said "No."

"But perhaps I shall believe it yet, Elfie," he said, kindly. "Can you show me the place in your Bible where Jesus says this of himself?"

Fleda looked in despair. She hastily turned over the leaves of her Bible to find the passages he had asked for, and Mr. Carleton was cut to the heart to see that she twice was obliged to turn her face from him, and brush her hand over her eyes, before she could find them. She turned to Matt. xxvi. 63-65, and, without speaking, gave him the book, pointing to the passage. He read it with great care, and several times over.

"You are right, Elfie," he said. "I do not see how those who honour the authority of the Bible, and the character of Jesus Christ, can deny the truth of His own declaration. If that is false, so must those be."

Fleda took the Bible, and hurriedly sought out another passage.

"Grandpa showed me these places," she said, "once when we were talking about Mr. Didenhover he didn't believe that. There are a great many other places, grandpa said; but one! is enough."

She gave him the latter part of the 20th chapter of John.

"You see, Mr. Carleton, he let Thomas fall down and worship him, and call him God; and if he had not been, you know God is more displeased with that than with anything."

"With what, Elfie?"

"With men's worshipping any other than himself. He says he 'will not give his glory to another.' "

"Where is that?"

"I am afraid I can't find it," said Fleda "it is somewhere in Isaiah, I know"

She tried in vain; and failing, then looked up in Mr. Carleton's face to see what impression had been made.

"You see Thomas believed when he saw," said he, answering her; "I will believe, too, when I see."

"Ah! if you wait for that" said Fleda.

Her voice suddenly checked: she bent her face down again to her little Bible, and there was a moment's struggle with herself.

"Are you looking for something more to show me?" said Mr. Carleton, kindly, stooping his face down to hers.

"Not much," said Fleda, hurriedly; and then making a great effort, she raised her head, and gave him the book again.

"Look here, Mr. Carleton Jesus said, 'Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.' "

Mr. Carleton was profoundly struck, and the thought recurred to him afterwards, and was dwelt upon. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." It was strange at first, and then he wondered that it should ever have been so. His was a mind peculiarly open to conviction, peculiarly accessible to truth; and his attention being called to it, he saw faintly now what he had never seen before, the beauty of the principle of faith how natural, how reasonable, how necessary, how honourable to the Supreme Being, how happy even for man, that the grounds of his trust in God being established, his acceptance of many other things should rest on that trust alone.

Mr. Carleton now became more reserved and unsociable than ever. He wearied himself with thinking. If he could have got at the books, he would have spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity; but the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to the most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation; or, rather, he began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one point with him If there were a God, he would not have left the world without a revelation no more would he have suffered that revelation to defeat its own end by becoming corrupted or alloyed; if there was such a revelation, it could be no other than the Bible; and his acceptance of the whole scheme of Christianity now hung upon the turn of a hair. Yet he could not resolve himself. He balanced the counter doubts and arguments on one side and on the other, and strained his mind to the task; he could not weigh them nicely enough. He was in a maze; and seeking to clear and calm his judgment that he might see the way out, it was in vain that he tried to shake his dizzied head from the effect of the turns it had made. By dint of anxiety to find the right path, reason had lost herself in the wilderness.

Fleda was not, as Mr. Carleton had feared she would be, at all alienated from him by the discovery that had given her so much pain. It wrought in another way, rather to add a touch of tender and anxious interest to the affection she had for him. It gave her, however, much more pain than he thought. If he had seen the secret tears that fell on his account, he would have been grieved; and if he had known of the many petitions that little heart made for him, he could hardly have loved her more than he did.

One evening Mr. Carleton had been a long while pacing up and down the deck in front of little Fleda's nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to any end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset, the sky without a cloud, except two or three little dainty strips which set off its blue. The ocean was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of waves that seemed to have nothing to do but sparkle. The sun's rays were almost level now, and a long path of glory across the sea led off towards his sinking disk. Fleda sat watching and enjoying it all in her happy fashion, which always made the most of everything good, and was especially quick in catching any form of natural beauty.

Mr. Carleton's thoughts were elsewhere too busy to take note of things around him. Fleda looked now and then as he passed at his gloomy brow, wondering what he was thinking of, and wishing that he could have the same reason to be happy that she had. In one of his turns his eye met her gentle glance; and, vexed and bewildered as he was with study, there was something in that calm bright face that impelled him irresistibly to ask the little child to set the proud scholar right. Placing himself beside her, he said,

"Elfie, how do you know there is a God? what reason have you for thinking so, out of the Bible?"

It was a strange look little Fleda gave him. He felt it at the time, and he never forgot it. Such a look of reproach, sorrow, and pity, he afterwards thought, as an angel's face might have worn. The question did not seem to occupy her a moment. After this answering look she suddenly pointed to the sinking sun, and said

"Who made that, Mr. Carleton?"

Mr. Carleton's eyes, following the direction of hers, met the long, bright rays, whose still witness-bearing was almost too powerful to be borne. The sun was just dipping majestically into the sea, and its calm self-assertion seemed to him at that instant hardly stronger than its vindication of its Author.

A slight arrow may find the joint in the armour before which many weightier shafts have fallen powerless. Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever no more from that time.



CHAPTER XII.

"He borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able. Merchant of Venice.

One other incident alone in the course of the voyage deserves to be mentioned; both because it served to bring out the characters of several people, and because it was not what is? without its lingering consequences.

Thorn and Rossitur had kept up indefatigably the game of teasing Fleda about her "English admirer," as they sometime styled him. Poor Fleda grew more and more sore on the subject. She thought it was very strange that two grown men could not find enough to do to amuse themselves without making sport of the comfort of a little child. She wondered they could take pleasure in what gave her so much pain; but so it was; and they had it up so often that, at last, others caught it from them, and, though not in malevolence, yet in thoughtless folly, many a light remark was made and question asked of her that set little Fleda's sensitive nerves a-quivering. She was only too happy that they were never said before Mr. Carleton that would have been a thousand times worse. As it was, her gentle nature was constantly suffering from the pain or the fear of these attacks.

"Where's Mr. Carleton?" said her cousin, coming up one day.

"I don't know," said Fleda; "I don't know but he is gone up into one of the tops."

"Your humble servant leaves you to yourself a great while this morning, it seems to me. He is growing very inattentive."

"I wouldn't permit it. Miss Fleda, if I were you," said Thorn, maliciously. "You let him have his own way too much."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, cousin Charlton!" said Fleda.

"But seriously," said Charlton, "I think you had better call him to account. He is very suspicious lately. I have observed him walking by himself, and looking very glum indeed. I am afraid he has taken some fancy into his head that would not suit you. I advise you to inquire into it."

"I wouldn't give myself any concern about it," said Thorn, lightly, enjoying the child's confusion and his own fanciful style of backbiting; "I'd let him go if he has a mind to, Miss Fleda. He's no such great catch. He's neither lord nor knight nothing in the world but a private gentleman, with plenty of money, I dare say, but you don't care for that; and there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. I don't think much of him."

"He is wonderfully better than you," thought Fleda, as she looked in the young gentleman's face for a second, but she said nothing.

"Why, Fleda," said Charlton, laughing, "it wouldn't be a killing affair, would it? How has this English admirer of yours got so far in your fancy? praising your pretty eyes, eh? eh?" he repeated, as Fleda kept a dignified silence.

"No," said Fleda, in displeasure; "he never says such things."

"No?" said Charlton. "What then! What does he say? I wouldn't let him make a fool of me, if I were you. Fleda did he ever ask you for a kiss?"

"No!" exclaimed Fleda, half beside herself, and bursting into tears: " I wish you wouldn't talk so! How can you!"

They had carried the game pretty far that time, and thought best to leave it. Fleda stopped crying as soon as she could, lest somebody should see her; and was sitting quietly again, alone as before, when one of the sailors whom she had never spoken to, came by, and leaning over towards her with a leer as he passed, said

"Is this the young English gentleman's little sweet-heart?"

Poor Fleda! She had got more than she could bear. She jumped up, and ran down into the cabin; and in her berth Mrs. Carleton found her some time afterwards, quietly crying, and most sorry to be discovered. She was exceeding unwilling to tell what had troubled her. Mrs. Carleton, really distressed, tried coaxing, soothing, reasoning, promising, in a way the most gentle and kind that she could use.

"Oh, it's nothing it's nothing," Fleda said, at last, eagerly; "it's because I am foolish it's only something they said to me."

"Who, love?"

Again was Fleda most unwilling to answer, and it was after repeated urging that she at last said

"Cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn."

"Charlton and Mr. Thorn! What did they say? What did they say, darling Fleda?"

"Oh, it's only that they tease me," said Fleda, trying hard to put an end to the tears which caused all this questioning, and to speak as if they were about a trifle. But Mrs. Carleton persisted.

"What do they say to tease you, love? What is it about? Guy, come in here, and help me to find out what is the matter with Fleda."

Fleda hid her face in Mrs. Carleton's neck, resolved to keep her lips sealed. Mr. Carleton came in, but to her great relief his question was directed not to her but his mother.

"Fleda has been annoyed by something those young men, her cousin and Mr. Thorn, have said to her; they tease her, she says, and she will not tell me what it is."

Mr. Carleton did not ask, and he presently left the state- room.

"Oh, I am afraid he will speak to them!" exclaimed Fleda, as soon as he was gone. "Oh, I oughtn't to have said that!"

Mrs. Carleton tried to soothe her, and asked what she was afraid of. But Fleda would not say any more. Her anxious fear that she had done mischief helped to dry her tears, and she sorrowfully resolved she would keep her griefs to herself next time.

Rossitur and Thorn were in company with a brother officer, and friend of the latter, when Mr. Carleton approached them.

"Mr. Rossitur and Mr. Thorn," said he, "you have indulged yourselves in a style of conversation extremely displeasing to the little girl under my mother's care. You will oblige me by abandoning it for the future."

There was certainly in Mr. Carleton's manner a sufficient degree of the cold haughtiness with which he usually expressed. Displeasure, though his words gave no other cause of offence. Thorn retorted rather insolently.

"I shall oblige myself in the matter, and do as I think proper."

"I have a right to speak as I please to my own cousin," said Rossitur, sulkily, "without asking anybody's leave. I don't see what you have to do with it."

"Simply that she is under my protection, and that I will not permit her to be annoyed."

"I don't see how she is under your protection," said Rossitur.

"And I do not see how the potency of it will avail in this case," said his companion.

"Neither position is to be made out in words," said Mr. Carleton, calmly. "You see that I desire there be no repetition of the offence, the rest I will endeavour to make clear, if I am compelled to it."

"Stop, Sir!" said Thorn, as the young Englishman was turning away, adding with an oath "I wont bear this! You shall answer this to me, Sir!"

"Easily," said the other.

"And me, too," said Rossitur. "You have an account to settle with me, Carleton."

"I will answer what you please," said Carleton, carelessly; "and as soon as we get to land, provided you do not, in the meantime, induce me to refuse you the honour."

However incensed, the young men endeavoured to carry it off with the same coolness that their adversary showed. No more words passed; but Mrs. Carleton, possibly quickened by Fleda's fears, was not satisfied with the carriage of all parties, and resolved to sound her son, happy in knowing that nothing but truth was to be had from him. She found an opportunity that very afternoon, when he was sitting alone on the deck. The neighbourhood of little Fleda she hardly noticed. Fleda was curled up among her cushions, luxuriously bending over a little old black Bible, which was very often in her hand at times when she was quiet and had no observation to fear.

"Reading! always reading!" said Mrs. Carleton, as she came up and took a place by her son.

"By no means!" he said, closing his book with a smile; "not enough to tire any one's eyes on this voyage, mother."

"I wish you liked intercourse with living society," said Mrs. Carleton, leaning her arm on his shoulder and looking at him rather wistfully.

"You need not wish that when it suits me," he answered.

"But none suits you. Is there any on board?"

"A small proportion," he said, with the slight play of feature which always effected a diversion of his mother's thoughts, no matter in what channel they had been flowing.

"But those young men," she said, returning to the charge, "you hold yourself very much aloof from them?"

He did not answer, even by a look, but to his mother the perfectly quiet composure of his face was sufficiently expressive.

"I know what you think; but, Guy, you always had the same opinion of them?"

"I have never shown any other."

"Guy," she said, speaking low and rather anxiously, "have you got into trouble with those young men?"

"I am in no trouble, mother," he answered, somewhat haughtily; "I cannot speak for them."

Mrs. Carleton waited a moment.

"You have done something to displease them, have you not?"

"They have displeased me, which is somewhat more to the purpose."

"But their folly is nothing to you?"

"No not their folly."

"Guy," said his mother, again pausing a minute, and pressing her hand more heavily upon his shoulder, "you will not suffer this to alter the friendly terms you have been on? whatever it be, let it pass."

"Certainly; if they choose to apologize, and behave themselves."

"What about Fleda?"

"Yes."

"I have no idea they meant to trouble her; I suppose they did no at all know what they were doing thoughtless nonsense and they could have had no design to offend you. Promise me that you will not take any further notice of this."

He shook off the beseeching hand as he rose up, and answered haughtily, and not without something like an oath, that he would.

Mrs. Carleton knew him better than to press the matter any further; and her fondness easily forgave the offence against herself, especially as her son almost immediately resumed his ordinary manner.

It had well nigh passed from the minds of both parties, when in the middle of the next day, Mr. Carleton asked what had become of Fleda? he had not seen her except at the breakfast-table. Mrs. Carleton said she was not well.

"What's the matter?"

"She complained of some headache I think she made herself sick yesterday she was crying all the afternoon, and I could not get her to tell me what for. I tried every means I could think of, but she would not give me the least clue she said 'No' to everything I guessed I can't bear to see her do so it makes it all the worse she does it so quietly it was only by a mere chance I found she was crying at all, but I think she cried herself ill before she stopped. She could not eat a mouthful of breakfast."

Mr. Carleton said nothing, and, with a changed countenance, went directly down to the cabin. The stewardess whom he sent in to see how she was, brought back word that Fleda was not asleep, but was too ill to speak to her. Mr. Carleton went immediately into the little crib of a state-room. There he found his little charge, sitting bolt upright, her feet on the rung of a chair, and her hands grasping the top to support herself. Her eyes were closed, her face without a particle of colour, except the dark shade round the eyes which bespoke illness and pain. She made no attempt to answer his shocked questions and words of tender concern, not even by the raising of an eyelid, and he saw that the intensity of pain at the moment was such as to render breathing itself difficult. He sent off the stewardess with all despatch after iced water and vinegar and brandy, and himself went on an earnest quest of restoratives among the lady passengers in the cabin, which resulted in sundry supplies of salts and cologne, and also offers of service, in greater plenty still, which he all refused. Most tenderly and judiciously he himself applied various remedies to the suffering child, who could not direct him otherwise than by gently putting away the things which she felt would not avail her. Several were in vain. But there was one bottle of strong aromatic vinegar which was destined to immortalize its owner in Fleda's remembrance. Before she had taken three whiffs of it, her colour changed. Mr. Carleton watched the effect of a few whiffs more, and then bade the stewardess take away all the other things, and bring him a cup of fresh strong coffee. By the time it came Fleda was ready for it; and by the time Mr. Carleton had administered the coffee, he saw it would do to throw his mother's shawl round her, and carry her up on deck, which he did without asking any questions. All this while Fleda had not spoken a word, except once when he asked her if she felt better. But she had given him, on finishing the coffee, a full look and half smile of such pure affectionate gratitude, that the young gentleman's tongue was tied for some time after.

With happy skill, when he had safely bestowed Fleda among her cushions on deck, Mr. Carleton managed to keep off the crowd of busy inquirers after her well-doing, and even presently to turn his mother's attention another way, leaving Fleda to enjoy all the comfort of quiet and fresh air at once. He himself seeming occupied with other things, did no more but keep watch over her, till he saw that she was able to bear conversation again. Then he seated himself beside her, and said softly

"Elfie, what were you crying about all yesterday afternoon?"

Fleda changed colour, for, soft and gentle as the tone was, she heard in it a determination to have the answer; and looking up beseechingly into his face, she saw in the steady full blue eye, that it was a determination she could not escape from. Her answer was an imploring request that he would not ask her. But taking one of her little hands and carrying it to his lips, he in the same tone repeated his question. Fleda snatched away her hand, and burst into very frank tears; Mr. Carleton was silent, but she knew through his silence that he was only quietly waiting for her to answer him.

"I wish you wouldn't ask me, Sir," said poor Fleda, who still could not turn her face to meet his eye "It was only something that happened yesterday."

"What was it, Elfie? You need not be afraid to tell me."

"It was only what you said to Mrs. Carleton yesterday when she was talking "

"About my difficulty with those gentlemen!"

"Yes," said Fleda, with a new gush of tears, as if her grief stirred afresh at the thought.

Mr. Carleton was silent a moment; and when he spoke, there was no displeasure, and more tenderness than usual, in his voice.

"What troubled you in that, Elfie? tell me the whole."

"I was sorry, because it wasn't right," said Fleda, with a grave truthfulness which yet lacked none of her universal gentleness and modesty.

"What wasn't right?"

"To speak I am afraid you wont like me to say it, Mr. Carleton."

"I will, Elfie for I ask you."

"To speak to Mrs. Carleton, so; and, besides, you know what you said, Mr. Carleton"

"It was not right," said he, after a minute, "and I very seldom use such an expression, but you know one cannot always be on one's guard, Elfie."

"But," said Fleda, with gentle persistence, "one can always do what is right."

"The deuce one can!" thought Mr. Carleton to himself.

"Elfie, was this all that troubled you? that I had said what was not right?"

"It wasn't quite that only," said Fleda, hesitating.

"What else?"

She stooped her face from his sight, and he could but just understand her words.

"I was disappointed "

"What, in me?"

Her tears gave the answer; she could add to them nothing but an assenting nod of her head.

They would have flowed in double measure if she had guessed the pain she had given. Her questioner heard her with a keen pang, which did not leave him. for days. There was some hurt pride in it, though other and more generous feelings had a far larger share. He, who had been admired, lauded, followed, cited, and envied, by all ranks of his countrymen and countrywomen; in whom nobody found a fault that could be dwelt upon, amid the lustre of his perfections and advantages one of the first young men in England, thought so by himself, as well as by others this little pure being had been disappointed in him. He could not get over it. He reckoned the one judgment worth all the others. Those whose direct or indirect flatteries had been poured at his feet, were the proud, the worldly, the ambitious, the interested, the corrupted; their praise was given to what they esteemed, and that, his candour said, was the least estimable part of him. Beneath all that, this truth-loving, truth-discerning little spirit had found enough to weep for. She was right, and they were wrong. The sense of this was so keen upon him, that it was ten or fifteen minutes before he could recover himself to speak to his little reprover. He paced up and down the deck, while Fleda wept more and more from the fear of having offended or grieved him. But she was soon reassured on the former point. She was just wiping away her tears, with the quiet expression of patience her face often wore, when Mr. Carleton sat down beside her and took one of her hands.

"Elfie," said he, "I promise you I will never say such a thing again."

He might well call her his good angel, for it was an angelic look the child gave him; so purely humble, grateful, glad; so rosy with joyful hope; the eyes were absolutely sparkling through tears. But when she saw that his were not dry, her own overflowed. She clasped her other hand to his hand, and bending down her face affectionately upon it, she wept if ever angels weep such tears as they.

"Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, as soon as he could, "I want you to go down stairs with me; so dry those eyes, or my mother will be asking all sorts of difficult questions."

Happiness is a quick restorative. Elfie was soon ready to go where he would.

They found Mrs. Carleton fortunately wrapped up in a new novel, some distance apart from the other persons in the cabin. The novel was immediately laid aside to take Fleda on her lap, and praise Guy's nursing.

"But she looks more like a wax figure yet than anything else; don't she, Guy?"

"Not like any that ever I saw," said Mr. Carleton, gravely. "Hardly substantial enough. Mother, I have come to tell you I am ashamed of myself for having given you such cause of offence yesterday."

Mrs. Carleton's quick look, as she laid her hand on her son's arm, said sufficiently well that she would have excused him from making any apology, rather than have him humble himself in the presence of a third person.

"Fleda heard me yesterday," said he; "it was right she should hear me to-day."

"Then, my dear Guy," said his mother, with a secret eagerness which she did not allow to appear, "if I may make a condition for my forgiveness, which you had before you asked for it, will you grant me one favour?"

"Certainly, mother, if I can."

"You promise me?"

"As well in one word as in two."

"Promise me that you will never, by any circumstances, allow yourself to be drawn into what is called an affair of honour."

Mr. Carleton's brow changed, and without making any reply, perhaps to avoid his mother's questioning gaze, he rose up and walked two or three times the length of the cabin. His mother and Fleda watched him doubtfully.

"Do you see how you have got me into trouble, Elfie?" said he, stopping before them.

Fleda looked wonderingly, and Mrs. Carleton exclaimed

"What trouble!"

"Elfie," said he, without immediately answering his mother, "what would your conscience do with two promises, both of which cannot be kept?"

"What such promises have you made?" said Mrs. Carleton, eagerly.

"Let me hear first what Fleda says to my question."

"Why," said Fleda, looking a little bewildered, "I would keep the right one."

"Not the one first made?" said he, smiling.

"No," said Fleda; "not unless it was the right one."

"But don't you think one ought to keep one's word, in any event?"

"I don't think anything can make it right to do wrong," Fleda said, gravely, and not without a secret trembling consciousness to what point she was speaking.

He left them, and again took several turns up and down the cabin before he sat down.

"You have not given me your promise yet, Guy," said his mother, whose eye had not once quitted him. "You said you would."

"I said, if I could."

"Well, you can?"

"I have two honourable meetings of the proscribed kind now on hand, to which I stand pledged."

Fleda hid her face in an agony. Mrs. Carleton's agony was in every line of hers as she grasped her son's wrist, exclaiming, "Guy, promise me!" She had words for nothing else. He hesitated still a moment, and then meeting his mother's look, he said gravely and steadily

"I promise you, mother, I never will."

His mother threw herself upon his breast, and hid her face there, too much excited to have any thought of her customary regard to appearances, sobbing out thanks and blessings even audibly. Fleda's gentle head was bowed in almost equal agitation; and Mr. Carleton at that moment had no doubt that he had chosen well which promise to keep.

There remained, however, a less agreeable part of the business to manage. After seeing his mother and Fleda quite happy again, though without satisfying in any degree the curiosity of the former, Guy went in search of the two young West Point officers. They were together, but without Thorn's friend Captain Beebee. Him Carleton next sought, and brought to the forward deck, where the others were enjoying their cigars; or rather, Charlton Rossitur was enjoying his with the happy self-satisfaction of a pair of epaulettes, off duty. Thorn had too busy a brain to be much of a smoker. Now, however, when it was plain that Mr. Carleton had something to say to them, Charlton's cigar gave way to his attention; it was displaced from his mouth, and held in abeyance, while Thorn puffed away more intently than ever.

"Gentlemen," Carleton began, "I gave you, yesterday, reason to expect that so soon as circumstances permitted, you should have the opportunity which offended honour desires of trying sounder arguments than those of reason upon the offender. I have to tell you to-day that I will not give it you. I have thought further of it."

"Is it a new insult that you mean by this, Sir?" exclaimed Rossitur, in astonishment. Thorn's cigar did not stir.

"Neither new nor old. I mean, simply, that I have changed my mind."

"But this is very extraordinary!" said Rossitur. "What reason do you give?"

"I give none, Sir."

"In that case," said Captain Beebee, "perhaps Mr. Carleton will not object to explain or unsay the things which gave offence yesterday."

"I apprehend there is nothing to explain, Sir I think I must have been understood; and I never take back my words, for I am in the habit of speaking the truth."

"Then we are to consider this as a further unprovoked unmitigated insult, for which you will give neither reason nor satisfaction!" cried Rossitur.

"I have already disclaimed that, Mr. Rossitur."

"Are we, on mature deliberation, considered unworthy of the honour you so condescendingly awarded to us yesterday?"

"My reasons have nothing to do with you, Sir, nor with your friend; they are entirely personal to myself."

"Mr. Carleton must be aware," said Captain Beebee, "that his conduct, if unexplained, will bear a very strange construction."

Mr. Carleton was coldly silent.

"It never was heard of," the Captain went on, "that a gentleman declined both to explain and to give satisfaction for any part of his conduct which had called for it."

"It never was heard that a gentleman did," said Thorn, removing his cigar a moment, for the purpose of supplying the emphasis, which his friend had carefully omitted to make.

"Will you say, Mr. Carleton," said Rossitur, "that you did not mean to offend us yesterday, in what you said?"

"No, Mr. Rossitur."

"You will not!" cried the Captain.

"No Sir; for your friends had given me, as I conceived, just cause of displeasure; and I was, and am, careless of offending those who have done so."

"You consider yourself aggrieved, then, in the first place?" said Beebee.

"I have said so, Sir."

"Then," said the Captain, after a puzzled look out to sea, "supposing that my friends disclaim all intention to offend you, in that case "

"In that case I should be glad, Captain Beebee, that they had changed their line of tactics there is nothing to change in my own."

"Then what are we to understand by this strange refusal of a meeting, Mr. Carleton? what does it mean?"

"It means one thing in my own mind, Sir, and probably another in yours; but the outward expression I choose to give it is, that I will not reward uncalled-for rudeness with an opportunity of self-vindication."

"You are," said Thorn, sneeringly, "probably careless as to the figure your own name will cut in connection with this story?"

"Entirely so," said Mr. Carleton, eyeing him steadily.

"You are aware that your character is at our mercy."

A slight bow seemed to leave at their disposal the very small portion of his character he conceived to lie in that predicament.

"You will expect to hear yourself spoken of in terms that befit a man who has cowed out of an engagement he dared not fulfil?"

"Of course," said Carleton, haughtily; "by my present refusal I give you leave to say all that, and as much more as your ingenuity can furnish in the same style; but not in my hearing, Sir."

"You can't help yourself," said Thorn, with the same sneer. "You have rid yourself of a gentleman's means of protection, what others will you use?"

"I will leave that to the suggestion of the moment I do not doubt it will be found fruitful."

Nobody doubted it who looked just then on his steady sparkling eye.

"I consider the championship of yesterday given up, of course," Thorn went on in a kind of aside, not looking at anybody, and striking his cigar against the guards to clear it of ashes; "the champion has quitted the field, and the little princess but lately so walled in with defences must now listen to whatever knight and squire may please to address to her. Nothing remains to be seen of her defender but his spurs."

"They may serve for the heels of whoever is disposed to annoy her," said Mr. Carleton. "He will need them."

He left the group with the same air of imperturbable self- possession which he had maintained during the conference. But presently, Rossitur, who had his private reasons for wishing to keep friends with an acquaintance who might be of service in more ways than one, followed him, and declared himself to have been, in all his nonsense to Fleda, most undesirous of giving displeasure to her temporary guardian, and sorry that it had fallen out so. He spoke frankly, and Mr. Carleton, with the same cool gracefulness with which he had carried on the quarrel, waived his displeasure, and admitted the young gentleman apparently to stand as before in his favour. Their reconciliation was not an hour old when Captain Beebee joined them.

"I am sorry I must trouble you with a word more on this disagreeable subject, Mr. Carleton," he began, after a ceremonious salutation, "My friend, Lieutenant Thorn, considers himself greatly outraged by your determination not to meet him. He begs to ask, by me, whether it is your purpose to abide by it at all hazards?"

"Yes, Sir."

"There is some misunderstanding here, which I greatly regret. I hope you will see and excuse the disagreeable necessity I am. under of delivering the rest of my friend's message."

"Say on, Sir."

"Mr. Thorn declares that if you deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world; and, in place of his former regard, he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple about showing on all occasions."

Mr. Carleton coloured a little, but replied, coolly

"I have not lived in Mr. Thorn's favour. As to the rest, I forgive him! except indeed, he provoke me to measures for which I never will forgive him."

"Measures!" said the Captain.

"I hope not! for my own self-respect would be more grievously hurt than his. But there is an unruly spring somewhere about my composition, that when it gets wound up, is once in a while too much for me."

"But," said Rossitur, "pardon me, have you no regard to the effect of his misrepresentations?"

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton, slightly, "this is but the blast of a bellows not the simoon."

"Then what answer shall I have the honour of carrying back to my friend?" said Captain Beebee, after a sort of astounded pause of a few minutes.

"None, of my sending, Sir."

Captain Beebee touched his cap, and went back to Mr. Thorn, to whom he reported that the young Englishman was thoroughly impracticable, and that there was nothing to be gained by dealing with him; and the vexed conclusion of Thorn's own mind, in the end, was in favour of the wisdom of letting him alone.

In a very different mood, saddened and disgusted, Mr. Carleton shook himself free of Rossitur, and went and stood alone by the guards, looking out upon the sea. He did not at all regret his promise to his mother, nor wish to take other ground than that he had taken. Both the theory and the practice of duelling he heartily despised, and he was not weak enough to fancy that he had brought any discredit upon either his sense or his honour by refusing to comply with an unwarrantable and barbarous custom. And he valued mankind too little to be at all concerned about their judgment in the matter. His own opinion was at all times enough for him. But the miserable folly and puerility of such an altercation as that in which he had just been engaged, the poor display of human character, the little, low passions which had been called up, even in himself, alike destitute of worthy cause and aim, and which had, perhaps, but just missed ending in the death of some, and the living death of others it all wrought to bring him back to his old wearying of human nature and despondent eyeing of the every-where jarrings, confusions, and discordances in the moral world. The fresh sea-breeze that swept by the ship, roughening the play of the waves, and brushing his own cheek with its health-bearing wing, brought with. it a sad feeling of contrast. Free, and pure, and steadily directed, it sped on its way, to do its work. And, like it, all the rest of the natural world, faithful to the law of its Maker was stamped with the same signet of perfection. Only man, in all the universe, seemed to be at cross purposes with the end of his being. Only man, of all animate or inanimate things, lived an aimless, fruitless, broken life or fruitful only in evil. How was this? and whence? and when would be the end? and would this confused mass of warring elements ever be at peace? would this disordered machinery ever work smoothly, without let or stop any more, and work out the beautiful. something for which sure it was designed? And could any hand but its first Maker mend the broken wheel, or supply the spring that was wanting?

Has not the Desire of all nations been often sought of eyes that were never taught where to look for Him?

Mr. Carleton was standing still by the guards, looking thoughtfully out to windward to meet the fresh breeze, as if the spirit of the wilderness were in it, and could teach him the truth that the spirit of the world knew not and had not to give, when he became sensible of something close beside him; and, looking down; met little Fleda's upturned face, with such a look of purity, freshness, and peace, it said as plainly as ever the dial-plate of a clock that that little piece of machinery was working right. There was a sunlight upon it, too, of happy confidence and affection. Mr. Carleton's mind experienced a sudden revulsion. Fleda might see the reflection of her own light in his face as he helped her up to a stand where she could be more on a level with him, putting his arm round her to guard against any sudden roll of the ship.

"What makes you wear such a happy face?" said he, with an expression half envious, half regretful.

"I don't know!" said Fleda, innocently. "You I suppose."

He looked as bright as she did, for a minute.

"Were you ever angry, Elfie?"

"I don't know " said Fleda. " I don't know but I have."

He smiled to see that, although evidently her memory could not bring the charge, her modesty would not deny it.

"Were you not angry yesterday with your cousin and that unmannerly friend of his?"

"No," said Fleda, a shade crossing her face "I was not angry "

And as she spoke, her hand was softly put upon Mr. Carleton's, as if partly in the fear of what might have grown out of his anger, and partly in thankfulness to him that he had rendered it unnecessary. There was a singular delicate timidity and tenderness in the action.

"I wish I had your secret, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, looking wistfully into the clear eyes that met his.

"What secret?" said Fleda, smiling.

"You say one can always do right is that the reason you are happy? because you follow that out?"

"No," said Fleda, seriously. "But I think it is a great deal pleasanter."

"I have no doubt at all of that neither, I dare say, have the rest of the world; only, somehow, when it comes to the point, they find it is easier to do wrong. What's your secret, Elfie?"

"I haven't any secret," said Fleda. But presently seeming to bethink herself, she added gently and gravely

"Aunt Miriam says

"What?"

"She says that when we love Jesus Christ, it is easy to please him."

"And do you love him, Elfie?" Mr. Carleton asked, after a minute.

Her answer was a very quiet and sober "yes."

He doubted still whether she were not unconsciously using a form of speech, the spirit of which she did not quite realize. That one might "not see and yet believe," he could understand; but for affection to go forth towards an unseen object was another matter. His question was grave and acute.

"By what do you judge that you do, Elfie?"

"Why, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with an instant look of appeal, "who else should I love?"

"If not him" her eye and her voice made sufficiently plain. Mr. Carleton was obliged to confess to himself that she spoke intelligently, with deeper intelligence than he could follow. He asked no more questions. Yet truth shines by its own light, like the sun. He had not perfectly comprehended her answers, but they struck him as something that deserved to be understood, and he resolved to make the truth of them his own.

The rest of the voyage was perfectly quiet. Following the earnest advice of his friend, Captain Beebee, Thorn had given up trying to push Mr. Carleton to extremity; who, on his part, did not seem conscious of Thorn's existence.

CHAPTER XIII

"There the most daintie paradise on ground Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye The painted flowers, the trees upshooting hye, The dales for shade, the hills for breathing space, The trembling groves, the christall running by; And that, which all faire works doth most aggrace, The art which all that wrought appeared in no place." FAERY QUEENE.

They had taken ship for London, as Mr. and Mrs. Carleton wished to visit home for a day or two before going on to Paris. So leaving Charlton to carry news of them to the French capital, so soon as he could persuade himself to leave the English one, they with little Fleda in company posted down to Carleton, in shire.

It was a time of great delight to Fleda, that is, as soon as Mr. Carleton had made her feel at home in England; and, somehow, he had contrived to do that, and to scatter some clouds of remembrance that seemed to gather about her, before they had reached the end of their first day's journey. To be out of the ship was itself a comfort, and to be along with kind friends was much more. With great joy Fleda put her cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn at once out of sight and out of mind, and gave herself with even more than her usual happy readiness, to everything the way and the end of the way had for her. Those days were to be painted days in Fleda's memory.

She thought Carleton was a very odd place that is, the house, not the village, which went by the same name. If the manner of her two companions had not been such as to put her entirely at her ease, she would have felt strange and shy. As it was, she felt half afraid of losing herself in the house; to Fleda's unaccustomed eyes, it was a labyrinth of halls and staircases, set with the most unaccountable number and variety of rooms old and new, quaint and comfortable, gloomy and magnificent; some with stern old-fashioned massiveness of style and garniture, others absolutely bewitching (to Fleda's eyes and understanding) in the rich beauty and luxuriousness of their arrangements. Mr. Carleton's own particular haunts were of these; his private room (the little library as it was called), the library, and the music-room, which was, indeed, rather a gallery of the fine arts, so many treasures of art were gathered there. To an older and nice-judging person, these rooms would have given no slight indications of their owner's mind it had been at work on every corner of them. No particular fashion had been followed in anything, nor any model consulted, but that which fancy had built to the mind's order. The wealth of years had drawn together an enormous assemblage of matters, great and small, every one of which was fitted either to excite fancy, or suggest thought, or to satisfy the eye by its nice adaptation. And if pride had had the ordering of them, all these might have been but a costly museum, a literary alphabet that its possessor could not put together, an ungainly confession of ignorance on the part of the intellect that could do nothing with this rich heap of material. But pride was not the genius of the place. A most refined taste and curious fastidiousness had arranged and harmonized all the heterogeneous items; the mental hieroglyphics had been ordered by one to whom the reading of them was no mystery. Nothing struck a stranger at first entering, except the very rich effect and faultless air of the whole, and perhaps the delicious facilities for every kind of intellectual cultivation which appeared on every hand facilities which, it must be allowed, do seem in general not to facilitate the work they are meant to speed. In this case, however, it was different. The mind that wanted them had brought them together to satisfy its own craving.

These rooms were Guy's peculiar domain. In other parts of the house, where his mother reigned conjointly with him, their joint tastes had struck out another style of adornment, which might be called a style of superb elegance. Not superb alone, for taste had not permitted so heavy a characteristic to be predominant; not merely elegant, for the fineness of all the details would warrant an ampler word. A larger part of the house than both these together had been left as generations past had left it, in various stages of refinement, comfort, and comeliness. It was a day or two before Fleda found out that it was all one; she thought at first that it was a collection of several houses that had somehow inexplicably sat down there with their backs to each other; it was so straggling and irregular a pile of building, covering so much ground, and looking so very unlike the different parts to each other. One portion was quite old; the other parts ranged variously between the present and the far past. After she once understood this, it was a piece of delicious wonderment, and musing, and great admiration to Fleda; she never grew weary of wandering round it, and thinking about it for, from a child, fanciful meditation was one of her delights. Within doors, she best liked Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms. Their rich colouring and moderated light, and endless stores of beauty and curiosity, made them a place of fascination.

Out of doors she found still more to delight her. Morning, noon, and night, she might be seen near the house gazing, taking in pictures of natural beauty, which were for ever after to hang in Fleda's memory as standards of excellence in that sort. Nature's hand had been very kind to the place, moulding the ground in beautiful style. Art had made happy use of the advantage thus given her; and now what appeared was neither art nor nature, but a perfection that can only spring from the hands of both. Fleda's eyes were bewitched. She stood watching the rolling slopes of green turf, so soft and lovely, and the magnificent trees, that had kept their ground for ages, and seen generations rise and fall before their growing strength and grandeur. They were scattered here and there on the lawn; and further back stood on the heights, and stretched along the ridges of the undulating ground, the outposts of a wood of the same growth still beyond them.

"How do you like it, Elfie?" Mr. Carleton asked her, the evening of the first day, as he saw her for a length of time looking out gravely and intently from before the hall door.

"I think it is beautiful!" said Fleda. "The ground is a great deal smoother here than it was at home."

"I'll take you to ride to-morrow," said he, smiling, "and show you rough ground enough."

"As you did when we came from Montepoole?" said Fleda, rather eagerly.

"Would you like that!"

"Yes, very much if you would like it, Mr. Carleton.

"Very well," said he. "So it shall be."

And not a day passed during their short stay that he did not give her one of those rides. He showed her rough ground, according to his promise, but Fleda still thought it did not look much like the mountains "at home." And, indeed, unsightly roughness had been skilfully covered or removed; and though a large part of the park, which was a very extensive one, was wildly broken, and had apparently been left as nature left it, the hand of taste had been there; and many an unsuspected touch, instead of hindering, had heightened both the wild and the beautiful character. Landscape gardening had long been a great hobby of its owner.

"How far does your ground come, Mr. Carleton?" inquired Fleda on one of these rides, when they had travelled a good distance from home.

"Further than you can see, Elfie."

"Further than I can see! It must be a very large farm."

"This is not a farm where we are now," said he; "did you mean that? This is the park; we are almost at the edge of it on this side."

"What is the difference between a farm and a park?" said Fleda.

"The grounds of a farm are tilled for profit; a park is an uncultivated enclosure, kept merely for men and women and deer to take pleasure in."

"I have taken a good deal of pleasure in it," said Fleda. "And have you a farm besides, Mr. Carleton?"

"A good many, Elfie."

Fleda looked surprised; and then remarked, that it must be very nice to have such a beautiful piece of ground just for pleasure.

She enjoyed it to the full during the few days she was there. And one thing more, the grand piano in the music-room. The first evening of their arrival she was drawn by the far-off sounds, and Mrs. Carleton seeing it, went immediately to the music-room with her. The room had no light, except from the moonbeams that stole in through two glass doors which opened upon a particularly private and cherished part of the grounds, in summer-time full of flowers; for, in the very refinement of luxury, delights had been crowded about this favourite apartment. Mr. Carleton was at the instrument, playing. Fleda sat down quietly in one corner, and listened in a rapture of pleasure she had hardly ever known from any like source. She did not think it could be greater; till, after a time, in a pause of the music, Mrs. Carleton asked her son to sing a particular ballad; and that one was followed by two or three more. Fleda left her corner she could not contain herself, and, favoured by the darkness, came forward; and stood quite near; and if the performer had had light to see by, he would have been gratified with the tribute paid to his power by the unfeigned tears that ran down her cheeks. This pleasure was also repeated from evening to evening.

"Do you know we set off for Paris to-morrow?" said Mrs. Carleton the last evening of their stay, as Fleda came up to the door after a prolonged ramble in the park, leaving Mr. Carleton with one or two gardeners at a little distance.

"Yes!" said Fleda, with a sigh that was more than half audible.

"Are you sorry?" said Mrs. Carleton, smiling.

"I cannot be glad," said Fleda, giving a sober look over the lawn.

"Then you like Carleton?"

"Very much! it is a prettier place than Queechy."

"But we shall have you here again, dear Fleda," said Mrs. Carleton, restraining her smile at this, to her, very moderate compliment.

"Perhaps not," said Fleda quietly. "Mr. Carleton said," she added, a minute after, with more animation, "that a park was a place for men and women and deer to take pleasure in. I am sure it is for children too!"

"Did you have a pleasant ride this morning?"

"Oh, very! I always do. There isn't anything I like so well."

"What, as to ride on horseback with Guy?" said Mrs. Carleton, looking exceedingly benignant.

"Yes unless "

"Unless what, my dear Fleda?"

"Unless, perhaps I don't know, I was going to say, unless perhaps to hear him sing."

Mrs. Carleton's delight was unequivocally expressed; and she promised Fleda that she should have both rides and songs there in plenty another time a promise upon which Fleda built no trust at all.

The short journey to Paris was soon made. The next morning Mrs. Carleton, making an excuse of her fatigue, left Guy to end the care he had rather taken upon himself, by delivering his little charge into the hands of her friends. So they drove to the Htel , Rue , where Mr. Rossitur had apartments in very handsome style. They found him alone in the saloon.

"Ha! Carleton come back again. Just in time very glad to see you. And who is this? Ah, another little daughter for aunt Lucy."

Mr. Rossitur, who gave them this greeting very cordially, was rather a fine-looking man decidedly agreeable both in person and manner. Fleda was pleasantly disappointed after what her grandfather had led her to expect. There might be something of sternness in his expression; people gave him credit for a peremptory, not to say imperious, temper; but, if truly, it could not often meet with opposition. The sense and gentlemanly character which marked his face and bearing had an air of smooth politeness which seemed habitual. There was no want of kindness nor even of tenderness in the way he drew Fleda within his arm and held her there, while he went on talking to Mr. Carleton now and then stooping his face to look in at her bonnet and kiss her, which was his only welcome. He said nothing to her after his first question.

He was too busy talking to Guy. He seemed to have a great deal to tell him. There was this for him to see, and that for him to hear, and charming new things which had been done or doing since Mr. Carleton left Paris. The impression upon Fleda's mind after listening awhile was, that the French capital was a great gallery of the fine arts, with a magnified likeness of Mr. Carleton's music-room at one end of' it. She thought her uncle must be most extraordinarily fond of pictures and works of art in general, and must have a great love for seeing company, and hearing people sing. This latter taste, Fleda was disposed to allow, might be a very reasonable one. Mr. Carleton, she observed, seemed much more cool on the whole subject. But, meanwhile, where was aunt Lucy? and had Mr. Rossitur forgotten the little armful that he held so fast and so perseveringly? No, for here was another kiss, and another look into her face, so kind, that Fleda gave him a piece of her heart from that time.

"Hugh!" said Mr. Rossitur suddenly to somebody she had not seen before "Hugh! here is your little cousin. Take her off to your mother."

A child came forward at this bidding, hardly larger than herself. He was a slender, graceful little figure, with nothing of the boy in his face or manner; delicate as a girl, and with something almost melancholy in the gentle sweetness of his countenance. Fleda's confidence was given to it on the instant, which had not been the case with anything in her uncle, and she yielded without reluctance the hand he took to obey his father's command. Before two steps had been taken, however, she suddenly broke away from him, and springing to Mr. Carleton's side, silently laid her hand in his. She made no answer whatever to a light word or two of kindness that he spoke just for her ear. She listened with downcast eyes and a lip that he saw was too unsteady to be trusted, and then after a moment more, without looking, pulled away her hand, and followed her cousin. Hugh did not once get a sight of her face on the way to his mother's room, but owing to her exceeding efforts; and quiet generalship, he never guessed the cause. There was nothing in her face to raise suspicion, when he reached the door, and opening it, announced her with

"Mother, here's cousin Fleda come."

Fleda had seen her aunt before, though several years back, and not long enough to get acquainted with her. But no matter it was her mother's sister sitting there, whose face gave her so lovely a welcome at that speech of Hugh's, whose arms were stretched out so eagerly towards her: and springing to them as to a very haven of rest, Fleda wept on her bosom those delicious tears that are only shed where the heart is at home. And even before they were dried the ties were knit that bound her to her new sphere.

"Who came with you, dear Fleda?" said Mrs. Rossitur then. "Is Mrs. Carleton here? I must go and thank her for bringing you to me."

"Mr. Carleton is here." said Hugh.

"I must go and thank him, then. Jump down, dear Fleda I'll be back in a minute."

Fleda got off her lap, and stood looking in a kind of enchanted maze, while her aunt hastily arranged her hair at the glass; looking, while fancy and memory were making strong the net in which her heart was caught. She was trying to see something of her mother in one who had shared her blood and her affection so nearly. A miniature of that mother was left to Fleda, and she had studied it till she could hardly persuade herself that she had not some recollection of the original; and now she thought she caught a precious shadow of something like it in her aunt Lucy. Not in those pretty bright eyes which had looked through kind tears so lovingly upon her, but in the graceful ringlets about the temples, the delicate contour of the face, and a something Fleda could only have said it was "a something" about the mouth when at rest, the shadow of her mother's image rejoiced her heart. Rather that faint shadow of the loved lost one for little Fleda, than any other form or combination of beauty on earth. As she stood fascinated, watching the movements of her aunt's light figure, Fleda drew a long breath with which went off the whole burden of doubt and anxiety that had lain upon her mind ever since the journey began. She had not known it was there, but she felt it go, yet even when that sigh of relief was breathed, and while fancy and feeling were weaving their rich embroidery into the very tissue of Fleda's happiness, most persons would have seen merely that the child looked very sober, and have thought, probably, that she felt very tired and strange. Perhaps Mrs. Rossitur thought so, for, again tenderly kissing her before she left the room, she told Hugh to take off her things and make her feel at home.

Hugh upon this made Fleda sit down, and proceeded to untie her tippet-strings and take off her coat, with an air of delicate tenderness which showed he had great pleasure in his task, and which made Fleda take a good deal of pleasure in it too.

"Are you tired, cousin Fleda?" said he, gently.

"No," said Fleda "O no!"

"Charlton said you were tired on board ship."

"I wasn't tired," said Fleda, in not a little surprise; "I liked it very much."

"Then maybe I mistook. I know Charlton said he was tired, and I thought he said you were too. You know my brother Charlton, don't you?"

"Yes."

" Are you glad to come to Paris?"

"I am glad, now," said Fleda. "I wasn't glad before."

"I am very glad," said Hugh. "I think you will like it. We didn't know you were coming till two or three days ago, when Charlton got here. Do you like to take walks?"

"Yes, very much."

"Father and mother will take us delightful walks in the Tuileries the gardens, you know and the Champs Elyses, and Versailles, and the Boulevards, and ever so many places, and it will be a great deal pleasanter now you are here. Do you know French?"

"No."

"Then you'll have to learn. I'll help you if you will let me. It is very easy. Did you get my last letter?"

"I don't know," said Fleda; "the last one I had came with one of aunt Lucy's telling me about Mrs. Carleton I got it just before "

Alas! before what? Fleda suddenly remembered, and was stopped short. From all the strange scenes and interests which lately had whirled her along, her spirit leapt back with strong yearning recollection to her old home and her old ties; and such a rain of tears witnessed the dearness of what she had lost, and the tenderness of the memory that had let them slip for a moment, that Hugh was as much distressed as startled. With great tenderness and touching delicacy, he tried to soothe her, and at the same time, though guessing, to find out what was the matter, lest he should make a mistake.

"Just before what?" said he, laying his hand caressingly on his little cousin's shoulder. "Don't grieve so, dear Fleda!"

"It was only just before grandpa died," said Fleda.

Hugh had known of that before, though like her he had forgotten it for a moment. A little while his feeling was too strong to permit any further attempt at condolence; but as he saw Fleda grow quiet, he took courage to speak again.

"Was he a good man?" he asked softly.

"O yes!"

"Then," said Hugh, "you know he is happy now, Fleda. If he loved Jesus Christ, he is gone to be with him. That ought to make you glad as well as sorry."

Fleda looked up, though tears were streaming yet, to give that full happy answer of the eye that no words could do. This was consolation, and sympathy. The two children had a perfect understanding of each other from that time forward, a fellowship that never knew a break nor a weakening.

Mrs. Rossitur found on her return that Hugh had obeyed her charge to the letter. He had made Fleda feel at home. They were sitting close together, Hugh's hand affectionately clasping hers, and he was holding forth on some subject with a gracious politeness that many of his elders might have copied, while Fleda listened and assented with entire satisfaction. The rest of the morning she passed in her aunt's arms, drinking draughts of pleasure from those dear bright eyes, taking in the balm of gentlest words of love and soft kisses, every one of which was felt at the bottom of Fleda's heart, and the pleasure of talking over her young sorrows with one who could feel them all, and answer with tears as well as words of sympathy. And Hugh stood by the while, looking at his little orphan cousin as if she might have dropped from the clouds into his mother's lap, a rare jewel or delicate flower, but much more delicate and precious than they or any other possible gift.

Hugh and Fleda dined alone: for, as he informed her, his father never would have children at the dinner-table when he had company, and Mr. and Mrs. Carleton, and other people were to be there to-day. Fleda made no remark on the subject, by word or look, but she thought none the less. She thought it was a very mean fashion. She not come to the table when strangers were there! And who would enjoy them more? When Mr. Rossitur and Mr. Carleton had dined with her grandfather, had she not taken as much pleasure in their society, and in the whole thing, as any other one of the party? And at Carleton had she not several times dined with a tableful, and been unspeakably amused to watch the different manners and characteristics of people who were strange to her? However, Mr. Rossitur had other notions. So she and Hugh had their dinner in aunt Lucy's dressing-room by themselves; and a very nice dinner it was, Fleda thought, and Rosaline, Mrs. Rossitur's French maid, was well affected and took admirable care of them. Indeed, before the close of the day, Rosaline privately informed her mistress, "qu'elle serait entte srement de cet enfant dans trois jours;" and "que son regard vraiment lui serrait le coeur." And Hugh was excellent company, failing all other, and did the honours of the table with the utmost thoughtfulness, and amused Fleda the whole time with accounts of Paris, and what they would do, and what she should see; and how his sister Marion was at school at a convent, and what kind of a place a convent was; and how he himself always stayed at home and learned of his mother and his father; "or by himself," he said, "just as it happened," and he hoped they would keep Fleda at home too. So Fleda hoped exceedingly, but this stern rule about the dining had made her feel a little shy of her uncle; she thought perhaps he was not kind and indulgent to children, like her aunt Lucy, and if he said she must go to a convent, she would not dare to ask him to let her stay. The next time she saw him, however, she was obliged to change her opinion again, in part; for he was very kind and indulgent, both to her and Hugh, and, more than that, he was very amusing. He showed her pictures, and told her new and interesting things, and finding that she listened eagerly, he seemed pleased to prolong her pleasure, even at the expense of a good deal of his own time.

Mr. Rossitur was a man of cultivated mind and very refined and fastidious taste. He lived for the pleasures of art and literature, and the society where these are valued. For this, and not without some secret love of display, he lived in Paris; not extravagant in his pleasures, nor silly in his ostentation, but leading, like a gentleman, as worthy and rational a life as a man can lead who lives only to himself, with no further thought than to enjoy the passing hours. Mr. Rossitur enjoyed them elegantly, and, for a man of the world, moderately; bestowing, however, few of those precious hours upon his children. It was his maxim, that they should be kept out of the way whenever their presence might by any chance interfere with the amusements of their elders; and this maxim, a good one certainly in some hands, was, in his reading of it, a very broad one. Still, when he did take time to give his family, he was a delightful companion to those of them who could understand him. If they showed no taste for sensible pleasure, he had no patience with them, nor desire of their company. Report had done him no wrong in giving him a stern temper; but this almost never came out in actual exercise; Fleda knew it only from in occasional hint now and then, and by her childish intuitive reading of the lines it had drawn round the mouth and brow. It had no disagreeable bearing on his everyday life and manner; and the quiet fact probably served but to heighten the love and reverence in which his family held him very high.

Mr. Rossitur did once moot the question, whether Fleda should not join Marion at her convent. But his wife looked very grave, and said that she was too tender and delicate a little thing to be trusted to the hands of strangers. Hugh pleaded, and argued that she might share all his lessons; and Fleda's own face pleaded more powerfully. There was something appealing in its extreme delicacy and purity which seemed to call for shelter and protection from every rough breath of the world; and Mr. Rossitur was easily persuaded to let her remain in the stronghold of home. Hugh had never quitted it. Neither father nor mother ever thought of such a thing. He was the cherished idol of the whole family. Always a delicate child, always blameless in life and behaviour, his loveliness of mind and person, his affectionateness, the winning sweetness that was about him like a halo, and the slight tenure by which they seemed to hold him, had wrought to bind the hearts of father and mother to this child, as it were, with the very life- strings of both. Not his mother was more gentle with Hugh than his much sterner father. And now little Fleda, sharing somewhat of Hugh's peculiar claims upon their tenderness, and adding another of her own, was admitted, not to the same place in their hearts that could not be but, to their honour be it spoken, to the same place in all outward show of thought and feeling. Hugh had nothing that Fleda did not have, even to the time, care, and caresses of his parents. And not Hugh rendered them a more faithful return of devoted affection.

Once made easy on the question of school, which was never seriously stirred again, Fleda's life became very happy. It was easy to make her happy; affection and sympathy would have done it almost anywhere; but in Paris she had much more; and after time had softened the sorrow she brought with her, no bird ever found existence less of a burden, nor sang more light-heartedly along its life. In her aunt she had all but the name of a mother; in her uncle with kindness and affection, she had amusement, interest, and improvement; in Hugh, everything love, confidence, sympathy, society, help; their tastes, opinions, pursuits, went hand in hand. The two children were always together. Fleda's spirits were brighter than Hugh's, and her intellectual tastes stronger and more universal. That might be as much from difference of physical as of mental constitution. Hugh's temperament led him somewhat to melancholy, and to those studies and pleasures which best side with subdued feeling and delicate nerves. Fleda's nervous system was of the finest too, but, in short, she was as like a bird as possible. Perfect health, which yet a slight thing was enough to shake to the foundation; joyous spirits, which a look could quell; happy energies, which a harsh hand might easily crush for ever. Well for little Fleda that so tender a plant was permitted to unfold in so nicely tempered an atmosphere. A cold wind would soon have killed it. Besides all this, there were charming studies to be gone through every day with Hugh some for aunt Lucy to hear, some for masters and mistresses. There were amusing walks in the Boulevards, and delicious pleasure-taking in the gardens of Paris, and a new world of people, and manners, and things, and histories, for the little American. And despite her early rustic experience, Fleda had from nature an indefeasible taste for the elegances of life; it suited her well, to see all about her, in dress, in furniture, in various appliances, as commodious and tasteful as wealth and refinement could contrive it; and she very soon knew what was right in each kind. There were, now and then, most gleeful excursions in the environs of Paris, when she and Hugh found in earth and air a world of delights more than they could tell anybody but each other. And at home, what peaceful times they two had what endless conversations, discussions, schemes, air journeys of memory and fancy, backward and forward! what sociable dinners alone, and delightful evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur in the saloon, when nobody, or only a very few people, were there, how pleasantly in those evenings the foundations were laid of a strong and enduring love for the works of art, painted, sculptured, or engraven; what a multitude of curious and excellent bits of knowledge Fleda's ears picked up from the talk of different people. They were capital ears; what they caught they never let fall. In the course of the year her gleanings amounted to more than many another person's harvest.



CHAPTER XIV.

"Heav'n bless thee; Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on." SHAKESPEARE.

One of the greatest of Fleda's pleasures was when Mr. Carleton came to take her out with him. He did that often. Fleda only wished he would have taken Hugh too, but somehow he never did. Nothing but that was wanting to make the pleasure of those times perfect. Knowing that she saw the common things in other company, Guy was at the pains to vary the amusement when she went with him. Instead of going to Versailles or St. Cloud, he would take her long delightful drives into the country, and show her some old or interesting place that nobody else went to see. Often there was a history belonging to the spot, which Fleda listened to with the delight of eye and fancy at once. In the city, where they more frequently walked, still he showed her what she would perhaps have seen under no other guidance. He made it his business to give her pleasure; and understanding the inquisitive active little spirit he had to do with, he went where his own tastes would hardly have led him. The Quai aux Fleurs was often visited, but also the Halle aux Bls, the great Halle aux Vins, the Jardin des Plantes, and the March des Innocens. Guy even took the trouble, more for her sake than his own, to go to the latter place once very early in the morning, when the market bell had not two hours sounded, while the interest and prettiness of the scene were yet in their full life. Hugh was in company this time, and the delight of both children was beyond words, as it would have been beyond anybody's patience, that had not a strong motive to back it. They never discovered that Mr. Carleton was in a hurry, as indeed he was not. They bargained for fruit with any number of people, upon all sorts of inducements, and to an extent of which they had no competent notion; but Hugh had his mother's purse, and Fleda was skilfully commissioned to purchase what she pleased for Mrs. Carleton. Verily the two children that morning bought pleasure, not peaches. Fancy and Benevolence held the purse-strings, and Economy did not even look on. They revelled too, Fleda especially, amidst the bright pictures of the odd, the new, and the picturesque, and the varieties of character and incident that were displayed around them, even till the country people began to go away, and the scene to lose its charm. It never lost it in memory; and many a time in after life, Hugh and Fleda recurred to something that was seen or done "that morning when we bought fruit at the Innocens."

Besides these scenes of everyday life, which interested and amused Fleda to the last degree, Mr. Carleton showed her many an obscure part of Paris, where deeds of daring and of blood had been, and thrilled the little listener's ear with histories of the past. He judged her rightly. She would rather at any time have gone to walk with him than with anybody else to see any show that could be devised. His object in all this was, in the first place, to give her pleasure; and, in the second place, to draw out her mind into free communion with his own, which he knew could only be done by talking sense to her. He succeeded as he wished. Lost in the interest of the scenes he presented to her eye and mind, she forgot everything else, and showed him herself precisely what he wanted to see.

It was strange that a young man, an admired man of fashion, a flattered favourite of the gay and great world, and, furthermore, a reserved and proud repeller of almost all who sought his intimacy, should seek and delight in the society of a little child. His mother would have wondered if she had known it. Mrs. Rossitur did marvel that even Fleda should have so won upon the cold and haughty young Englishman; and her husband said he probably chose to have Fleda with him because he could make up his mind to like nobody else; a remark which perhaps arose from the utter failure of every attempt to draw him and Charlton nearer together. But Mr. Rossitur was only half right. The reason lay deeper.

Mr. Carleton had admitted the truth of Christianity, upon what he considered sufficient grounds, and would now have steadily fought for it, as he would for anything else that he believed to be truth. But there he stopped. He had not discovered, nor tried to discover, whether the truth of Christianity imposed any obligation upon him. He had cast off his unbelief, and looked upon it now as a singular folly. But his belief was almost as vague and as fruitless as his infidelity had been. Perhaps, a little, his bitter dissatisfaction with the world and human things, or rather his despondent view of them, was mitigated. If there was, as he now held, a Supreme Orderer of events, it might be, and it was rational to suppose there would be, in the issues of time, an entire change wrought in the disordered and dishonoured state of his handiwork. There might be a remedial system somewhere nay, it might be in the Bible, he meant to look some day. But that he had anything to do with that change; that the working of the remedial system called for hands; that his had any charge in the matter, had never entered into his imagination nor stirred his conscience. He was living his old life at Paris, with his old dissatisfaction perhaps a trifle less bitter. He was seeking pleasure in whatever art, learning, literature, refinement, and luxury can do for a man who has them all at command; but there was something within him that spurned this ignoble existence, and called for higher aims and worthier exertion. He was not vicious, he never had been vicious, or, as somebody else said, his vices were all refined vices; but a life of mere self-indulgence, although pursued without self- satisfaction, is constantly lowering the standard and weakening the forces of virtue lessening the whole man. He felt it so; and to leave his ordinary scenes and occupations, and lose a morning with little Fleda, was a freshening of his better nature; it was like breathing pure air after the fever- heat of a sick-room; it was like hearing the birds sing after the meaningless jabber of Bedlam. Mr. Carleton, indeed, did not put the matter quite so strongly to himself. He called Fleda his good angel. He did not exactly know that the office this good angel performed was simply to hold a candle to his conscience; for conscience was not by any means dead in him, it only wanted light to see by. When he turned from the gay and corrupt world in which he lived, where the changes were rung incessantly upon self-interest, falsehood, pride, and the various, more or less refined forms of sensuality; and when he looked upon that pure bright little face, so free from selfishness, those clear eyes so innocent of evil, the peaceful brow under which a thought of double-dealing had never hid, Mr. Carleton felt himself in a healthier region. Here, as elsewhere, he honoured and loved the image of truth, in the broad sense of truth, that which suits the perfect standard of right. But his pleasure in this case was invariably mixed with a slight feeling of self-reproach; and it was this hardly recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eyesight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering from his beloved idol?

One other feeling saddened the pleasure he had in her society, a belief that the ground of it could not last. "If she could grow up so!" he said to himself. "But it is impossible. A very few years, and all that clear sunshine of the mind will be overcast, there is not a cloud now!"