"It is thanks to his beauty that I have ever seen home again," said his mother.

Fleda had no heart this evening to speak words that were not necessary; her eyes asked Marion to explain herself.

"He was in Hyde Park one day I had a miserable lodging not far from it, and I used to let him go in there, because he must go somewhere, you know I couldn't go with him "

"Why not?"

"Couldn't! Oh Fleda! I have seen changes! He was there one afternoon, alone, and had got into difficulty with some bigger boys a little fellow, you know he stood his ground manfully, but his strength wasn't equal to his spirit, and they were tyrannizing over him after the fashion of boys, who are, I do think, the ugliest creatures in creation!" said Mme. Schwiden, not apparently reckoning her own to be of the same gender "and a gentleman, who was riding by, stopped and interfered, and took him out of their hands, and then asked him his name struck, I suppose, with his appearance. Very kind, wasn't it? men so seldom bother themselves about what becomes of children. I suppose there were thousands of others riding by at the same time."

"Very kind," Fleda said.

"When he heard what his name was, he gave his horse to his servant, and walked home with Rolf; and the next day he sent me a note, speaking of having known my father and mother, and asking permission to call upon me. I never was so mortified, I think, in my life," said Marion, after a moment's hesitation.

"Why?" said Fleda, not a little at a loss to follow out the chain of her cousin's reasoning.

"Why, I was in such a sort of a place, you don't know, Fleda; I was working then for a fancy storekeeper, to support myself living in a miserable little two rooms. If it had been a stranger, I wouldn't have cared so much, but somebody that had known us in different times. I hadn't a thing in the world to answer the note upon but a half-sheet of letter paper."

Fleda's lips sought Rolf's forehead again, with a curious rush of tears and smiles at once. Perhaps Marion had caught the expression of her countenance, for she added, with a little energy

"It is nothing to be surprised at you would have felt just the same; for I knew by his note, the whole style of it, what sort of a person it must be."

"My pride has been a good deal chastened," Fleda said, gently.

"I never want mine to be, beyond minding everything," said Marion; "and I don't believe yours is. I don't know why in the world I did not refuse to see him I had fifty minds to but he had won Rolf's heart, and I was a little curious, and it was something strange to see the face of a friend, any better one than my old landlady, so I let him come."

"Was she a friend?" said Fleda.

"If she hadn't been, I should not have lived to be here; the best soul that ever was; but still, you know, she could do nothing for me but be as kind as she could live; this was something different. So I let him come, and he came the next day."

Fleda was silent, a little wondering that Marion should be so frank with her, beyond what she had ever been in former years; but, as she guessed, Mme. Schwiden's heart was a little opened by the joy of finding herself at home, and the absolute necessity of talking to somebody; and there was a further reason, which Fleda could not judge of, in her own face and manner. Marion needed no questions, and went on again, after stopping a moment.

"I was so glad, in five minutes I can't tell you, Fleda that I had let him come. I forgot entirely about how I looked, and the wretched place I was in. He was all that I had supposed, and a great deal more; but, somehow, he hadn't been in the room three minutes before I didn't care at all for all the things I had thought would trouble me. Isn't it strange what a witchery some people have to make you forget everything but themselves!"

"The reason is, I think, because that is the only thing they forget," said Fleda, whose imagination, however, was entirely busy with the singular number.

"I shall never forget him," said Marion. "He was very kind to me I cannot tell how kind though I never realized it till afterwards; at the time, it always seemed only a sort of elegant politeness which he could not help. I never saw so elegant a person. He came two or three times to see me, and he took Rolf out with him, I don't know how often, to drive; and he sent me fruit such fruit! and game, and flowers; and I had not had anything of the kind, not even seen it, for so long; I can't tell you what it was to me. He said he had known my father and mother well when they were abroad."

"What was his name?" said Fleda, quickly.

"I don't know he never told me and I never could ask him. Don't you know, there are some people you can't do anything with, but just what they please? There wasn't the least thing like stiffness; you never saw anybody less stiff; but I never dreamed of asking him questions, except when he was out of sight. Why, do you know him?" she said, suddenly.

"When you tell me who he was, I'll tell you," said Fleda, smiling.

"Have you ever heard this story before?"

"Certainly not!"

"He is somebody that knows us very well," said Marion, "for he asked after every one of the family in particular."

"But what had all this to do with your getting home?"

"I don't wonder you ask. The day after his last visit, came a note, saying, that he owed a debt in my family, which it had never been in his power to repay; that he could not give the enclosure to my father, who would not recognise the obligation; and that if I would permit him to place it in my hands, I should confer a singular favour upon him."

"And what was the enclosure?"

"Five hundred pounds."

Fleda's head went down again, and tears dropped fast upon little Rolf's shoulder.

"I suppose my pride has been a little broken, too," Marion went on, "or I shouldn't have kept it. But then, if you saw the person, and the whole manner of it I don't know how I could ever have sent it back. Literally I couldn't, though, for I hadn't the least clue. I never saw or heard from him afterwards."

"When was this, Marion?"

"Last spring."

"Last spring! then what kept you so long?"

"Because of the arrival of eyes that I was afraid of. I dared not make the least move that would show I could move. I came off the very first packet after I was free."

"How glad you must be!" said Fleda.

"Glad!"

"Glad of what, Mamma?" said Rolf,. whose dreams the entrance of Barby had probably disturbed.

"Glad of bread and butter," said his mother; wake up here it is."

The young gentleman declared, rubbing his eyes, that he did not want it now; but, however, Fleda contrived to dispel that illusion, and bread and butter was found to have the same dulcifying properties at Queechy that it owns in all the rest of the world. Little Rolf was completely mollified after a hearty meal, and was put with his mother to enjoy most unbroken slumbers in Fleda's room. Fleda herself, after a look at Hugh, crept to her aunt's bed; whither Barby very soon despatched Mrs. Rossitur, taking in her place the arm-chair and the watch with most invincible good-will and determination; and sleep at last took the joys and sorrows of that disturbed household into its kind custody.

Fleda was the first one awake, and was thinking how she should break the last news to her aunt, when Mrs. Rossitur put her arms round her, and, after a most affectionate look and kiss, spoke to what she supposed had been her niece's purpose.

"You want taking care of more than I do, poor Fleda!"

"It was not for that I came," said Fleda; "I had to give up my room to the travellers."

"Travellers!"

A very few words more brought out the whole, and Mrs. Rossitur sprang out of bed, and rushed to her daughter's room.

Fleda hid her face in the bed to cry for a moment's passionate indulgence in weeping while no one could see. But a moment was all. There was work to do, and she must not disable herself. She slowly got up, feeling thankful that her headache did not announce itself with the dawn, and that she would be able to attend to the morning affairs and the breakfast, which was something more of a circumstance now with the new additions to the family. More than that, she knew, from sure signs, she would not be able to accomplish.

It was all done, and done well, though with what secret flagging of mind and body nobody knew or suspected. The business of the day was arranged, Barby's course made clear, Hugh visited and smiled upon; and then Fleda set herself down in the breakfast-room to wear out the rest of the day in patient suffering. Her little spaniel, who seemed to understand her languid step and faint tones, and know what was coming, crept into her lap and looked up at her with a face of equal truth and affection; and after a few gentle acknowledging touches from the loved hand, laid his head on her knees, and silently avowed his determination of abiding her fortunes for the remainder of the day.

They had been there for some hours. Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter were gathered in Hugh's room; whither Rolf also, after sundry expressions of sympathy for Fleda's headache, finding it a dull companion, had departed. Pain of body, rising above pain of mind, had obliged, as far as possible, even thought to be still; when a loud lap at the front door brought the blood in a sudden flush of pain to Fleda's face. She knew instinctively what it meant.

She heard Barby's distinct accents saying that somebody was "not well." The other voice was more smothered. But in a moment the door of the breakfast-room opened, and Mr. Thorn walked in.

The intensity of the pain she was suffering effectually precluded Fleda from discovering emotion of any kind. She could not move. Only King lifted up his head and looked at the intruder, who seemed shocked, and well he might. Fleda was in her old headache position bolt upright on the sofa, her feet on the rung of a chair, while her hands supported her by their grasp upon the back of it. The flush had passed away, leaving the deadly paleness of pain, which the dark rings under her eyes showed to be well seated.

"Miss Ringgan!" said the gentleman, coming up softly, as to something that frightened him "my dear Miss Fleda! I am distressed! You are very ill. Can nothing be done to relieve you?"

Fleda's lips rather than her voice said, "Nothing."

"I would not have come in on any account to disturb you if I had known I did not understand you were more than a trifle ill."

Fleda wished he would mend his .mistake, as his understanding certainly by this time was mended. But that did not seem to be his conclusion of the best thing to do.

"Since I am here, can you bear to hear me say three words, without too much pain? I do not ask you to speak."

A faint whispered "yes" gave him leave to go on. She had never looked at him. She sat like a statue; to answer by a motion of her head was more than could be risked.

He drew up a chair and sat down, while King looked at him with eyes of suspicious indignation.

"I am not surprised," he said gently, "to find you suffering. I knew how your sensibilities must feel the shock of yesterday. I would fain have spared it you. I will spare you all further pain on the same score, if possible. Dear Miss Ringgan, since I am here, and time is precious, may I say one word before I cease troubling you? I take it for granted that you were made acquainted with the contents of my letter to Mrs. Rossitur? with all the contents? were you?"

Again Fleda's lips almost voicelessly gave the answer.

"Will you give me what I ventured to ask for?" said he, gently, "the permission to work for you? Do not trouble those precious lips to speak the answer of these fingers will be as sure a warrant to me as all words that could be spoken, that you do not deny my request."

He had taken one of her hands in his own. But the fingers lay with unanswering coldness and lifelessness for a second in his clasp, and then were drawn away, and took determinate hold of the chair-back. Again the flush came to Fleda's cheeks, brought by a sharp pain oh, bodily and mental too! and, after a moment's pause, with a distinctness of utterance that let him know every word, she said,

"A generous man would not ask it, Sir."

Thorn sprang up, and several times paced the length of the room, up and down, before he said anything more. He looked at Fleda, but the flush was gone again, and nothing could seem less conscious of his presence. Pain and patience were in every line of her face, but he could read nothing more, except a calmness as unmistakably written. Thorn gave that face repeated glances as he walked, then stood still and read it at leisure. Then he came to her side again, and spoke in a different voice.

"You are so unlike anybody else," he said, "that you shall make me unlike myself. I will do freely what I hoped to do with the light of your smile before me. You shall hear no more of this affair, neither you nor the world I have the matter perfectly in my own hands it shall never raise a whisper again. I will move heaven and earth rather than fail but there is no danger of my failing. I will try to prove myself worthy of your esteem, even where a man is most excusable for being selfish."

He took one of her cold hands again Fleda could not help it without more force than she cared to use, and, indeed, pain would by this time almost have swallowed up other sensation if every word and touch had not sent it ill a stronger throb to her very finger-ends. Thorn bent his lips to her hand, twice kissed it fervently, and then left her, much to King's satisfaction, who thereupon resigned himself to quiet slumbers.

His mistress knew no such relief. Excitement had dreadfully aggravated her disorder, at a time when it was needful to banish even thought as far as possible. Pain effectually banished it now, and Barby, coming in a little after Mr. Thorn had gone, found her quite unable to speak, and scarce able to breathe, from agony. Barby's energies and fainting remedies were again put in use, but pain reigned triumphant for hours; and when its hard rule was at last abated, Fleda was able to do nothing but sleep like a child for hours more.

Towards a late tea-time she was at last awake, and carrying on a very one-sided conversation with Rolf, her own lips being called upon for little more than a smile now and then. King, not able to be in her lap, had curled himself up upon a piece of his mistress's dress, and as close within the circle of her arms as possible, where Fleda's hand and his head were on terms of mutual satisfaction.

"I thought you wouldn't permit a dog to lie in your lap," said Marion.

Do you remember that?" said Fleda, with a smile. "Ah, I have grown tender-hearted, Marion, since I have known what it was to want comfort myself. I have come to the conclusion that it is best to let everything have all the enjoyment it can in the circumstances. King crawled into my lap one day when I had not spirits enough to turn him out, and he has kept the place ever since. Little King!"

In answer to which word of intelligence, King looked in her face and wagged his tail, and then earnestly endeavoured to lick all her fingers, which, however, was a piece of comfort she would not give him.

"Fleda," said Barby, putting her head in, "I wish you'd just step out here and tell me which cheese you'd like to have cut."

"What a fool !" said Marion. "Let her cut them all if she likes."

"She is no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness, however, a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa, and went into the kitchen.

"Well, you do look as if you wa'n't good for nothing but to be taken care of," said Barby. "I wouldn't have riz you up if it hadn't been just tea-time, and I knowed you couldn't stay quiet much longer;" and, with a look which explained her tactics, she put into Fleda's hand a letter, directed to her aunt.

"Philetus give it to me," she said, without a glance at Fleda's face; "he said it was give to him by a spry little shaver, who wa'n't a mind to tell nothin' about himself."

"Thank you, Barby!" was Fleda's most grateful return, and summoning her aunt up stairs, she took her into her own room, and locked the door before she gave her the letter, which Barby's shrewdness and delicacy had taken such care should not reach its owner in a wrong way. Fleda watched her as her eye ran over the paper, and caught it as it fell from her fingers.

"My dear wife,

"That villain Thorn has got a handle of me which he will not fail to use you know it all, I suppose, by this time. It is true that in an evil hour, long ago, when greatly pressed, I did what I thought I should surely undo in a few days. The time never came I don't know why he has let it lie so long, but he has taken it up now, and he will push it to the extreme. There is but one thing left for me I shall not see you again. The rascal would never let me rest, I know, in any spot that calls itself American ground.

"You will do better without me than with me.

"R. R."

Fleda mused over the letter for several minutes, and then touched her aunt, who had fallen on a chair, with her head sunk in her hands.

"What does he mean?" said Mrs. Rossitur, looking up with a perfectly colourless face.

"To leave the country."

"Are you sure? Is that it?" said Mrs. Rossitur, rising and looking over the words again. "He would do anything, Fleda."

"That is what he means, aunt Lucy; don't you see he says he could not be safe anywhere in America?"

Mrs. Rossitur stood eyeing with intense eagerness, for a minute or two, the note in her niece's hand.

"Then he is gone! now that it is all settled! And we don't know where and we can't get word to him!"

Her cheek, which had a little brightened, became perfectly white again.

"He isn't gone yet he can't be he cannot have left Queechy till to-day he will be in New York for several days yet, probably."

"New York? it may be Boston!"

"No, he would be more likely to go to New York I am sure he would he is accustomed to it."

"We might write to both places," said poor Mrs. Rossitur. "I will do it, and send them off at once."

"But he might not get the letters," said Fleda, thoughtfully; "he might not dare to ask at the post-office."

His wife looked at that possibility, and then wrung her hands.

"Oh, why didn't he give us a clue?"

Fleda put an arm round her affectionately, and stood thinking; stood trembling, might as well be said, for she was too weak to be standing at all.

"What can we do, dear Fleda?" said Mrs. Rossitur, in great distress, "Once out of New York, and we can get nothing to him. If he only knew that there is no need, and that it is all over!"

"We must do everything, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, thoughtfully; "and I hope we shall succeed yet. We will write, but I think the most hopeful other thing we could do, would be to put advertisements in the newspapers he would be very likely to see them."

"Advertisements! But you couldn't what would you put in?"

"Something that would catch his eye, and nobody's else; that is easy, aunt Lucy."

"But there is nobody to put them in, Fleda; you said uncle Orrin was going to Boston?"

"He wasn't going there till next week, but he was to be in Philadelphia a few days before that; the letter might miss him."

"Mr. Plumfield! couldn't he?"

But Fleda shook her head.

"Wouldn't do, aunt Lucy: he would do all he could, but he don't know New York, nor the papers; he wouldn't know how to manage it; he don't know uncle Rolf; I shouldn't like to trust it to him."

"Who, then? There isn't a creature we could ask."

Fleda laid her cheek to her poor aunt's, and said,

"I'll do it."

"But you must be in New York to do it, dear Fleda you can't do it here."

"I will go to New York."

"When?"

"To-morrow morning."

"But, dear Fleda, you can't go alone! I can't let you, and you're not fit to go at all, my poor child!" and between conflicting feelings Mrs. Rossitur sat down and wept without measure.

"Listen, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, pressing a hand on her shoulder; "listen, and don't cry so. I'll go and make all right, if efforts can do it. I am not going alone I'll get Seth to go with me, and I can sleep in the cars, and rest nicely in the steamboat. I shall feel happy and well when I know that I am leaving you easier, and doing all that can be done to bring uncle Rolf home. Leave me to manage, and don't say anything to Marion it is one blessed thing that she need not know anything about all this. I shall feel better than if I were at home, and had trusted this business to any other hands."

"You are the blessing of my life," said Mrs. Rossitur.

"Cheer up, and come down and let us have some tea," said Fleda, kissing her; "I feel as if that would make me up a little; and then I'll write the letters. I sha'n't want but very little baggage; there'll be nothing to pack up."

Philetus was sent up the hill with a note to Seth Plumfield, and brought home a favourable answer. Fleda thought, as she went to rest, that it was well the mind's strength could sometimes act independently of its servant, the body, hers felt so very shattered and unsubstantial.

CHAPTER XIV.

"I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone." AS YOU LIKE IT.

The first thing next morning, Seth Plumfield came down to say that he had seen Dr. Quackenboss the night before, and had chanced to find out that he was going to New York, too, this very day; and knowing that the doctor would be just as safe an escort as himself, Seth had made over the charge of his cousin to him; "calculating," he said, "that it would make no difference to Fleda, and that he had better stay at home with his mother."

Fleda said nothing, and looked as little as possible of her disappointment, and her cousin went away wholly unsuspecting of it.

"Seth Plumfield ha'n't done a smarter thing than that in a good while," Barby remarked, satirically, as he was shutting the door. "I should think he'd ha' hurt himself."

"I dare say the doctor will take good care of me," said Fleda; "as good as he knows how."

"Men beat all!" said Barby, impatiently. "The little sense there is into them."

Fleda's sinking heart was almost ready to echo the sentiment; but nobody knew it.

Coffee was swallowed, her little travelling-bag and bonnet on the sofa all ready. Then came the doctor.

"My dear Miss Ringgan, I am most happy of this delightful opportunity I had supposed you were located at home for the winter. This is a sudden start."

"Is it sudden to you, Dr. Quackenboss?" said Fleda.

"Why a not disagreeably so," said the doctor, smiling; "nothing could be that in the present circumstances but I a I hadn't calculated upon it for much of a spell beforehand."

Fleda was vexed, and looked only unconversable.

"I suppose," said the doctor, after a pause, "that we have not much time to waste a in idle moments. Which route do you intend to travel?"

"I was thinking to go by the North River, Sir."

"But the ice has collected, I am afraid."

"At Albany, I know; but when I came up, there was a boat every other day, and we could get there in time by the stage this is her day."

"But we have had some pretty tight weather since, if you remember," said the doctor; "and the boats have ceased to connect with the stage. We shall have to go to Greenfield to take the Housatonic, which will land us at Bridgeport on the Sound."

"Have we time to reach Greenfield this morning?"

"Oceans of time," said the doctor, delightedly; "I've got my team here, and they're jumping out of their skins with having nothing to do, and the weather they'll carry us there as spry as grasshoppers now, if you're ready, my dear Miss Ringgan."

There was nothing more but to give and receive those speechless lip-messages that are out of the reach of words, and Mrs. Rossitur's half-spoken last charge, to take care of herself; and with these seals upon her mission, Fleda set forth and joined the doctor, thankful for one foil to curiosity in the shape of a veil, and only wishing that there were any invented screen that she could place between her and hearing.

"I hope your attire is of a very warm description," said the doctor, as he helped her into the wagon; "it friz pretty hard last night, and I don't think it has got out of the notion yet. If I had been consulted in any other a form, than that of a friend, I should have disapprobated, if you'll excuse me, Miss Ringgan's travelling again before her 'Rose of Cassius' there was in blow. I hope you have heard no evil tidings? Dr. a Gregory, I hope, is not taken ill?"

"I hope not, Sir," said Fleda.

"He didn't look like it. A very hearty old gentleman. Not very old either, I should judge. Was he the brother of your mother or your father?"

"Neither, Sir."

"Ah! I misunderstood I thought, but of course I was mistaken I thought I heard you speak to him under the title of uncle. But that is a title we sometimes give to elderly people as a term of familiarity; there is an old fellow that works for me, he has been a long time in our family, and we always call him 'uncle Jenk.' "

Fleda was ready to laugh, cry, and be angry, in a breath. She looked straight before her, and was mum.

"That 'Rose of Cassius' is a most exquisite thing," said the doctor, recurring to the cluster of bare bushy stems in the corner of the garden. "Did Mr. Rossitur bring it with him when he came to his present residence?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Where is Mr. Rossitur now?"

Fleda replied, with a jump of her heart, that business affairs had obliged him to be away for a few days.

"And when does he expect to return?" said the doctor.

"I hope he will be home as soon as I am," said Fleda.

"Then you do not expect to remain long in the city this time?"

"I shall not have much of a winter at home if I do," said Fleda. "We are almost at January."

"Because," said the doctor, "in that case I should have no higher gratification than in attending upon your motions. I a beg you to believe, my dear Miss Ringgan, that it would afford me the a most particular it would be most particularly grateful to me to wait upon you to a the confines of the world."

Fleda hastened to assure her officious friend that the time of her return was altogether uncertain, resolving rather to abide a guest with Mrs. Pritchard than to have Dr. Quackenboss hanging upon her motions every day of her being there. But, in the meantime, the doctor got upon Captain Rossitur's subject, then came to Mr. Thorn, and then wanted to know the exact nature of Mr. Rossitur's business affairs in Michigan, through all which matters poor Fleda had to run the gauntlet of questions, interspersed with gracious speeches which she could bear even less well. She was extremely glad to reach the cars, and take refuge in seeming sleep from the mongrel attentions, which, if for the most part prompted by admiration, owned so large a share of curiosity. Her weary head and heart would fain have courted the reality of sleep, as a refuge from more painful thoughts, and a feeling of exhaustion that could scarcely support itself; but the restless roar and jumble of the rail-cars put it beyond her power. How long the hours were how hard to wear out, with no possibility of a change of position that would give rest! Fleda would not even raise her head when they stopped, for fear of being talked to; how trying that endless noise to her racked nerves! It came to an end at last, though Fleda would not move for fear they might be only taking in wood and water.

"Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor in her ear, "my dear Miss Ringgan, we are here"

"Are we?" said Fleda, looking up; "what other name has the place, doctor?"

"Why, Bridgeport," said the doctor; "we're at Bridgeport. Now we have leave to exchange conveyances. A man feels constrained after a prolonged length of time in a place. How have you enjoyed the ride?"

"Not very well it has seemed long. I am glad we are at the end of it."

But as she rose and threw back her veil, the doctor looked startled.

"My dear Miss Ringgan, are you faint?"

"No, Sir."

"You are not well, indeed! I am very sorry the ride has been Take my arm! Ma'am," said the doctor, touching a black satin cloak which filled the passage-way, "will you have the goodness to give this lady a passport?"

But the black satin cloak preferred a straightforward manner of doing this, so their egress was somewhat delayed. Happily faintness was not the matter.

"My dear Miss Ringgan," said the doctor, as they reached the ground and the outer air, "what was it? the stove too powerful? You are looking you are of a dreadfully delicate appearance!"

"I had a headache yesterday," said Fleda; "it always leaves me with a disagreeable reminder the next day. I am not ill."

But he looked frightened, and hurried her, as fast as he dared, to the steamboat; and there proposed half a dozen restoratives, the simplest of which Fleda took, and then sought delicious rest from him and from herself on the cushions of a settee. Delicious! though she was alone, in the cabin of a steamboat, with strange forms and noisy tongues around her, the closed eyelids shut it out all; and she had time but for one resting thought of "patient continuance in well-doing," and one happy heart-look up to Him who has said that he cares for his children, a look that laid her anxieties down there when past misery and future difficulty faded away before a sleep that lasted till the vessel reached her moorings and was made fast.

She was too weary and faint even to think during the long drive up to Bleecker Street. She was fain to let it all go the work she had to do, and the way she must set about it, and rest in the assurance that nothing could be done that night. She did not so much as hear Dr. Quackenboss's observations, though she answered a few of them, till, at the door, she was conscious of his promising to see her to-morrow, and of her instant conclusion to take measures to see nobody.

How strange everything seemed! She walked through the familiar hall, feeling as if her acquaintance with every old thing was broken. There was no light in the back parlour, but a comfortable fire.

"Is my is Dr. Gregory at home?" she asked of the girl who had let her in.

"No, Ma'am; he hasn't got back from Philadelphia."

"Tell Mrs. Pritchard a lady wants to see her."

Good Mrs. Pritchard was much more frightened than Dr. Quackenboss had been when she came into the back parlour to see "a lady," and found Fleda in. the great arm-chair, taking off her things. She poured out questions, wonderings, and lamentings, not "in a breath," but in a great many; quite forgot to be glad to see her, she looked so dreadfully; and "what had been the matter?" Fleda answered her told of yesterday's illness and to-day's journey; and met all her shocked inquiries with so composed a face, and such a calm smile and bearing, that Mrs. Pritchard was almost persuaded not to believe her eyes.

"My uncle is not at home?"

"O no, Miss Fleda! I suppose he's in Philadelphy but his motions is so little to be depended on, that I never know when I have him; maybe he'll stop going through to Boston, and maybe no, and I don't know when; so anyhow I had to have a fire made, and this room all ready; and aint it lucky it was ready for you to-night? and now he aint here, you can have the great chair all to yourself, and make yourself comfortable we can keep warmer here, I guess, than you can in the country," said the good housekeeper, giving some skilful admonishing touches to the fire; "and you must just sit there and read and rest, and see if you can't get back your old looks again. If I thought it was that you came for, I'd be happy. I never did see such a change in any one in five days."

She stood looking down at her guest with a face of very serious concern, evidently thinking much more than she chose to give utterance to.

"I am tired, Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, smiling up at her.

"I wish you had somebody to take care of you, Miss Fleda, that wouldn't let you tire yourself. It's a sin to throw your strength away so and you don't care for looks, nor nothing else when it's for other people. You're looking just as handsome, too, for all," she said, her mouth giving way a little, as she stooped down to take off Fleda's overshoes; "but that's only because you can't help it. Now, what is there you'd like to have for supper? just say, and you shall have it whatever would seem best because I mightn't hit the right thing."

Fleda declared her indifference to everything but a cup of tea, and her hostess bustled away to get that, and tax her own ingenuity and kindness for the rest. And, leaning her weary head back in the lounge, Fleda tried to think but it was not time yet; she could only feel feel what a sad change had come over her since she had sat there last shut her eyes and wish she could sleep again.

But Mrs. Pritchard's hospitality must be gone through with first.

The nicest of suppers was served in the bright little parlour, and her hostess was a compound of care and good-will; nothing was wanting to the feast but a merry heart. Fleda could not bring that, so her performance was unsatisfactory, and Mrs. Pritchard was distressed. Fleda went to her own room, promising better doings to-morrow.

She awoke in the morning to the full burden of care and sorrow which sheer weakness and weariness the day before had in part laid down to a quicker sense of the state of things than she had had yet. The blasting evil that had fallen upon them Fleda writhed on her bed when she thought of it. The sternest, cruellest, most inflexible grasp of distress. Poverty may be borne, death may be sweetened, even to the survivors; but disgrace Fleda hid her head, as if she would shut the idea out with the light. And the ruin it had wrought! Affection killed at the root her aunt's happiness withered for this world Hugh's life threatened the fair name of his family gone the wear and weariness of her own spirit but that had hardly a thought. Himself! oh! no one could tell what a possible wreck, now that self-respect and the esteem of others those two safeguards of character were lost to him. "So much security has any woman in a man without religion;" she remembered those words of her aunt Miriam now; and she thought, if Mr. Thorn had sought an ill wind to blow, upon his pretensions, he could not have pitched them better. What fairer promise, without religion, could be than her uncle had given! Reproach had never breathed against his name, and no one less than those who knew him best could fancy that he had ever given it occasion. And who could have more at stake? and the stake was lost that was the summing up thought.

No, it was not for Fleda's mind presently sprang beyond to the remedy; and after a little swift and earnest flitting about of thought over feasibilities and contingencies, she jumped up, and dressed herself with a prompt energy which showed a mind made up to its course. And yet when she came down to the parlour, though bending herself with nervous intentness to the work she had to do, her fingers and her heart were only stayed in their trembling by some of the happy assurances she had been fleeing to



"COMMIT THY WORKS UNTO THE LORD, AND ALL THY THOUGHTS SHALL BE ESTABLISHED."

"IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM: HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS."

Assurances, not, indeed, that her plans should meet with success, but that they should have the issue best for them.

She was early, but the room was warm, and in order, and the servant had left it. Fleda sought out paper and pencil, and sat down to fashion the form of an advertisement the first thing to be done. She had no notion how difficult a thing, till she came to do it.

"R. R. is entreated to communicate with his niece at the old place in Bleecker Street, on business of the greatest importance."

"It will not do," said Fleda, to herself, as she sat and looked at it "there is not enough to catch his eye, and there is too much, if it caught anybody else's eye 'R. R.', and 'his niece,' and 'Bleecker Street,' that would tell plain enough."

"Dear uncle, F. has followed you here on business of the greatest importance. Pray let her see you; she is at the old place."

"It will not do," thought Fleda, again "there is still less to catch his eye I cannot trust it. And if I were to put 'Queechy' over it, that would give the clue to the Evelyns, and everybody. But I had better risk anything rather than his seeing it."

The miserable needlessness of the whole thing, the pitiful weighing of sorrow against sorrow, and shame against shame, overcame her for a little; and then, dashing away the tears she had no time for, and locking up the strong-box of her heart, she took her pencil again.

"Queechy. "Let me see you at the old place. I have come here on urgent business for you. Do not deny me, for H's sake!"

With a trifle of alteration, she thought this would do; and went on to make a number of fair copies of it for so many papers. This was done, and all traces of it out of the way before Mrs. Pritchard came in and the breakfast; and after bracing herself with coffee, though the good housekeeper was still sadly dissatisfied with her indifference to some more substantial brace in the shape of chickens and ham, Fleda prepared herself inwardly and outwardly to brave the wind and the newspaper offices, and set forth. It was a bright, keen day; she was sorry; she would it had been cloudy. It seemed as if she could not hope to escape some eyes in such an atmosphere.

She went to the library first, and there requested the librarian, whom she knew, to bring her from the reading-room the files of morning and evening papers. They were many more than she had supposed; she had not near advertisements enough. Paper and ink were at hand, however, and making carefully her list of the various offices, morning and evening separate, she wrote out a copy of the notice for each of them.

The morning was well on by the time she could leave the library. It was yet far from the fashionable hour, however, and sedulously shunning the recognition of anybody, in hopes that it would be one step towards her escaping theirs, she made her way down the bright thoroughfare as far as the City Hall, and then crossed over the Park and plunged into a region where it was very little likely she would see a face that she knew. She saw nothing else either that she knew; in spite of having studied the map of the city in the library, she was forced several times to ask her way, as she visited office after office, of the evening papers first, till she had placed her notice with each one of them. Her courage almost failed her her heart did quite, after two or three. It was a trial from which her whole nature shrank, to go among the people, to face the eyes, to exchange talk with the lips that were at home in those purlieus; look at them she did not. Making her slow way through the choked narrow streets, where the mere confusion of business was bewildering very, to any one come from Queechy; among crowds, of what mixed and doubtful character, hurrying along and brushing with little ceremony past her; edging by loitering groups that filled the whole sidewalk, or perhaps edging through them groups whose general type of character was sufficiently plain and unmixed; entering into parley with clerk after clerk, who looked at such a visitor as an anomaly poor Fleda almost thought so too, and shrank within herself; venturing hardly her eyes beyond her thick veil, and shutting her ears resolutely as far as possible to all the dissonant rough voices that helped to assure her she was where she ought not to be. Sometimes she felt that it was impossible to go on and finish her task; but a thought or two nerved her again to plunge into another untried quarter, or make good her entrance to some new office through a host of loungers and waiting newsboys collected round the door. Sometimes, in utter discouragement, she went on and walked to a distance and came back, in the hope of a better opportunity. It was a long business; and she often had to wait. The end of her list was reached at last, and the paper was thrown away; but she did not draw free breath till she had got to the west side of Broadway again, and turned her back upon them all.

It was late then, and the street was thinned of a part of its gay throng. Completely worn in body as well as mind, with slow faltering steps, Fleda moved on among those still left; looking upon them with a curious eye, as if they and she belonged to different classes of beings; so very far her sobered and saddened spirit seemed to herself from their stir of business and gaiety; if they had been a train of lady-flies or black ants, Fleda would hardly have felt that she had less in common with them. It was a weary, long way up to Bleecker Street, as she was forced to travel it.

The relief was unspeakable to find herself within her uncle's door, with the sense that her dreaded duty was done, and well and thoroughly. Now her part was to be still and wait. But with the relief came also a reaction from the strain of the morning. Before her weary feet had well mounted the stairs, her heart gave up its control; and she locked herself in her room to yield to a helpless outpouring of tears which she was utterly unable to restrain, though conscious that long time could not pass before she would be called to dinner. Dinner had to wait.

"Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, in a vexed tone, when the meal was half over "I didn't know you ever did anything wrong."

"You were sadly mistaken, Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, half lightly, half sadly.

"You're looking not a bit better than last night, and, if anything, rather worse," Mrs. Pritchard went on. "It isn't right, Miss Fleda. You oughtn't to ha' set the first step out of doors, I know you oughtn't, this blessed day; and you've been on your feet these seven hours and you show it! You're just ready to drop."

"I will rest to-morrow," said Fleda, "or try to."

"You are fit for nothing but bed," said the housekeeper "and you've been using yourself, Miss Fleda, as if you had the strength of an elephant. Now, do you think you've been doing right?"

Fleda would have made some cheerful answer, but she was not equal to it; she had lost all command of herself, and she dropped knife and fork to burst into a flood of exceeding tears. Mrs. Pritchard, equally astonished and mystified, hurried questions, apologies, and consolations, one upon another; and made up her mind that there was something mysterious on foot, about which she had better ask no questions. Neither did she from that time. She sealed up her mouth, and contented herself with taking the best care of her guest that she possibly could. Needed enough, but all of little avail.

The reaction did not cease with that day. The next Sunday was spent on the sofa, in a state of utter prostration. With the necessity for exertion the power had died. Fleda could only lie upon the cushions and sleep helplessly, while Mrs. Pritchard sat by, anxiously watching her; curiosity really swallowed up in kind feeling. Monday was little better; but towards the after part of the day, the stimulant of anxiety began to work again, and Fleda sat up to watch for a word from her uncle. But none came, and Tuesday morning distressed Mrs. Pritchard with its want of amendment. It was not to be hoped for, Fleda knew, while this fearful watching lasted. Her uncle might not have seen the advertisement he might not have got her letter he might be even then setting sail to quit home for ever. And she could do nothing but wait. Her nerves were alive to every stir; every touch of the bell made her tremble; it was impossible to read, to lie down, to be quiet or still anywhere. She had set the glass of expectancy, for one thing, in the distance: and all things else were a blur or a blank.

They had sat down to dinner that Tuesday, when a ring at the door, which had made her heart jump, was followed yes, it was by the entrance of the maid-servant holding a folded bit of paper in her hand. Fleda did not wait to ask whose it was she seized it and saw and sprang away up stairs. It was a sealed scrap of paper, that had been the back of a letter, containing two lines without signature.

"I will meet you at Dinah's if you come there alone about sundown."

Enough! Dinah was an old black woman who once had been a very attached servant in Mr. Rossitur's family, and, having married and become a widow years ago, had set up for herself in the trade of a washerwoman, occupying an obscure little tenement out towards Chelsea. Fleda had rather a shadowy idea of the locality, though remembering very well sundry journeys of kindness she and Hugh had made to it in days gone by. But she recollected it was in Sloman Street, and she knew she could find it; and dropping upon her knees, poured out thanks too deep to be uttered, and too strong to be even thought, without a convulsion of tears. Her dinner after that was but a mental thanksgiving she was hardly conscious of anything beside and a thankful rejoicing for all her weary labours. Their weariness was sweet to her now. Let her but see him the rest was sure.

CHAPTER XV.

"How well appaid she was her bird to find!" SIDNEY.

Fleda counted the minutes till it wanted an hour of sundown, and then, avoiding Mrs. Pritchard, made her escape out of the house. A long walk was before her, and the latter part of it through a region which she wished to pass while the light was good. And she was utterly unable to travel at any but a very gentle rate; so she gave herself plenty of time.

It was a very bright afternoon, and all the world was astir. Fleda shielded herself with a thick veil, and went up one of the narrow streets, not daring to venture into Broadway, and passing Waverly Place, which was almost as bright, turned down Eighth Street. A few blocks now, and she would be out of all danger of meeting any one that knew her. She drew her veil close, and hurried on. But the proverb saith, "A miss is as good as a mile," and with reason; for if fate wills, the chances make nothing. As Fleda set her foot down to cross Fifth Avenue, she saw Mr. Carleton on the other side coming up from Waverly Place. She went as slowly as she dared, hoping that he would pass without looking her way, or be unable to recognize her through her thick wrapper. In vain she soon saw that she was known he was waiting for her, and she must put up her veil and speak to him.

"Why, I thought you had left New York," said he "I was told so."

"I had left it I have left it, Sir," said Fleda "I have only come back for a day or two."

"Have you been ill?" he said, with a sudden change of tone, the light in his eye, and smile, giving place to a very marked gravity.

Fleda would have answered with a half smile, but such a sickness of heart came over her, that speech failed, and she was very near bursting into tears. Mr. Carleton looked at her earnestly a moment, and then put the hand which Fleda had forgotten he still held upon his arm, and began to walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which this was done, reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been a child under his care; and, somehow, her thoughts went off on a tangent back to the further days of her mother, and father, and grandfather, the other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection, which now there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem more winning fair than just then when their place was left most especially empty. Her uncle she had never looked up to in the same way, and whatever stay he had been was cut down. Her aunt leaned upon her; and Hugh had always been more of a younger than an elder brother. The quick contrast of those old happy childish days was too strong; the glance back at what she had had, made her feel the want. Fleda blamed herself, reasoned and fought with herself; but she was weak in mind and body, her nerves were unsteady yet, her spirits unprepared for any encounter or reminder of pleasure; and though vexed and ashamed, she could not hold her head up, and she could not prevent tear after tear from falling as they went along; she could only hope that nobody saw them.

Nobody spoke of them. But then nobody said anything; and the silence at last frightened her into rousing herself. She checked her tears and raised her head; she ventured no more; she dared not turn her face towards her companion. He looked at her once or twice, as if in doubt whether to speak or not.

"Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length, gently.

Fleda said, "No," although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general had been packed up for exportation; neither eye nor memory could light upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone showing that he knew what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.

"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney," he said.

It was said with a tone so carelessly easy, that Fleda's heart jumped for one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing peculiar about her.

"I know it," she said, eagerly "I have often thought of it especially here in the city "

"Why is it? what is it?"

Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he remembered from years ago, before she spoke.

"Isn't it contrast? or at least I think that helps the effect here."

"What do you make the contrast?" he said, quietly.

"Isn't it," said Fleda, with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it? I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country, smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."

"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he, smiling.

"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton; perhaps I deserve it."

"You do not think that," said he, with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"

"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr. Carleton?"

"To some people, yes! But the expression is so subtle, that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore, to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."

"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense, I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton; I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far too far to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges the field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."

"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's where did yours go?" said he, suddenly turning round upon her.

Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had, perhaps, more than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so intelligent and sympathetic, that she was abashed.

"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life!" Mr. Carleton said, after a while.

Fleda's heart throbbed an answer she did not speak.

"Both in its direct and indirect action. The mind is set free from influences that narrowed its range and dimmed its vision, and refined to a keener sensibility, a juster perception, a higher power of appreciation, by far, than it had before. And then, to say nothing of religion's own peculiar sphere of enjoyment, technically religious what a field of pleasure it opens to its possessor in the world of moral beauty, most partially known to any other and the fine but exquisite analogies of things material with things spiritual those harmonies of Nature, to which, talk as they will, all other ears are deaf."

"You know," said Fleda, with full eyes that she dared not show, "how Henry Martyn said that he found he enjoyed painting and music so much more after he became a Christian."

"I remember. It is the substituting a just medium for a false one it is putting nature within and nature without in tune with each other, so that the chords are perfect now which were jarring before."

"And yet how far people would be from believing you, Mr. Carleton."

"Yes, they are possessed with the contrary notion. But in all the creation nothing has a one-sided usefulness. What a reflection it would be upon the wisdom of its Author, if godliness alone were the exception if it were not 'profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come!' "

"They make that work the other way, don't they?" said Fleda; "not being able to see how thorough religion should be for anybody's happiness, they make use of your argument to conclude that it is not what the Bible requires. How I have heard that urged that God intended his creatures to be happy as a reason why they should disobey him! They lay hold on the wrong end of the argument, and work backwards."

"Precisely.

" 'God intended his creatures to be happy. " 'Strict obedience would make them unhappy. " 'Therefore, he does not intend them to obey.' "

"They never put it before them quite so clearly," said Fleda.

"They would startle at it a little. But so they would at the right stating of the case."

"And how would that be, Mr. Carleton?"

"It might be somewhat after this fashion

" 'God requires nothing that is not for the happiness of his people. " 'He requires perfect obedience. " 'Therefore, perfect obedience is for their happiness.'

"But unbelief will not understand that. Did it ever strike you how much there is in those words, 'Come and see?' All that argument can do, after all, is but to persuade to that. Only faith will submit to terms, and enter the narrow gate; and only obedience knows what the prospect is on the other side."

"But isn't it true, Mr. Carleton, that the world have some cause for their opinion judging as they do by the outside? The peculiar pleasures of religion, as you say, are out of sight, and they do not always find in religious people that enlargement and refinement of which you were speaking."

"Because they make unequal comparisons. Recollect that, as God has declared, the ranks of religion are not for the most part filled from the wise and the great. In making your estimate, you must measure things equal in other respects. Compare the same man with himself before he was a Christian, or with his unchristianized fellows, and you will find invariably the refining, dignifying, ennobling, influence of true religion the enlarged intelligence, and the greater power of enjoyment."

"And besides those causes of pleasure-giving that your mentioned," said Fleda, "there is a mind at ease; and how much that is, alone! If I may judge others by myself, the mere fact of being unpoised, unresting, disables the mind from a thousand things that are joyfully relished by one entirely at ease."

"Yes," said he; "do you remember that word, 'The stones of the field shall be at peace with thee?' "

"I am afraid people would understand you as little as they would me, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, laughing.

He smiled, rather a prolonged smile, the expression of which Fleda could not make out; she felt that she did not quite understand him.

"I have thought," said he, after a pause, "that much of the beauty we find in many things is owing to a hidden analogy the harmony they make with some unknown string of the mind's harp which they have set a-vibrating. But the music of that is so low and soft, that one must listen very closely to find out what it is."

"Why, that is the very theory of which I gave you a smoky illustration a little while ago," said Fleda. "I thought I was on safe ground, after what you said about the characters of flowers, for that was a little "

"Fanciful?" said he, smiling.

"What you please,"' said Fleda, colouring a little "I am sure it is true. The theory, I mean. I have many a time felt it, though I never put it in words. I shall think of that."

"Did you ever happen to see the very early dawn of a winter's morning?" said he.

But he laughed the next instant at the comical expression of Fleda's face as it was turned to him.

"Forgive me for supposing you as ignorant as myself. I have seen it once."

"Appreciated it, I hope, that time?" said Fleda.

"I shall never forget it."

"And it never wrought in you a desire to see it again?"

"I might see many a dawn," said he, smiling, "without what I saw then. It was very early, and a cloudy morning, so that night had still almost undisturbed possession of earth and sky; but in the south-eastern quarter, between two clouds, there was a space of fair white promise, hardly making any impression upon the darkness, but only set off by it. And upon this one bright spot in earth or heaven, rode the planet of the morning the sun's forerunner bright upon the brightness. All else was dusky, except where overhead the clouds had parted again and showed a faint old moon, glimmering down upon the night it could no longer be said to 'rule.' "

"Beautiful!" said Fleda. "There is hardly any time I like so well as the dawn of a winter morning, with an old moon in the sky. Summer weather has no beauty like it in some things."

"Once," continued Mr. Carleton, "I should have seen no more than I have told you the beauty that every cultivated eye must take in. But now, methought I saw the dayspring that has come upon a longer night; and from out of the midst of it there was the fair face of the morning star looking at me with its sweet reminder and invitation; looking over the world with its aspect of triumphant expectancy: there was its calm assurance of the coming day its promise that the star of hope, which now there were only a few watching eyes to see, should presently be followed by the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness making the kingdoms of the world His own. Your memory may bring to you the words that came to mine, the promise 'to him that overcometh,' and the beauty of the lips that made it: the encouragement to 'patient continuance in well doing,' 'till the day break, and the shadows flee away.' And there, on the other hand, was the substituted light of earth's wisdom and inventions, dominant yet, but waning, and soon to be put out for ever."

Fleda was crying again, and perhaps that was the reason why Mr. Carleton was silent for some time. She was very sorry to show herself so weak, but she could not help it; part of his words had come too close. And when she had recovered again, she was absolutely silent too, for they were nearing Sloman- street, and she could not take him there with her. She did not know what to say, nor what he would think; and she said not another word till they came to the corner. There she must stop and speak.

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Carleton," she said, drawing her hand from his arm, "for taking care of me all this disagreeable way; I will not give you any more trouble."

"You are not going to dismiss me?" said he, looking at her with a countenance of serious anxiety.

"I must," said Fleda, ingenuously "I have business to attend to here "

"But you will let me have the pleasure of waiting for you?"

"O no," said Fleda, hesitating and flushing "thank you, Mr. Carleton; but pray do not I don't know at all how long I may be detained."

He bowed, she thought gravely, and turned away; and she entered the little wretched street, with a strange feeling of pain that she could not analyze. She did not know where it came from, but she thought if there only had been a hiding- place for her, she could have sat down and wept a whole heartful. The feeling must be kept back now, and it was soon forgotten in the throbbing of her heart at another thought which took entire possession.

The sun was not down there was time enough but it was with a step and eye of hurried anxiety that Fleda passed along the little street, for fear of missing her quest, or lest Dinah should have changed her domicile. Yet would her uncle have named it for their meeting if he had not been sure of it? It was very odd he should have appointed that place at all, and Fleda was inclined to think he must have seen Dinah by some chance, or it never would have come into his head. Still her eye passed unheeding over all the varieties of dinginess and misery in her way, intent only upon finding that particular dingy cellar-way which used to admit her to Dinah's premises. It was found at last, and she went in.

The old woman, herself most unchanged, did not know the young lady, but well remembered the little girl whom Fleda brought to her mind. And then she was overjoyed to see her, and asked a multitude of questions, and told a long story of her having met Mr. Rossitur in the street the other day, "in the last place where she'd have looked to see him;" and how old he had grown, and how surprised she had been to see the gray hairs in his head. Fleda at last gave her to understand that she expected him to meet her there, and would like to see him alone; and the good woman immediately took her work into another apartment, made up the fire, and set up the chairs, and leaving her, assured Fleda she would lock up the doors, "and not let no one come through."

It was sundown, and later, Fleda thought, and she felt as if every pulse was doing double duty. No matter, if she were shattered and the work done. But what work! Oh, the needlessness, the cruelty, the folly of it! And how much of the ill consequences she might be unable, after all, to ward off. She took off her hat, to relieve a nervous smothered feeling; and walked, and sat down; and then sat still, from trembling inability to do anything else. Dinah's poor little room, clean though it was, looked to her the most dismal place in the world, from its association with her errand; she hid her face on her knees, that she might have no disagreeableness to contend with, but that which could not be shut out.

It had lain there some time, till a sudden feeling of terror at the growing lateness made her raise it to look at the window. Mr. Rossitur was standings still before her he must have come in very softly and looking oh, Fleda had not imagined him looking so changed. All was forgotten the wrong, and the needlessness, and the indignation with which she had sometimes thought of it; Fleda remembered nothing but love and pity, and threw herself upon his neck with such tears of tenderness and sympathy, such kisses of forgiveness and comfort-speaking, as might have broken a stouter heart than Mr. Rossitur's. He held her in his arms for a few minutes, passively suffering her caresses, and then gently unloosing her hold, placed her on a seat, sat down a little way off, covered his face and groaned aloud.

Fleda could not recover herself at once. Then shaking off her agitation, she came and knelt down by his side, and putting one arm over his shoulders, laid her cheek against his forehead. Words were beyond reach, but his forehead was wet with her tears; and kisses, of soft entreaty, of winning assurance, said all she could say.

"What did you come here for, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, at length, without changing his position.

"To bring you home, uncle Rolf."

"Home!" said he, with an accent between bitterness and despair.

"Yes, for it's all over, it's all forgotten there is no more to be said about it at all," said Fleda, getting her words out she didn't know how.

What is forgotten?" said he, harshly.

"All that you would wish, Sir," replied Fleda, softly and gently; "there is no more to be done about it; and I came to tell you, if possible, before it was too late. Oh, I'm so glad!" and her arms and her cheek pressed closer, as fresh tears stopped her voice.

"How do you know, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, raising his head, and bringing hers to his shoulder, while his arms in turn enclosed her.

Fleda whispered, "He told me so himself."

"Who?"

"Mr. Thorn."

The words were but just spoken above her breath. Mr. Rossitur was silent for some time.

"Are you sure you understood him?"

"Yes, Sir; it could not have been spoken plainer."

"Are you quite sure he meant what he said, Fleda?"

"Perfectly sure, uncle Rolf! I know he did."

"What stipulation did he make beforehand?"

"He did it without any stipulation, Sir."

"What was his inducement, then? If I know him, he is not a man to act without any."

Fleda's cheek was dyed, but except that, she gave no other answer.

"Why has it been left so long?" said her uncle, presently.

"I don't know, Sir he said nothing about that. He promised that neither we nor the world should hear anything more of it."

"The world!" said Mr. Rossitur.

"No, Sir; he said that only one or two persons had any notion of it, and that their secrecy he had the means of securing."

"Did he tell you anything more?"

"Only that he had the matter entirely under his control, and that never a whisper of it should be heard again. No promise could be given more fully and absolutely."

Mr. Rossitur drew a long breath, speaking to Fleda's ear very great relief, and was silent.

"And what reward is he to have for this, Fleda?" he said, after some musing.

"All that my hearty thanks and gratitude can give, as far as I am concerned, Sir."

"Is that what he expects, Fleda?"

"I cannot help what he expects," said Fleda, in some distress.

"What have you engaged yourself to, my child?"

"Nothing in the world, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, earnestly "nothing in the world. I haven't engaged myself to anything. The promise was made freely, without any sort of stipulation."

Mr. Rossitur looked thoughtful and disquieted. Fleda's tears were pouring again.

"I will not trust him," he said; "I will not stay in the country!"

"But you will come home, uncle?" said Fleda, terrified.

"Yes, my dear child yes, my dear child!" he said, tenderly, putting his arms round Fleda again, and kissing, with an earnestness of acknowledgment that went to her heart, her lips and brow; "you shall do what you will with me; and when I go, we will all go together."

From Queechy? from America? But she had no time for that thought now.

"You said, 'for Hugh's sake,' " Mr. Rossitur observed, after a pause, and with some apparent difficulty; "what of him?"

"He is not well, uncle Rolf," said Fleda; "and I think the best medicine will be the sight of you again."

Mr. Rossitur looked pale, and was silent a moment.

"And my wife?" he said.

His face, and the thought of those faces at home, were too much for Fleda; she could not help it. "Oh, uncle Rolf," she said, hiding her face, "they only want to see you again now!"

Mr. Rossitur leaned his head in his hands and groaned; and Fleda could but cry; she felt there was nothing to say.

"It was for Marion," he said at length; "it was when I was hard pressed, and I was fearful if it were known that it might ruin her prospects. I wanted that miserable sum only four thousand dollars that fellow Schwiden asked to borrow it of me for a few days, and to refuse would have been to confess all. I dared not try my credit, and I just madly took that step that proved irretrievable. I counted at the moment upon funds that were coming to me only the next week sure, I thought, as possible but the man cheated me, and our embarrassments thickened from that time; that thing has been a weight oh, a weight of deadening power! round my neck ever since. I have died a living death these six years!"

"I know it, dear uncle I know it all!" said Fleda, bringing the sympathizing touch of her cheek to his again. "The good that it did has been unspeakably overbalanced by the evil. Even long ago I knew that."

"The good that it did!" It was no time then to moralize, but he must know that Marion was at home, or he might incautiously reveal to her what happily there was no necessity for her ever knowing. And the story must give him great and fresh pain.

"Dear uncle Rolf," said Fleda, pressing closer to him "we may be happier than we have been in a long time, if you will only take it so. The cloud upon you has been a cloud upon us."

"I know it!" he exclaimed "a cloud that served to show me that my jewels were diamonds!"

"You have an accession to your jewels, uncle Rolf."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Fleda, trembling, "that there are two more at home."

He held her back to look at her.

"Can't you guess who?"

"No!" said he. "What do you mean?"

"I must tell you, because they know nothing, and needn't know, of all this matter."

"What are you talking about?"

"Marion is there!"

"Marion!" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, with quick changes of expression "Marion! At Queechy! and her husband?"

"No, Sir a dear little child."

"Marion! and her husband where is he?"

Fleda hesitated.

"I don't know I don't know whether she knows."

"Is he dead?"

"No, Sir."

Mr. Rossitur put her away, and got up and walked, or strode up and down the little apartment. Fleda dared not look at him, even by the faint glimmer that came from the chimney.

But abroad it was perfectly dark the stars were shining, the only lamps that illumined the poor little street, and for a long time there had been no light in the room but that of the tiny wood fire. Dinah never could be persuaded of the superior cheapness of coal. Fleda came at last to her uncle's side, and putting her arm within his, said

"How soon will you set off for home, uncle Rolf?"

"To-morrow morning."

"You must take the boat to Bridgeport now you know the river is fast."

"Yes, I know."

"Then I will meet you at the wharf, uncle Rolf at what o'clock?"

"My dear child," said he, stopping and passing his hand tenderly over her cheek, "are you fit for it to-morrow? You had better stay where you are quietly for a few days you want rest."

"No, I will go home with you," said Fleda, "and rest there. But hadn't we better let Dinah in, and bid her good-bye? for I ought to be somewhere else to get ready."

Dinah was called, and a few kind words spoken, and with a more substantial remembrance, or reward, from Fleda's hand, they left her.

Fleda had the support of her uncle's arm till they came within sight of the house, and then he stood and watched her while she went the rest of the way alone.

Anything more white and spirit-looking, and more spirit-like, in its purity and peacefulness surely did not walk that night. There was music in her ear, and abroad in the star-light, more ethereal than Ariel's; but she knew where it came from it was the chimes of her heart that were ringing; and never a happier peal, nor ever had the mental atmosphere been more clear for their sounding. Thankfulness that was the oftenest note swelling thankfulness for her success joy for herself and for the dear ones at home generous delight at having been the instrument of their relief the harmonies of pure affections, without any grating now the hope, well grounded she thought, of improvement in her uncle, and better times for them all a childlike peace that was at rest with itself and the world these were mingling and interchanging their music, and again and again, in the midst of it all, faith rang the last chime in heaven.

CHAPTER XVI.

"As some lone bird at day's departing hour Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower, Forgetful though its wings are wet the while." BOWLES.

Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any longer.

"Miss Fleda," said she, with a look of very serious remonstrance "I don't know what you're thinking of, but I know you're fixing to kill yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself, you wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days running, now this minute."

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, smiling "you are very careful of me, but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."

The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't, dear Miss Fleda!" with an energy of entreaty, which brought the tears into Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage, and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing, however, that she shouldn't wonder if she wasn't able to go, after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt, and morning settled the question. She was not able even to rise from her bed.

The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet, that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."

The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs, and pattering along the entry to her room, and, with little ceremony, in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.

"You horrid little creature!" said Constance, "why didn't you come straight to our house? Just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to! to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."

Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.

"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.

"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance went on. "We were sitting last night, in peaceful unconsciousness of there being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr. Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror! We said you had gone out early in the afternoon, and had not returned."

"You didn't say that!" said Fleda, colouring.

"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition whom their friends ought not to lose sight of."

"But what brought you to town again, Fleda " said the elder sister.

"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.

"I haven't told you the half!" said Constance, demurely. "And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr. Carleton said, very seriously, that he knew there was a great element of headstrongness in your character; he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole."

"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "Will you tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."

"Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said Fleda, smiling.

"Tell me."

"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance."

"Who did you come with?"

"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New York."

"Wasn't your uncle at home?"

"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."

"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"

"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post Fort Hamilton, is it? I forget which fort he is fast there."

"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work (I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that I don't know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out."

The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.

"But where is your other cousin Hugh?" said Florence.

"He was not well."

"Where is your uncle?"

"He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough to my sorrow."

"You were not going alone!"

"Oh, no! a friend of ours was going to-day."

"I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"

"Oh, by to-morrow," said Fleda, smiling; "but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here. I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."

"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance. "I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits; and if we were to leave you here in an empty house, to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"

What would he think? Oh, world! Is this it?

But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that, a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in, nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was, nevertheless, extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything, after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.

Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her, indeed, what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her, furthermore, what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious, sweet smile, which was the utmost reply Fleda's wits, at the moment, could frame. "Well, get well," said he, kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I wont quarrel with you about it."

The getting well, however, promised to be a leisurely affair. Dr. Gregory staid two or three days, and then went on to Boston, leaving Fleda in no want of him.

Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurses. The Evelyns did everything but nurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of the world and the world's doings. But they were indeed very affectionate and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that on the whole was useful.

She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and come in. She knew it was Mrs. Pritchard, so she didn't move nor look. But, in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard's feet had stopped just by the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her, made her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets just before them, and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started up, and her "Oh!" fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very quintessence of gratification.

"Where did you get them?"

"I didn't get them, indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, gravely, with an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.

"Delicious! Where did they come from?"

"Well, they must have come from a greenhouse, or hothouse, or something of that kind, Miss Fleda these things don't grow nowhere out o' doors at this time."

Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.

"They must be put in water," said Fleda "I must have a dish for them Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"

The housekeeper went, smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets placed in it, and a little table, at Fleda's request, was set by the side of the bed, close to her pillow, for them to stand upon; and Fleda lay on her pillow and looked at them.

There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant associations of Fleda's life seemed to hang about them, from the time when her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood aloof they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of spring- time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets' reminding breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the little, double blue things smiled at her good-humouredly, and said, "Here we are you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave them a smile back as she did so.

Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than upon food and medicine; or, at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well together. And the next day it was much the same.

"What will you do when they are withered?" she said, that evening. "I shall have to see and get some more for you."

"Oh, they will last a great while," said Fleda, smiling.

But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns'. She delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then, as before, stood by to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda's wonderment, pleasure, and gratitude, made her reception of them, outwardly at least, this time rather grave.

"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, smiling.

"Indeed, I shall not!"

"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on; "but I never did see such a bunch of roses as that since I lived anywhere. They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."

"How beautiful!" was Fleda's answer.

"Somebody he didn't say who desired to know particularly how Miss Ringgan was to-day."

"Somebody is very kind!" said Fleda, from the bottom of her heart. "But, dear Mrs. Pritchard, I shall want another dish."

Somebody was kind, she thought more and more; for there came every day or two the most delicious bouquets, every day different. They were at least equal in their soothing and refreshing influences, to all the efforts of all the Evelyns and Mrs. Pritchard put together. There never came any name with them, and there never was any need. Those bunches of flowers certainly had a physiognomy; and to Fleda were (not the flowers, but the choosing, cutting, and putting of them together) the embodiment of an amount of grace, refined feeling, generosity, and kindness, that her imagination never thought of in connection with but one person. And his kindness was answered, perhaps Mrs. Pritchard better than Fleda guessed how well, from the delighted colour and sparkle of the eye with which every fresh arrival was greeted as it walked into her room. By Fleda's order, the bouquets were invariably put out of sight before the Evelyns made their first visit in the morning, and not brought out again till all danger of seeing them any more for the day was past. The regular coming of these floral messengers confirmed Mrs. Pritchard in her mysterious surmises about Fleda, which were still further strengthened by this incomprehensible order; and at last she got so into the spirit of the thing, that if she heard an untimely ring at the door, she would catch up a glass of flowers and run as if they had been contraband, without a word from anybody.

The Evelyns wrote to Mrs. Rossitur, by Fleda's desire, so as not to alarm her; merely saying that Fleda was not quite well, and that they meant to keep her a little while to recruit herself; and that Mrs. Rossitur must send her some clothes. This last clause was the particular addition of Constance.

The fever lasted a fortnight, and then went off by degrees, leaving her with a very small portion of her ordinary strength. Fleda was to go to the Evelyns' as soon as she could bear it; at present she was only able to come down to the little back parlour, and sit in the doctor's arm-chair, and eat jelly, and sleep, and look at Constance, and, when Constance was not there, look at her flowers. She could hardly bear a book as yet. She hadn't a bit of colour in her face, Mrs. Pritchard said, but she looked better than when she came to town; and to herself the good housekeeper added, that she looked happier too. No doubt that was true. Fleda's principal feeling, ever since she lay down in her bed, had been thankfulness; and now that the ease of returning health was joined to this feeling, her face, with all its subdued gravity, was as untroubled in its expression as the faces of her flowers.

She was disagreeably surprised one day, after she had been two or three days down stairs, by a visit from Mrs. Thorn. In her well-grounded dread of seeing one person, Fleda had given strict orders that no gentleman should be admitted; she had not counted upon this invasion. Mrs. Thorn had always been extremely kind to her, but though Fleda gave her credit for thorough good-heartedness, and a true liking for herself, she could not disconnect her attentions from another thought, and therefore always wished them away; and never had her kind face been more thoroughly disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual fondness, or Fleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation, and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous promise! but Fleda did not know any longer how to refuse without hurting a person for whom she had really a grateful regard. So she went, and doubted afterwards exceedingly whether she had done well.

She took special good care to see nobody again till she went to the Evelyns'. But then precautions were at an end. It was no longer possible to keep herself shut up. She had cause, poor child, the very first night of her coming, to wish herself back again.

This first evening she would fain have pleaded weakness as her excuse, and gone to her room, but Constance laid violent hands on her, and insisted that she should stay at least a little while with them. And she seemed fated to see all her friends in a bevy. First came Charlton; then followed the Decaturs, whom she knew and liked very well, and engrossed her, happily before her cousin had time to make any inquiries; then came Mr. Carleton; then Mr. Stackpole. Then Mr. Thorn, in expectation of whom Fleda's breath had been coming and going painfully all the evening. She could not meet him without a strange mixture of embarrassment and confusion with the gratitude she wished to express, an embarrassment not at all lessened by the air of happy confidence with which he came forward to her. It carried an intimation that almost took away the little strength she had. And if anything could have made his presence more intolerable, it was the feeling she could not get rid of, that it was the cause why Mr. Carleton did not come near her again, though she prolonged her stay in the drawing-room in the hope that he would. It proved to be for Mr. Thorn's benefit alone.

"Well, you staid all the evening, after all," said Constance, as they were going up stairs.

"Yes I wish I hadn't," said Fleda. "I wonder when I shall be likely to find a chance of getting back to Queechy?"

"You're not fit yet, so you needn't trouble yourself about it," said Constance. "We'll find you plenty of chances."

Fleda could not think of Mr. Thorn without trembling. His manner meant so much more than it had any right, or than she had counted upon. He seemed she pressed her hands upon her face to get rid of the impression he seemed to take for granted precisely that which she had refused to admit; he seemed to reckon as paid for that which she had declined to set a price upon. Her uncle's words and manner came up in her memory. She could see nothing best to do but to get home as fast as possible. She had no one here to fall back upon. Again that vision of father and mother, and grandfather, flitted across her fancy; and though Fleda's heart ended by resting down on that foundation to which it always recurred, it rested with a great many tears.

For several days she denied herself absolutely to morning visitors of every kind. But she could not entirely absent herself from the drawing-room in the evening; and whenever the family were at home there was a regular levee. Mr. Thorn could not be avoided then. He was always there, and always with that same look and manner of satisfied confidence. Fleda was as grave, as silent, as reserved, as she could possibly be, and not be rude; but he seemed to take it in excellent good part, as being half indisposition and half timidity. Fleda set her face earnestly towards home, and pressed Mrs. Evelyn to find her an opportunity, weak or strong, of going there; but for those days as yet none presented itself.

Mr. Carleton was at the house almost as often as Mr. Thorn, seldom staying so long, however, and never having any more to do with Fleda than he had that first evening. Whenever he did come in contact with her, he was, she thought, as grave as he was graceful. That was, to be sure, his common manner in company, yet she could not help thinking there was some difference since the walk they had taken together and it grieved her.

CHAPTER XVII.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft ajee."

After a few days, Charlton verified what Constance had said about his not being very fast at Fort Hamilton, by coming again to see them one morning. Fleda asked him if he could not get another furlough to go with her home, but he declared he was just spending one which was near out; and he could not hope for a third in some time; he must be back at his post by the day after to-morrow.

"When do you want to go, coz?"

"I would to-morrow, if I had anybody to go with me," said Fleda, sighing.

"No, you wouldn't," said Constance; "you are well enough to go out now, and you forget we are all to make Mrs. Thorn happy to-morrow night."

"I am not," said Fleda.

"Not? you can't help yourself you must; you said you would."

"I did not, indeed."

"Well, then, I said it for you, and that will do just as well. Why, my dear, if you don't just think! the Thorns will be in a state I should prefer to go through a hedge of any description rather than meet the trying demonstrations which will encounter me on every side."

"I am going to Mrs. Decatur's," said Fleda; "she invited me first, and I owe it to her; she has asked me so often and so kindly."

"I shouldn't think you'd enjoy yourself there," said Florence; "they don't talk a bit of English these nights. If I was going, my dear, I would act as your interpreter, but my destiny lies in another direction."

"If I cannot make anybody understand my French, I will get somebody to condescend to my English," said Fleda.

"Why, do you talk French?" was the instant question from both mouths.

"Unless she has forgotten herself strangely," said Charlton. "Talk! she will talk to anybody's satisfaction that happens to differ from her; and I think her tongue cares very little which language it wags in. There is no danger about Fleda's enjoying herself, where people are talking."

Fleda laughed at him, and the Evelyns rather stared at them both.

"But we are all going to Mrs. Thorn's? you can't go alone?"

"I will make Charlton take me," said Fleda; "or rather I will take him, if he will let me. Will you, Charlton? will you take care of me to Mrs. Decatur's to-morrow night?"

"With the greatest pleasure, my dear coz; but I have another engagement in the course of the evening."

"Oh, that is nothing," said Fleda; "if you will only go with me, that is all I care for. You needn't stay but ten minutes. And you can call for me," she added, turning to the Evelyns, "as you come back from Mrs. Thorn's."

To this no objection could be made, and the ensuing raillery Fleda bore with steadiness at least, if not with coolness; for Charlton heard it, and she was distressed.

She went to Mrs. Decatur's the next evening in greater elation of spirits than she had known since she left her uncle's; delighted to be missing from the party at Mrs. Thorn's, and hoping that Mr. Lewis would be satisfied with this very plain hint of her mind. A little pleased, too, to feel quite free, alone from too friendly eyes, and ears that had too lively a concern in her sayings and doings. She did not in the least care about going to Mrs. Decatur's; her joy was that she was not at the other place. But there never was elation so outwardly quiet. Nobody would have suspected its existence.

The evening was near half over when Mr. Carleton came in. Fleda had half hoped he would be there, and now immediately hoped she might have a chance to see him alone, and to thank him for his flowers; she had not been able to do that yet. He presently came up to speak to her, just as Charlton, who had found attraction enough to keep him so long, came to tell her he was going.