"I have one consolation," he said, "my dear Elfie you will have the less to leave for me."

She put her hand with a quick motion upon his, and roused herself.

"She is a beautiful rebuke to unbelief. But she is hardly to be mourned for, Elfie."

"Oh, I was not crying for aunt Miriam," said Fleda.

"For what then?" he said, gently.

"Myself."

"That needs explanation," he said, in the same tone. "Let me have it, Elfie."

"Oh I was thinking of several things," said Fleda, not exactly wishing to give the explanation.

"Too vague," said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "Trust me with a little more of your mind, Elfie."

Fleda glanced up at him, half smiling, and yet with filling eyes, and then, as usual, yielded to the winning power of the look that met her.

"I was thinking," she said, keeping her head carefully down, "of some of the things you and aunt Miriam were saying just now and how good for nothing I am."

"In what respect?" said Mr. Carleton, with praiseworthy gravity.

Fleda hesitated, and he pressed the matter no further; but, more unwilling to displease him than herself, she presently went on, with some difficulty; wording what she had to say with as much care as she could.

"I was thinking, how gratitude or not gratitude alone but how one can be full of the desire to please another a fellow-creature and find it constantly easy to do or bear anything for that purpose; and how slowly and coldly duty has to move alone in the direction where it should be the swiftest and warmest."

She knew he would take her words as simply as she said them; she was not disappointed. He was silent a minute, and then said gravely,

"Is this a late discovery, Elfie?"

"No only I was realizing it strongly just now."

"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps, and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."

"You have said that before," said Fleda, still keeping her head down.

"What?"

"About my being a help to you!"

"It will not be the first time," said he, smiling; "nor the second. Your little hand first held up a glass to gather the scattered rays of truth that could not warm me, into a centre where they must burn."

"Very innocently," said Fleda, with a little unsteady feeling of voice.

"Very innocently!" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "A veritable lens could hardly have been more unconscious of its work, or more pure of design."

"I do not think that was quite so, either, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda.

"It was so, my dear Elfie, and your present speech is nothing against it. This power of example is always unconsciously wielded; the medium ceases to be clear so soon as it is made anything but as medium. The bits of truth you aimed at me wittingly would have been nothing, if they had not come through that medium."

"Then apparently one's prime efforts ought to be directed to one's self."

"One's first efforts, certainly Your silent example was the first thing that moved me."

"Silent example!" said Fleda, catching her breath a little. "Mine ought to be very good, for I can never do good in any other way."

"You used to talk pretty freely to me."

"It wasn't my fault, I am certain," said Fleda, half laughing. "Besides, I was sure of my ground. But, in general, I never can speak to people about what will do them any good."

"Yet, whatever be the power of silent example, there are often times when a word is of incalculable importance."

"I know it," said Fleda, earnestly; "I have felt it very often, and grieved that I could not say it, even at the very moment when I knew it was wanting."

"Is that right, Elfie?"

"No," said Fleda, with quick watering eyes; "it is not right at all; but it is constitutional with me. I never can talk to other people of what concerns my own thoughts and feelings."

"But this concerns other people's thoughts and feelings."

"Yes; but there is an implied revelation of my own."

"Do you expect to include me in the denomination of 'other people?' "

"I don't know," said Fleda, laughing.

"Do you wish it?"

Fleda looked down and up, and coloured, and said she didn't know.

"I will teach you," said he, smiling.

The rest of the day, by both, was given to Hugh.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"O what is life but a sum of love, And death but to lose it all? Weeds be for those that are left behind, And not for those that fall!" MILNES.

"Here's something come, Fleda," said Barby, walking into the sick-room one morning, a few days afterwards; "a great bag of something more than you can eat up in a fortnight; it's for Hugh."

"It's extraordinary that anybody should send me a great bag of anything eatable," said Hugh.

"Where did it come from?" said Fleda.

"Philetus fetched it he found it down to Mr. Sampion's, when he went with the sheep-skins."

"How do you know it's for me?" said Hugh.

" 'Cause it's written on, as plain as a pikestaff. I guess it's a mistake, though."

"Why?" said Fleda; "and what is it?"

"Oh, I don't much think 'twas meant for him," said Barby. "It's oysters."

"Oysters!"

"Yes come out and look at 'em you never see such fine fellows. I've heerd say," said Barby, abstractedly, as Fleda followed her out, and she displayed to view some magnificent Ostraceans "I've heerd say that an English shilling was worth two American ones; but I never understood it rightly, till now."

To all intents and purposes those were English oysters, and worth twice as much as any others, Fleda secretly confessed.

That evening, up in the sick room it was quite evening, and all the others of the family were taking rest, or keeping Mr. Rossitur company down stairs Fleda was carefully roasting some of the same oysters for Hugh's supper. She had spread out a glowing bed of coals on the hearth, and there lay four or five of the big bivalves, snapping and sputtering in approbation of their quarters, in a most comfortable manner; and Fleda, standing before the fire, tended them with a double kind of pleasure. From one friend, and for another, those were most odorous oysters. Hugh sat watching them and her, the same in happy simplicity that he had been at eleven years old.

"How pleasant those oysters smell!" said he. "Fleda, they remind me so of the time when you and I used to roast oysters in Mrs. Renney's room for lunch do you recollect? and sometimes in the evening, when everybody was gone out, you know; and what an airing we used to have to give the dining- room afterwards. How we used to enjoy them, Fleda you and I, all alone."

"Yes," said Fleda, in a tone of doubtful enjoyment. She was shielding her face with a paper, and making self-sacrificing efforts to persuade a large oyster-shell to stand so on the coals as to keep the juice.

"Don't," said Hugh; "I would rather the oysters should burn than you. Mr. Carleton wouldn't thank me for letting you do so."

"Never mind," said Fleda, arranging the oysters to her satisfaction; "he isn't here to see. Now, Hugh, my dear, these are ready as soon as I am."

"I am ready," said Hugh. "How long it is since we had a roast oyster, Fleda!"

"They look good, don't they?"

A little stand was brought up between them, with the bread- and-butter and the cups; and Fleda opened oysters and prepared tea for Hugh, with her nicest, gentlest, busiest of hands making every bit to be twice as sweet, for her sympathizing eyes and loving smile and pleasant word commenting. She shared the meal with him, but her own part was as slender as his, and much less thought of. His enjoyment was what she enjoyed, though it was with a sad twinge of alloy, which changed her face whenever it was where he could not see it: when turned upon him, it was only bright and affectionate, and sometimes a little too tender; but Fleda was too good a nurse to let that often appear.

"Mr. Carleton did not bargain for your opening his oysters, Fleda. How kind it was of him to send them!"

"Yes."

"How long will he be gone, Fleda?"

"I don't know he didn't say. I don't believe many days."

Hugh was silent a little, while she was putting away the stand and the oyster-shells. Then she came and sat down by him.

"You have burnt yourself over those things," said he, sorrowfully; "you shouldn't have done it. It is not right."

"Dear Hugh," said Fleda, lightly laying her head on his shoulder. "I like to burn myself for you."

"That's just the way you have been doing all your life."

"Hush!" she said, softly.

"It is true for me and for everybody else. It is time you were taken better care of, dear Fleda."

"Don't, dear Hugh!"

"I am right, though," said he. "You are pale and worn now with waiting upon me, and thinking of me. It is time you were gone. But I think it is well I am going too, for what should I do in the world without you, Fleda?"

Fleda was crying now, intensely, though quietly; but Hugh went on with feeling, as calm as it was deep.

"What should I have done all these years or any of us? How you have tired yourself for everybody in the garden and in the kitchen, and with Earl Douglass how we could let you, I don't know, but I believe we could not help it."

Fleda put her hand upon his mouth. But he took it away and went on

"How often I have seen you sleeping all the evening on the sofa with a pale face, tired out, dear Fleda," said he, kissing her cheek; "I am glad there's to be an end put to it. And all the day you went about with such a bright face, that it made mother and me happy to look at you; and I knew then, many a time, it was for our sakes "

"Why do you cry so, Fleda? I like to think of it, and to talk of it, now that I know you won't do so any more. I know the whole truth, and it went to the bottom of my heart; but I could do nothing but love you I did that! Don't cry so, Fleda! you ought not. You have been the sunshine of the house. My spirit never was so strong as yours; I should have been borne to the ground, I know, in all these years, if it had not been for you; and mother you have been her life."

"You have been tired too," Fleda whispered.

"Yes, at the saw-mill. And then you would come up there through the sun to look at me, and your smile would make me forget everything sorrowful for the rest of the day except that I couldn't help you."

"Oh, you did you did you helped me always, Hugh!"

"Not much. I couldn't help you when you were sewing for me and father till your fingers and eyes were aching, and you never would own that you were anything but 'a little' tired it made my heart ache. Oh, I knew it all, dear Fleda. I am very, very glad that you will have somebody to take care of you now, that will not let you burn four fingers for him or anybody else. It makes me happy!"

"You make me very unhappy, dear Hugh."

"I don't mean it," said Hugh, tenderly. "But I don't believe there is anybody else in the world that I could be so satisfied to leave you with."

Fleda made no answer to that. She sat up and tried to recover herself.

"I hope he will come back in time," said Hugh, settling himself back in the easy-chair with a weary look, and closing his eyes.

"In time for what!"

"To see me again."

"My dear Hugh! he will, to be sure, I hope."

"He must make haste," said Hugh. "But I want to see him again very much, Fleda."

"For anything in particular?"

"No only because I love him. I want to see him once more."

Hugh slumbered; and Fleda, by his side, wept tears of mixed feeling till she was tired.

Hugh was right. But nobody else knew it, and his brother was not sent for.

It was about a week after this, when one night a horse and waggon came up to the back of the house from the road, the gentleman who had been driving leading the horse. It was late, long past Mr. Skillcorn's usual hour of retiring, but some errand of business had kept him abroad, and he stood there looking on. The stars gave light enough.

"Can you fasten my horse where he may stand a little while, Sir, without taking him out?"

"I guess I can," replied Philetus, with reasonable confidence, "if there's a rope's end some place."

And forthwith he went back into the house to seek it; the gentleman patiently holding his horse meanwhile till he came out.

"How is Mr. Hugh to-night?"

"Well he aint just so smart, they say," responded Philetus, insinuating the rope's end as awkwardly as possible among the horse's head-gear. "I believe he's dying."

Instead of going round now to the front of the house, Mr. Carleton knocked gently at the kitchen door, and asked the question anew of Barby.

"He's come in, Sir, if you please," she said, opening wide the door for him to enter. "I'll tell 'em you're here."

"Do not disturb any one for me," said he.

"I won't disturb 'em!" said Barby, in a tone a little, though unconsciously, significant.

Mr. Carleton neglected the chair she had placed for him, and remained standing by the mantel-piece, thinking of the scenes of his early introduction to that kitchen. It wore the same look it had done then; under Barby's rule it was precisely the same thing it had been under Cynthia's. The passing years seemed a dream, and the passing generations of men a vanity, before the old house, more abiding than they. He stood thinking of the people he had seen gathered by that fire- place, and the little household fairy whose childish ministrations had give such a beauty to the scene when a very light step crossed the painted floor, and she was there again before him. She did not speak a word; she stood still a moment trying for words, and then put her hand upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and gently drew him out of the room with her.

The family were all gathered in the room to which she brought him. Mr. Rossitur, as soon as he saw Mr. Carleton come in, shrunk back where he could be a little shielded by the bed- post. Marion's face was hid on the foot of the bed. Mrs. Rossitur did not move. Leaving Mr. Carleton on the near side of the bed, Fleda went round to the place she seemed to have occupied before at Hugh's right hand; and they were all still, for he was in a little doze, lying with his eyes closed, and the face as gently and placidly sweet as it had been in his boyhood. Perhaps Mr. Rossitur looked at it: but no other did just then, except Mr. Carleton. His eye rested nowhere else. The breathing of an infant could not be more gentle; the face of an angel not more peacefully at rest. "So He giveth His beloved sleep," thought he gentleman, as he gazed on the brow from which all care, if care there had ever been, seemed to have taken flight.

Not yet not quite yet; for Hugh suddenly opened his eyes, and without seeing anybody else, said

"Father."

Mr. Rossitur left the bed-post, and came close to where Fleda was standing, and leaning forward, touched his son's head, but did not speak.

"Father," said Hugh, in a voice so gentle that it seemed as if strength must be failing, "what will you do when you come to lie here?"

Mr. Rossitur put his hands to his face.

"Father I must speak now if I never did before once I must speak to you what will you do when you come to lie where I do? what will you trust to?"

The person addressed was as motionless as a statue. Hugh did not move his eyes from him.

"Father, I will be a living warning and example to you, for know that I shall live in your memory you shall remember what I say to you that Jesus Christ is a dear friend to those that trust in him, and if he is not yours it will be because you will not let him. You shall remember my testimony, that he can make death sweeter than life in his presence is fulness of joy at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore. He is better, he is more to me, even than you all, and he will be to you a better friend than the poor child you are losing, though you do not know it now. It is he that has made my life in this world happy only he and I have nothing to look to but him in the world I am going to. But what will you do in the hour of death, as I am, if he isn't your friend, father?"

Mr. Rossitur's frame swayed like a tree that one sees shaken by a distant wind, but he said nothing.

"Will you remember me happily, father, if you come to die without having done as I begged you? Will you think of me in heaven, and not try to come there too? Father, will you be a Christian? will you not? for my sake for little Hugh's sake, as you used to call him? Father."

Mr. Rossitur knelt down and hid his face in the coverings, but he did not utter a word.

Hugh's eye dwelt on him for a moment with unspeakable expression, and his lip trembled. He said no more he closed his eyes, and, for a little time, there was nothing to be heard but the sobs, which could not be restrained, from all but the two gentlemen. It probably oppressed Hugh, for, after a while, he said, with a weary sigh, and without opening his eyes

"I wish somebody would sing."

Nobody answered at first.

"Sing what, dear Hugh?" said Fleda, putting aside her tears, and leaning her face towards him.

"Something that speaks of my want," said Hugh.

"What do you want, dear Hugh?"

"Only Jesus Christ," he said, with a half smile.

But they were silent as death. Fleda's face was in her hands, and her utmost efforts after self-control wrought nothing but tears. The stillness had lasted a little while, when, very softly and sweetly, the notes of a hymn floated to their ears, and though they floated on and filled the room, the voice was so nicely modulated, that its waves of sweetness broke gently upon the nearest ear.

"Jesus, the sinner's friend, to Thee, Lost and undone, for aid I flee; Weary of earth, myself, and sin, Open thine arms and take me in.

"Pity and save my sin-sick soul 'Tis thou alone canst make me whole; Dark, till in me thine image shine, And lost I am, till thou art mine.

"At length I own it cannot be, That I should fit myself for thee, Here now to thee I all resign Thine is the work, and only thine.

"What shall I say thy grace to move? Lord, I am sin, but thou art love! I give up every plea beside Lord, I am lost but thou hast died!"

They were still again after the voice had ceased almost perfectly still though tears might be pouring, as indeed they were, from every eye, there was no break to the silence, other than a half-caught sob, now and then, from a kneeling figure, whose head was in Marion's lap.

"Who was that?" said Hugh, when the singer had been silent a minute.

Nobody answered immediately, and then Mr. Carleton, bending over him, said

"Don't you know me, dear Hugh?"

"Is it Mr. Carleton?"

Hugh looked pleased, and clasped both of his hands upon Guy's, which he laid upon his breast. For a second he closed his eyes and was silent.

"Was it you sang?"

"Yes."

"You never sang for me before," he remarked.

He was silent again.

"Are you going to take Fleda away?"

"By and by," said Mr. Carleton, gently.

"Will you take good care of her?"

Mr. Carleton hesitated, and then said, so low that it could reach but one other person's ear

"What hand and life can."

"I know it," said Hugh. "I am very glad you will have her. You will not let her tire herself any more."

Whatever became of Fleda's tears, she had driven them away, and leaning forward, she touched her cheek to his, saying, with a clearness and sweetness of voice that only intensity of feeling could have given her at the moment

"I am not tired, dear Hugh."

Hugh clasped one arm round her neck and kissed her again and again, seeming unable to say anything to her in any other way; still keeping his hold of Mr. Carleton's hand.

"I give all my part of her to you," he said, at length. "Mr. Carleton, I shall see both of you in heaven?"

"I hope so," was the answer, in those very calm and clear tones that have a singular effect in quieting emotion, while they indicate anything but the want of it.

"I am the best off of you all," Hugh said.

He lay still for awhile with shut eyes. Fleda had withdrawn herself from his arms and stood at his side, with a bowed head, but perfectly quiet. He still held Mr. Carleton's hand, as something he did not want to part with.

"Fleda," said he, "who is that crying? Mother come here."

Mr. Carleton gave place to her. Hugh pulled her down to him till her face lay upon his, and folded both his arms around her.

"Mother," he said, softly, "will you meet me in heaven? say yes."

"How can I, dear Hugh?"

"You can, dear mother," said he, kissing her with exceeding tenderness of expression "my Saviour will be yours and take you there. Say you will give yourself to Christ dear mother! sweet mother! promise me I shall see you again!"

Mrs. Rossitur's weeping it was difficult to hear. But Hugh, hardly shedding a tear, still kissed her, repeating, "Promise me, dear mother promise me that you will;" till Mrs. Rossitur, in an agony, sobbed out the word he wanted, and Hugh hid his face then in her neck.

Mr. Carleton left the room and went down stairs. He found the sitting-room desolate, untenanted and cold for hours; and he went again into the kitchen. Barby was there for some time, and then she left him alone.

He had passed a long while in thinking, and walking up and down, and he was standing musing by the fire, when Fleda again came in. She came in silently to his side, and putting her arm within his, laid her face upon it with a simplicity of trust and reliance that went to his heart; and she wept there for a long hour They hardly changed their position in all that time; and her tears flowed silently, though incessantly, the only tokens of his part being such a gentle caressing, smoothing of her hair, or putting it from her brow as he had used when she was a child. The bearing of her hand and head upon his arm, in time showed her increasingly weary. Nothing showed him so.

"Elfie my dear Elfie," he said at last, very tenderly, in the same way that he would have spoken nine years before "Hugh gave his part of you to me I must take care of it."

Fleda tried to rouse herself immediately.

"This is poor entertainment for you, Mr. Carleton," she said, raising her head, and wiping away the tears from her face.

"You are mistaken," he said, gently. "You never gave me such pleasure but twice before, Elfie?"

Fleda's head went down again instantly, and this time there was something almost caressing in the motion.

"Next to the happiness of having friends on earth," he said soothingly, "is the happiness of having friends in heaven. Don't weep any more to-night, my dear Elfie."

"He told me to thank you," said Fleda. But stopping short and clasping with convulsive energy the arm she held, she shed more violent tears than she had done that night before. The most gentle soothing, the most tender reproof, availed at last to quiet her; and she stood clinging to his arm still, and looking down into the fire.

"I did not think it would be so soon," she said.

"It was not soon to him, Elfie."

"He told me to thank you for singing. How little while it seems since we were children together how little while since before that when I was a little child here how different!"

"No, the very same," said he, touching his lips to her forehead "you are the very same child you were then; but it is time you were my child, for I see you would make yourself ill. No," said he, softly, taking the hand Fleda raised to her face "no more to-night tell me how early I may see you in the morning for, Elfie, I must leave you after breakfast."

Fleda looked up inquiringly.

"My mother has brought news that determines me to return to England immediately."

"To England!"

"I have been too long from home I am wanted there."

Fleda looked down again, and did her best not to show what she felt.

"I do not know how to leave you and now but I must. There are disturbances among the people, and my own are infected. I must be there without delay."

"Political disturbances?" said Fleda.

"Somewhat of that nature but partly local. How early may I come to you?"

"But you are not going away to-night? It is very late."

"That is nothing my horse is here."

Fleda would have begged in vain, if Barby had not come in and added her word, to the effect that it would be a mess of work to look for lodgings at that time of night, and that she had made the west room ready for Mr. Carleton. She rejected with great sincerity any claim to the thanks with which Fleda as well as Mr. Carleton repaid her; "there wa'n't no trouble about it," she said. Mr. Carleton, however, found his room prepared for him with all the care that Barby's utmost ideas of refinement and exactness could suggest.

It was still very early the next morning when he left it and came into the sitting-room, but he was not the first there. The firelight glimmered on the silver and china of the breakfast table, all set; everything was in absolute order, from the fire to the two cups and saucers which were alone on the board. A still silent figure was standing by one of the windows looking out. Not crying; but that Mr. Carleton knew from the unmistakeable lines of the face was only because tears were waiting another time; quiet now, it would not be by and by. He came and stood at the window with her.

"Do you know," he said, after a little, "that Mr. Rossitur purposes to leave Queechy?"

"Does he?" said Fleda, rather starting, but she added not another word, simply because she felt she could not safely.

"He has accepted, I believe, a consulship at Jamaica."

"Jamaica!" said Fleda. "I have heard him speak of the West Indies I am not surprised I knew it was likely he would not stay here."

How tightly her fingers that were free grasped the edge of the window-frame. Mr. Carleton saw it and softly removed them into his own keeping.

"He may go before I can be here again. But I shall leave my mother to take care of you, Elfie."

"Thank you," said Fleda, faintly. "You are very kind "

"Kind to myself," he said, smiling. "I am only taking care of my own. I need not say that you will see me again as early as my duty can make it possible; but I may be detained, and your friends may be gone Elfie give me the right to send if I cannot come for you. Let me leave my wife in my mother's care."

Fleda looked down, and coloured, and hesitated; but the expression in her face was not that of doubt.

"Am I asking too much?" he said, gently.

"No, Sir," said Fleda "and but "

"What is in the way?"

But it seemed impossible for Fleda to tell him.

"May I not know?" he said, gently putting away the hair from Fleda's face, which looked distressed. "Is it only your feeling?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda "at least not the feeling you think it is but I could not do it without giving great pain."

Mr. Carleton was silent.

"Not to anybody you know, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, suddenly fearing a wrong interpretation to her words "I don't mean that I mean somebody else the person the only person you could apply to" she said, covering her face in utter confusion.

"Do I understand you?" said he, smiling. "Has this gentleman any reason to dislike the sight of me?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda "but he thinks he has."

"That only I meant," said he. "You are quite right, my dear Elfie I, of all men, ought to understand that."

The subject was dropped; and in a few minutes his gentle skill had wellnigh made Fleda forget what they had been talking about. Himself and his wishes seemed to be put quite out of his own view, and out of hers as far as possible, except that the very fact made Fleda recognise, with unspeakable gratitude and admiration, the kindness and grace that were always exerted for her pleasure. If her goodwill could have been put into the cups of coffee she poured out for him, he might have gone, in the strength of them, all the way to England. There was strength of another kind to be gained from her face of quiet sorrow and quiet self-command, which were her very childhood's own.

"You will see me at the earliest possible moment," he said, when at last taking leave. "I hope to be free in a short time: but it may not be. Elfie, if I should be detained longer than I hope if I should not be able to return in a reasonable time will you let my mother bring you out? if I cannot come to you, will you come to me?"

Fleda coloured a good deal, and said, scarce intelligibly, that she hoped he would be able to come. He did not press the matter. He parted from her, and was leaving the room. Fleda suddenly sprang after him, before he had reached the door, and laid her hand on his arm.

"I did not answer your question, Mr. Carleton," she said, with cheeks that were dyed now "I will do whatever you please whatever you think best."

His thanks were most gratefully, though silently, spoken, and he went away.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Daughter, they seem to say, Peace to thy heart! We too, yes, daughter, Have been as thou art. Hope-lifted, doubt-depress'd, Seeing in part Tried, troubled, tempted Sustain'd as thou art." UNKNOWN.

Mr. Rossitur was disposed for no further delay now in leaving Queechy. The office at Jamaica, which Mr. Carleton and Dr. Gregory had secured for him, was immediately accepted, and every arrangement pressed to hasten his going. On every account, he was impatient to be out of America, and especially since his son's death. Marion was of his mind. Mrs. Rossitur had more of a home feeling, even for the place where home had not been to her as happy as it might.

They were sad weeks of bustle and weariness that followed Hugh's death less sad, perhaps, for the weariness and the bustle. There was little time for musing no time for lingering regrets. If thought and feeling played their Aeolian measures on Fleda's harpstrings, they were listened to only by snatches, and she rarely sat down and cried to them.

A very kind note had been received from Mrs. Carleton.

April gave place to May. One afternoon, Fleda had taken an hour or two to go and look at some of the old places on the farm that she loved, and that were not too far to reach. A last look she guessed it might be, for it was weeks since she had had a spare afternoon, and another she might not be able to find. It was a doubtful pleasure she sought too, but she must have it.

She visited the long meadow and the height that stretched along it, and even went so far as the extremity of the valley, at the foot of the twenty-acre lot, and then stood still to gather up the ends of memory. There she had gone chestnutting with Mr. Ringgan thither she had guided Mr. Carleton and her cousin Rossitur that day when they were going after woodcock there she had directed and overseen Earl Douglass's huge crop of corn. How many pieces of her life were connected with it! She stood for a little while looking at the old chestnut trees, looking and thinking, and turned away soberly with the recollection, "The world passeth away, but the word of our God shall stand for ever." And though there was one thought that was a continual well of happiness in the depth of Fleda's heart, her mind passed it now, and echoed with great joy the countersign of Abraham's privilege, "Thou art my portion, O Lord!" And in that assurance every past and every hoped-for good was sweet with added sweetness. She walked home without thinking much of the long meadow.

It was a chill spring afternoon, and Fleda was in her old trim the black cloak, the white shawl over it, and the hood of grey silk. And in that trim she walked into the sitting-room.

A lady was there, in a travelling dress, a stranger. Fleda's eye took in her outline and feature one moment with a kind of bewilderment, the next with perfect intelligence. If the lady had been in any doubt, Fleda's cheeks alone would have announced her identity. But she came forward without hesitation after the first moment, pulling off her hood, and stood before her visitor, blushing, in a way that perhaps Mrs. Carleton looked at as a novelty in her world. Fleda did not know how she looked at it, but she had, nevertheless, an instinctive feeling, even at the moment, that the lady wondered how her son should have fancied particularly anything that went about under such a hood.

Whatever Mrs. Carleton thought, her son's fancies, she knew, were unmanageable; and she had far too much good breeding to let her thoughts be known unless to one of those curious spirit thermometers that can tell a variation of temperature through every sort of medium. There might have been the slightest want of forwardness to do it, but she embraced Fleda with great cordiality.

"This is for the old time not for the new, dear Fleda," she said. "Do you remember me?"

"Perfectly! very well," said Fleda, giving Mrs. Carleton for a moment a glimpse of her eyes. "I do not easily forget."

"Your look promises me an advantage from that, which I do not deserve, but which I may as well use as another. I want all I can have, Fleda."

There was a half look at the speaker that seemed to deny the truth of that, but Fleda did not otherwise answer. She begged her visitor to sit down, and throwing off the white shawl and black cloak, took tongs in hand, and began to mend the fire. Mrs. Carleton sat considering a moment the figure of the fire- maker, not much regardful of the skill she was bringing to bear upon the sticks of wood.

Fleda turned from the fire to remove her visitor's bonnet and wrappings, but the former was all Mrs. Carleton would give her. She threw off shawl and tippet on the nearest chair.

It was the same Mrs. Carleton of old Fleda saw while this was doing unaltered almost entirely. The fine figure and bearing were the same; time had made no difference; even the face had paid little tribute to the years that had passed by it; and the hair held its own without a change. Bodily and mentally she was the same. Apparently she was thinking the like of Fleda.

"I remember you very well," she said, with kindly accent, when Fleda sat down by her. "I have never forgotten you. A dear little creature you were. I always knew that."

Fleda hoped privately the lady would see no occasion to change her mind; but for the present she was bankrupt in words.

"I was in the same room this morning at Montepoole where we used to dine, and it brought back the whole thing to me the time when you were sick there with us. I could think of nothing else. But I don't think I was your favourite, Fleda."

Such a rush of blood again answered her as moved Mrs. Carleton, in common kindness, to speak of common things. She entered into a long story of her journey of her passage from England of the steamer that brought her of her stay in New York all which Fleda heard very indifferently well. She was more distinctly conscious of the handsome travelling dress, which seemed all the while to look as its wearer had done, with some want of affinity upon the little grey hood which lay on the chair in the corner. Still she listened and responded as became her, though, for the most part, with eyes that did not venture from home. The little hood itself could never have kept its place with less presumption, nor with less flutter of self-distrust.

Mrs. Carleton came at last to a general account of the circumstances that had determined Guy to return home so suddenly, where she was more interesting. She hoped he would not be detained, but it was impossible to tell. It was just as it might happen.

"Are you acquainted with the commission I have been charged with?" she said, when her narrations had at last lapsed into silence, and Fleda's eyes had returned to the ground.

"I suppose so, Ma'am, " said Fleda, with a little smile.

"It is a very pleasant charge" said Mrs. Carleton, softly kissing her cheek. Something in the face itself must have called forth that kiss, for this time there were no requisitions of politeness.

"Do you recognise my commission, Fleda?"

Fleda did not answer. Mrs. Carleton sat a few minutes thoughtfully drawing back the curls from her forehead, Mr. Carleton's very gesture, but not by any means with his fingers; and musing, perhaps, on the possibility of a hood's having very little to do with what it covered.

"Do you know," she said, "I have felt as if I were nearer to Guy since I have seen you."

The quick smile and colour that answered this, both very bright, wrought in Mrs. Carleton an instant recollection that her son was very apt to be right in his judgments, and that probably the present case might prove him so. The hand which had played with Fleda's hair was put round her waist, very affectionately, and Mrs. Carleton drew near her.

"I am sure we shall love each other, Fleda," she said.

It was said like Fleda, not like Mrs. Carleton, and answered as simply. Fleda had gained her place. Her head was in Mrs. Carleton's neck, and welcomed there.

"At least I am sure I shall love you," said the lady, kissing her; "and I don't despair on my own account for somebody else's sake."

"No," said Fleda, but she was not fluent to-day. She sat up and repeated, "I have not forgotten old times either, Mrs. Carleton."

"I don't want to think of the old time I want to think of the new," she seemed to have a great fancy for stroking back those curls of hair; "I want to tell you how happy I am, dear Fleda."

Fleda did not say whether she was happy or unhappy, and her look might have been taken for dubious. She kept her eyes on the ground, while Mrs. Carleton drew the hair off from her flushing cheeks, and considered the face laid bare to her view; and thought it was a fair face a very presentable face delicate and lovely a face that she would have no reason to be ashamed of, even by her son's side. Her speech was not precisely to that effect.

"You know now why I have come upon you at such a time. I need not ask pardon. I felt that I should be hardly discharging my commission if I did not see you till you arrived in New York. My wishes I could have made to wait, but not my trust. So I came."

"I am very glad you did."

She could fain have persuaded the lady to disregard circumstances, and stay with her, at least till the next day, but Mrs. Carleton was unpersuadable. She would return immediately to Montepoole.

"And how long shall you be here now?" she said.

"A few days it will not be more than a week."

"Do you know how soon Mr. Rossitur intends to sail for Jamaica?"

"As soon as possible he will make his stay in New York very short not more than a fortnight, perhaps; as short as he can."

"And then, my dear Fleda, I am to have the charge of you for a little while am I not?"

Fleda hesitated, and began to say, "Thank you," but it was finished with a burst of very hearty tears.

Mrs. Carleton knew immediately the tender spot she had touched. She put her arms about Fleda, and caressed her as gently as her own mother might have done.

"Forgive me, dear Fleda! I forgot that so much that is sad to you must come before what is so much pleasure to me. Look up and tell me that you forgive me."

Fleda soon looked up, but she looked very sorrowful, and said nothing. Mrs. Carleton watched her face for a little while, really pained.

"Have you heard from Guy since he went away?" she whispered.

"No, Ma'am."

"I have."

And therewith she put into Fleda's hand a letter not Mrs. Carleton's letter, as Fleda's first thought was. It had her own name and the seal was unbroken. But it moved Mrs. Carleton's wonder to see Fleda cry again, and longer than before. She did not understand it. She tried soothing, but she ventured no attempt at consoling, for she did not know what was the matter.

"You will let me go now, I know," she said, smilingly, when Fleda was again recovered, and standing before the fire with a face not so sorrowful, Mrs. Carleton saw. "But I must say something I shall not hurt you again."

"O no, you did not hurt me at all it was not what you said."

"You will come to me, dear Fleda? I feel that I want you very much."

"Thank you but there is my uncle Orrin, Mrs. Carleton Dr. Gregory."

"Dr. Gregory? He is just on the eve of sailing for Europe; I thought you knew it."

"On the eve? so soon?"

"Very soon, he told me. Dear Fleda, shall I remind you of my commission, and who gave it to me?"

Fleda hesitated still; at least, she stood looking into the fire, and did not answer.

"You do not own his authority yet," Mrs. Carleton went on; "but I am sure his wishes do not weigh for nothing with you, and I can plead them."

Probably it was a source of some gratification to Mrs. Carleton to see those deep spots on Fleda's cheeks. They were a silent tribute to an invisible presence that flattered the lady's affection or her pride.

"What do you say, dear Fleda to him and to me?" she said, smiling and kissing her.

"I will come, Mrs. Carleton."

The lady was quite satisfied, and departed on the instant, having got, she said, all she wanted; and Fleda cried till her eyes were sore.

The days were few that remained to them in their old home; not more than a week, as Fleda had said. It was the first week in May.

The evening before they were to leave Queechy, Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went together to pay their farewell visit to Hugh's grave. It was some distance off. They walked there arm in arm without a word by the way.

The little country grave-yard lay alone on a hill-side, a good way from any house, and out of sight even of any but a very distant one. A sober and quiet place, no tokens of busy life immediately near, the fields around it being used for pasturing sheep, except an instance or two of winter grain now nearing its maturity. A by-road not much travelled led to the grave-yard, and led off from it over the broken country, following the ups and down of the ground to a long distance away, without a moving thing upon it in sight near or far. No sound of stirring and active humanity. Nothing to touch the perfect repose. But every lesson of the place could be heard more distinctly amid that silence of all other voices. Except, indeed, Nature's voice; that was not silent: and neither did it jar with the other. The very light of the evening fell more tenderly upon the old grey stones and the thick grass in that place.

Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went softly to one spot where the grass was not grown, and where the bright white marble caught the eye and spoke of grief, fresh too. O that that were grey and moss-grown like the others! The mother placed herself where the staring black letters of Hugh's name could not remind her so harshly that it no more belonged to the living; and, sitting down on the ground, hid her face, to struggle through the parting agony once more, with added bitterness.

Fleda stood a while sharing it, for with her too it was the last time in all likelihood. If she had been alone, her grief might have witnessed itself bitterly and uncontrolled: but the selfish relief was foregone, for the sake of another, that it might be in her power by and by to minister to a heart yet sorer and weaker than hers. The tears that fell so quietly and so fast upon the foot of Hugh's grave were all the deeper drawn and richer fraught.

A while she stood there; and then passed round to a group a little way off, that had as dear and strong claims upon her love and memory. These were not fresh, not very; oblivion had not come there yet only Time's softening hand. Was it softening? for Fleda's head was bent down further here, and tears rained faster. It was hard to leave these! The cherished names that from early years had lived in her child's heart from this their last earthly abiding-place she was to part company. Her mother's and her father's graves were there, side by side; and never had Fleda's heart so clung to the old grey stones, never had the faded lettering seemed so dear of the dear names and of the words of faith and hope that were their dying or living testimony. And next to them was her grandfather's resting-place; and with that sunshiny green mound came a throng of strangely tender and sweet associations, more even than with the other two. His gentle, venerable, dignified figure rose before her, and her heart yearned towards it. In imagination Fleda pressed again to her breast the withered hand that had led her childhood so kindly; and overcome here for a little, she kneeled down upon the sod, and bent her head till the long grass almost touched it, in an agony of human sorrow. Could she leave them? and for ever in this world? and be content to see on more these dear memorials till others like them should be raised for herself, far away? But then stole in consolations not human, nor of man's devising the words that were written upon her mother's tombstone

"Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."

It was like the march of angels' feet over the turf. And her mother had been a meek child of faith, and her father and grandfather, though strong men, had bowed like little children to the same rule. Fleda's head bent lower yet, and she wept, even aloud, but it was one-half in pure thankfulness and a joy that the world knows nothing of. Doubtless they and she were one; doubtless, though the grass now covered their graves, the heavenly bond in which they were held would bring them together again in light, to a new and more beautiful life that should know no severing. Asleep in Jesus; and even as he had risen so should they they and others that she loved all whom she loved best. She could leave their graves; and with an unspeakable look of thanks to Him who had brought life and immortality to light, she did; but not till she had there once again remembered her mother's prayer, and her aunt Miriam's words, and prayed that rather anything might happen to her than that prosperity and the world's favour should draw her from the simplicity and humility of a life above the world. Rather than not meet them in joy at the last, oh, let her want what she most wished for in this world!

If riches have their poisonous snares, Fleda carried away from this place a strong antidote. With a spirit strangely simple, pure, and calm, she went back to her aunt.

Poor Mrs. Rossitur was not quieted, but at Fleda's touch and voice, gentle and loving as the spirit of love and gentleness could make them, she tried to rouse herself; lifted up her weary head, and clasped her arms about her niece. The manner of it went to Fleda's heart, for there was in it both a looking to her for support and a clinging to her as another dear thing she was about to lose. Fleda could not speak for the heart-ache.

"It is harder to leave this place than all the rest," Mrs. Rossitur murmured, after some little time had passed on.

"He is not here," said Fleda's soothing voice. It set her aunt to crying again.

"No I know it," she said.

"We shall see him again. Think of that."

"You will," said Mrs. Rossitur, very sadly.

"And so will you, dear aunt Lucy dear aunt Lucy you promised him?"

"Yes" sobbed Mrs. Rossitur "I promised him but I am such a poor creature."

"So poor that Jesus cannot save you? or will not? No, dear aunt Lucy you do not think that; only trust him you do trust him now, do you not?"

A fresh gush of tears came with the answer, but it was in the affirmative; and, after a few minutes, Mrs. Rossitur grew more quiet.

"I wish something were done to this," she said, looking at the fresh earth beside her; "if we could have planted something "

"I have thought of it a thousand times," said Fleda, sighing; "I would have done it long ago if I could have got here; but it doesn't matter, aunt Lucy. I wish I could have done it."

"You?" said Mrs. Rossitur; "my poor child! you have been wearing yourself out working for me. I never was worth anything!" she said, hiding her face again.

"When you have been the dearest and best mother to me? Now that is not right, aunt Lucy look up and kiss me."

The pleading sweet tone of voice was not to be resisted. Mrs. Rossitur looked up and kissed her earnestly enough, but with unabated self-reproach.

"I don't deserve to kiss you, for I have let you try yourself beyond your strength. How you look! Oh, how you look!"

"Never mind how I look," said Fleda, bringing her face so close that her aunt could not see it. "You helped me all you could, aunt Lucy don't talk so and I shall look well enough by and by, I am not so very tired."

"You always were so!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur, clasping her in her arms again: "and now I am going to lose you, too. My dear Fleda! that gives me more pleasure than anything else in the world!"

But it was a pleasure well cried over.

"We shall all meet again, I hope I will hope," said Mrs. Rossitur, meekly, when Fleda had risen from her arms.

"Dear aunty! but before that in England you will come to see me. Uncle Rolf will bring you."

Even then, Fleda could not say even that without the blood mounting to her face. Mrs. Rossitur shook her head, and sighed; but smiled a little, too, as if that delightful chink of possibility let some light in.

"I shouldn't like to see Mr. Carleton now," she said, "for I could not look him in the face; and I am afraid he wouldn't want to look in mine, he would be so angry with me."

The sun was sinking low on that fair May afternoon, and they had two miles to walk to get home. Slowly and lingeringly they moved away.

The talk with her aunt had shaken Fleda's calmness, and she could have cried now with all her heart; but she constrained herself. They stopped a moment at the fence, to look the last before turning their backs upon the place. They lingered, and still Mrs. Rossitur did not move, and Fleda could not take away her eyes.

It was that prettiest time of nature, which, while it shows indeed the shade side of everything, makes it the occasion of a fair contrast. The grave-stones cast long shadows over the ground, foretokens of night where another night was resting already; the longest stretched away from the head of Hugh's grave. But the rays of the setting sun, softly touching the grass and the face of the white tombstone, seemed to say "Thy brother shall rise again!" Light upon the grave! The promise kissing the record of death! It was impossible to look in calmness. Fleda bowed her head upon the paling, and cried with a straitened heart, for grief and gratitude together.

Mrs. Rossitur had not moved when Fleda looked up again. The sun was yet lower the sunbeams, more slant, touched not only that bright white stone they passed on beyond, and carried the promise to those other grey ones, a little further off; that she had left yes, for the last time; and Fleda's thoughts went forward swiftly to the time of the promise "Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then, as she looked, the sunbeams might have been a choir of angels in light, singing, ever so softly, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men."

With a full heart Fleda clasped her aunt's arm, and they went gently down the lane without saying one word to each other, till they had left the grave-yard far behind them and were in the high road again.

Fleda internally thanked Mr. Carleton for what he had said to her on a former occasion, for the thought of his words had given her courage, or strength, to go beyond her usual reserve in speaking to her aunt; and she thought her words had done good.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Use your pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter." MERCHANT OF VENICE.

On the way home, Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda went a trifle out of their road to say good-bye to Mrs. Douglass's family. Fleda had seen her aunt Miriam in the morning, and bid her a conditional farewell; for, as after Mrs. Rossitur's sailing she would be with Mrs. Carleton, she judged it little likely that she should see Queechy again.

They had time for but a minute at Mrs. Douglass's. Mrs. Rossitur had shaken hands, and was leaving the house when Mrs. Douglass pulled Fleda back.

"Be you going to the West Indies, too, Fleda?"

"No, Mrs. Douglass."

"Then why don't you stay here?"

"I want to be with my aunt while I can," said Fleda.

"And then do you calculate to stop in New York?"

"For a while," said Fleda, colouring.

"Oh, go 'long!" said Mrs. Douglass; "I know all about it. Now, do you s'pose you're agoing to be any happier among all those great folks than you would be if you staid among little folks?" she added, tartly; while Catherine looked with a kind of incredulous admiration at the future lady of Carleton.

"I don't suppose that greatness has anything to do with happiness, Mrs. Douglass," said Fleda, gently.

So gently, and so calmly sweet the face was that said it, that Mrs. Douglass's mood was overcome.

"Well, you aint agoing to forget Queechy?" she said, shaking Fleda's hand with a hearty grasp.

"Never never!"

"I'll tell you what I think," said Mrs. Douglass, the tears in her eyes answering those in Fleda's; "it 'll be a happy house that gets you into it, wherever 't is! I only wish it wa'n't out o' Queechy."

Fleda thought on the whole, as she walked home, that she did not wish any such thing. Queechy seemed dismantled, and she thought she would rather go to a new place now that she had taken such a leave of everything here.

Two things remained, however, to be taken leave of the house and Barby. Happily Fleda had little time for the former. It was a busy evening, and the morning would be more busy; she contrived that all the family should go to rest before her, meaning then to have one quiet look at the old rooms by herself a leave-taking that no other eyes should interfere with. She sat down before the kitchen fire-place, but she had hardly realized that she was alone when one of the many doors opened, and Barby's tall figure walked in.

"Here you be," she half whispered. "I knowed there wouldn't be a minute's peace to-morrow; so I thought I'd bid you good-bye to-night."

Fleda gave her a smile and a hand, but did not speak. Barby drew up a chair beside her, and they sat silent for some time, while quiet tears from the eyes of each said a great many things.

"Well, I hope you'll be as happy as you deserve to be," were Barby's first words, in a voice very altered from its accustomed firm and spirited accent.

"Make some better wish for me than that, dear Barby."

"I wouldn't want any better for myself," said Barby, determinately.

"I would for you," said Fleda.

She thought of Mr. Carleton's words again, and went on in spite of herself.

"It is a mistake, Barby. The best of us do not deserve anything good; and if we have the sight of a friend's face, or the very sweet air we breathe, it is because Christ has bought it for us. Don't let us forget that, and forget him."

"I do, always," said Barby, crying, "forget everything. Fleda, I wish you'd pray for me when you are far away, for I aint as good as you be."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, touching her shoulder affectionately, "I haven't waited to be far away to do that."

Barby sobbed for a few minutes, with the strength of a strong nature that rarely gave way in that manner; and then dashed her tears right and left, not at all as if she were ashamed of them, but with a resolution not to be overcome.

"There won't be nothing good left in Queechy, when you're gone, you and Mis' Plumfield without I go and look at the place where Hugh lies "

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, with softening eyes, "won't you be something good yourself?"

Barby put up her hand to shield her face. Fleda was silent, for she saw that strong feeling was at work.

"I wish't I could," Barby broke forth at last, "if it was only for your sake."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, "you can do this for me you can go to church, and hear what Mr. Olmney says. I should go away happier if I thought you would, and if I thought you would follow what he says; for, dear Barby, there is a time coming when you will wish you were a Christian more then you do now, and not for my sake."

"I believe there is, Fleda."

"Then, will you? Won't you give me so much pleasure?"

"I'd do a'most anything to do you a pleasure."

"Then do it, Barby."

"Well, I'll go," said Barby. "But now just think of that, Fleda how you might have stayed in Queechy all your days, and done what you liked with everybody. I'm glad you aint, though; I guess you'll be better off."

Fleda was silent upon that.

"I'd like amazingly to see how you'll be fixed," said Barby, after a trifle of ruminating. "If 't wa'n't for my old mother, I'd be 'most a mind to pull up sticks, and go after you."

"I wish you could, Barby; only I am afraid you would not like it so well there as here."

"Maybe I wouldn't. I s'pect them English folks has ways of their own, from what I've heerd tell; they set up dreadful, don't they?"

"Not all of them," said Fleda.

"No, I don't believe but what I could get along with Mr. Carleton well enough; I never see any one that knowed how to behave himself better."

Fleda gave her a smiling acknowledgment of this compliment.

"He's plenty of money, ha'n't he?"

"I believe so."

"You'll be sot up like a princess, and never have nothing to do no more."

"Oh, no!" said Fleda, laughing; "I expect to have a great deal to do; if I don't find it, I shall make it."

"I guess it 'll be pleasant work," said Barby. "Well, I don't care; you've done work enough since you've lived here that wa'n't pleasant, to play for the rest of your days; and I'm glad on't. I guess he don't hurt himself. You wouldn't stand it much longer to do as you have been doing lately."

"That couldn't be helped," said Fleda; "but that I may stand it to-morrow, I am afraid we must go to bed, Barby."

Barby bade her good-night, and left her; but Fleda's musing mood was gone. She had no longer the desire to call back the reminiscences of the old walls. All that page of her life, she felt, was turned over; and, after a few minutes' quiet survey of the familiar things, without the power of moralizing over them as she could have done half an hour before, she left them, for the next day had no eyes but for business.

It was a trying week or two before Mr. Rossitur and his family were fairly on shipboard. Fleda, as usual, and more than usual with the eagerness of affection that felt its opportunities numbered, and would gladly have concentrated the services of years into days wrought, watched, and toiled, at what expense to her own flesh and blood Mrs. Rossitur never knew, and the others were too busy to guess; but Mrs. Carleton saw the signs of it, and was heartily rejoiced when they were fairly gone and Fleda was committed to her hands.

For days, almost for weeks, after her aunt was gone, Fleda could do little but rest and sleep so great was the weariness of mind and body, and the exhaustion of the animal spirits, which had been kept upon a strain to hide her feelings and support those of others. To the very last moment affection's sweet work had been done; the eye, the voice, the smile, to say nothing of the hands, had been tasked and kept in play to put away recollections, to cheer hopes, to soften the present, to lighten the future; and, hardest of all, to do the whole by her own living example. As soon as the last look and wave of the hand were exchanged, and there was no longer anybody to lean upon her for strength and support, Fleda showed how weak she was, and sank into a state of prostration as gentle and deep almost as an infant's.

As sweet and lovely as a child, too, Mrs. Carleton declared her to be sweet and lovely as she was when a child; and there was no going beyond that. As neither this lady nor Fleda had changed essentially since the days of their former acquaintanceship, it followed that there was still as little in common between them, except, indeed, now the strong ground of affection. Whatever concerned her son concerned Mrs. Carleton in almost equal degree; anything that he valued she valued; and to have a thorough appreciation of him was a sure title to her esteem. The consequence of all this was, that Fleda was now the most precious thing in the world to her after himself; especially since her eyes, sharpened as well as opened by affection, could find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her, personally; country and blood, Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry the strongest wish she had known for years had grown so despairing, that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good- breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back to her old health and strength; and, stripped on a sudden of all her old friends, on this turning-point of her life, her spirits were in that quiet mood that would have felt any jarring most keenly.

The weeks of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the waving tops of green trees and the bright waters of the bay. She used to lie gazing out at the coming and going vessels with a curious fantastic interest in them; they seemed oddly to belong to that piece of her life, and to be weaving the threads of her future fate as they flitted about in all directions before her. In a very quiet, placid mood, not as if she wished to touch one of the threads, she lay watching the bright sails that seemed to carry the shuttle of life to and fro, letting Mrs. Carleton arrange and dispose of everything and of her as she pleased.

She was on her couch as usual, looking out one fair morning, when Mrs. Carleton came in to kiss her and ask how she did. Fleda said, "Better."

"Better! you always say 'better'," said Mrs. Carleton; "but I don't see that you get better very fast. And sober this cheek is too sober," she added, passing her hand fondly over it; "I don't like to see it so."

"That is just the way I have been feeling, Ma'am unable to rouse myself. I should be ashamed of it if I could help it."

"Mrs. Evelyn has been here begging that we would join her in a party to the Springs Saratoga. How would you like that?"

"I should like anything that you would like, Ma'am," said Fleda, with a thought how she would like to read Montepoole for Saratoga.

"The city is very hot and dusty just now."

"Very, and I am sorry to keep you in it, Mrs. Carleton."

"Keep me, love?" said Mrs. Carleton, bending down her face to her again; "it's a pleasure to be kept anywhere by you."

Fleda shut her eyes, for she could hardly bear a little word now.

"I don't like to keep you here; it is not myself I am thinking of. I fancy a change would do you good."

"You are very kind, Ma'am."

"Very interested kindness," said Mrs. Carleton. "I want to see you looking a little better before Guy comes; I am afraid he will look grave at both of us." But as she paused and stroked Fleda's cheek, it came into her mind to doubt the truth of the last assertion, and she ended off with, "I wish he would come!"

So Fleda wished truly; for now, cut off as she was from her old associations, she longed for the presence of the one friend that was to take place of them all.

"I hope we shall hear soon that there is some prospect of his getting free," Mrs. Carleton went on. "He has been gone now how many weeks? I am looking for a letter to-day. And there it is!"

The maid at this moment entered with the steamer despatches. Mrs. Carleton pounced upon the one she knew, and broke it open.

"Here it is! and there is yours, Fleda."

With kind politeness, she went off to read her own, and left Fleda to study hers at her leisure. An hour after she came in again. Fleda's face was turned from her.

"Well, what does he say?" she asked in a lively tone.

"I suppose, the same he has said to you, Ma'am," said Fleda.

"I don't suppose it, indeed," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "He has given me sundry charges, which, if he has given you, it is morally certain we shall never come to an understanding."

"I have received no charges," said Fleda.

"I am directed to be very careful to find out your exact wish in the matter, and to let you follow no other. So what is it, my sweet Fleda?"

"I promised," said Fleda, colouring and turning her letter over. But there she stopped.

"Whom, and what?" said Mrs. Carleton, after she had waited a reasonable time.

"Mr. Carleton."

"What did you promise, my dear Fleda?"

"That I would do as he said."

"But he wishes you to do as you please."

Fleda brought her eyes quick out of Mrs. Carleton's view, and was silent.

"What do you say, dear Fleda?" said the lady, taking her hand and bending over her.

"I am sure we shall be expected," said Fleda. "I will go."

"You are a darling girl!" said Mrs. Carleton, kissing her again and again. "I will love you for ever for that. And I am sure it will be the best thing for you the sea will do you good and ne vous en dplaise, our own home is pleasanter just now than this dusty town. I will write by this steamer and tell Guy we will be there by the next. He will have everything in readiness, I know, at all events; and in half an hour after you get there, my dear Fleda, you will be established in all your rights as well as if it had been done six months before. Guy will know how to thank you. But, after all, Fleda, you might do him this grace considering how long he has been waiting upon you."

Something in Fleda's eyes induced Mrs. Carleton to say, laughing

"What's the matter?"

"He never waited for me," said Fleda, simply.

"Didn't he? But, my dear Fleda!" said Mrs. Carleton, in amused extremity "how long is it since you knew what he came out here for?"

"I don't know now, Ma'am," said Fleda. But she became angelically rosy the next minute.

"He never told you?"

"No."

"And you never asked him?"

"Why, no, Ma'am!"

"He will be well suited in a wife," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "But he can have no objection to your knowing now, I suppose. He never told me but at the latest. You must know, Fleda, that it has been my wish for a great many years that Guy would marry and I almost despaired, he was so difficult to please his taste in everything is so fastidious; but I am glad of it now," she added, kissing Fleda's cheek. "Last spring not this last, but a year ago one evening at home I was talking to him on this subject; but he met everything I said lightly you know his way and I saw my words took no hold. I asked him at last in a kind of desperation, if he supposed there was a woman in the world that could please him; and he laughed, and said, if there was, he was afraid she was not in that hemisphere. And a day or two after he told me he was going to America."

"Did he say for what?"

"No; but I guessed, as soon as I found he was prolonging his stay, and I was sure when he wrote me to come out to him. But I never knew till I landed, Fleda, my dear, any more than that. The first question I asked him was who he was going to introduce to me."

The interval was short to the next steamer, but also the preparations were few. A day or two after the foregoing conversation, Constance Evelyn coming into Fleda's room, found her busy with some light packing.

"My dear little creature!" she exclaimed ecstatically, "are you going with us?"

"No," said Fleda.

"Where are you going, then?"

"To England."

"England? Has I mean, is there any addition to my list of acquaintances in the city?"

"Not that I know of," said Fleda, going on with her work.

"And you are going to England! Greenhouses will be a desolation to me! "

"I hope not," said Fleda, smiling; "you will recover yourself, and your sense of sweetness, in time."

"It will have nothing to act upon! And you are going to England! I think it is very mean of you not to ask me to go too, and be your bridesmaid."

"I don't expect to have such a thing," said Fleda.

"Not? Horrid! I wouldn't be married so, Fleda. You don't know the world, little Queechy; the art de vous faire valoir, I am afraid, is unknown to you."

"So it may remain with my good will," said Fleda.

"Why?" said Constance.

"I have never felt the want of it," said Fleda, simply.

"When are you going?" said Constance, after a minute's pause.

"By the 'Europa.' "

"But this is a very sudden move?"

"Yes; very sudden."

"I should think you would want a little time to make preparations."

"That is all happily taken off my hands," said Fleda. "Mrs. Carleton has written to her sister in England to take care of it for me."

"I didn't know that Mrs. Carleton had a sister. What's her name?"

"Lady Peterborough."

Constance was silent again.

"What are you going to do about mourning, Fleda? wear white, I suppose. As nobody there knows anything about you, you won't care."

"I do not care in the least," said Fleda, calmly; "my feeling would quite as soon choose white as black. Mourning so often goes alone, that I should think grief might be excused for shunning its company."

"And as you have not put it on yet," said Constance, "you won't feel the change. And then, in reality, after all, he was only a cousin."

Fleda's quiet mood, sober and tender as it was, could go to a certain length of endurance, but this asked too much. Dropping the things from her hands, she turned from the trunk beside which she was kneeling, and hiding her face on a chair, wept such tears as cousins never shed for each other. Constance was startled and distressed; and Fleda's quick sympathy knew that she must be, before she could see it.

"You needn't mind it at all, dear Constance," she said, as soon as she could speak "it's no matter I am in such a mood sometimes that I cannot bear anything. Don't think of it," she said, kissing her.

Constance, however, could not for the remainder of her visit get back her wonted light mood, which indeed had been singularly wanting to her during the whole interview.

Mrs. Carleton counted the days to the steamer, and her spirits rose with each one. Fleda's spirits were quiet to the last degree, and passive too passive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. She felt, with all Mrs. Carleton's kindness, that she was completely alone, with no one on her side the ocean to look to; and glad to be relieved from taking active part in anything, she made her little Bible her companion for the greater part of the time.

"Are you going to carry that sober face all the way to Carleton?" said Mrs. Carleton one day pleasantly.

"I don't know, Ma'am."

"What do you suppose Guy will think of it?"

But the thought of what he would think of it, and what he would say to it, and how fast he would brighten it, made Fleda burst into tears. Mrs. Carleton resolved to talk to her no more, but to get her home as fast as possible.

"I have one consolation," said Charlton Rossitur, as he shook hands with her on board the steamer; "I have received permission, from head-quarters, to come and see you in England; and to that I shall look forward constantly from this time."

CHAPTER XXVII.

"The full sum of me Is sum of something; which to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd: Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; and happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed, As from her lord, her governor, her king." MERCHANT OF VENICE.

They had a very speedy passage to the other side, and partly in consequence of that Mr. Carleton was not found waiting for them in Liverpool. Mrs. Carleton would not tarry there, but hastened down at once to the country, thinking to be at home before the news of their arrival.

It was early morning of one fair day in July when they were at last drawing near the end of their journey. They would have reached it the evening before but for a storm which had constrained them to stop and wait over the night at a small town about eight miles off. For fear, then, of passing Guy on the road, his mother sent a servant before, and, making an extraordinary exertion, was actually herself in the carriage by seven o'clock.

Nothing could be fairer than that early drive, if Fleda might have enjoyed it in peace. The sweet morning air was exceeding sweet, and the summer light fell upon a perfect luxuriance of green things. Out of the carriage Fleda's spirits were at home, but not within it; and it was sadly irksome to be obliged to hear and respond to Mrs. Carleton's talk, which was kept up, she knew, in the charitable intent to divert her. She was just in a state to listen to nature's talk; to the other she attended and replied with a patient longing to be left free that she might steady and quiet herself. Perhaps Mrs. Carleton's tact discovered this in the matter-of-course and uninterested manner of her rejoinders; for, as they entered the park-gates, she became silent, and the long drive from them to the house was made without a word on either side.

For a length of way the road was through a forest of trees of noble growth, which in some places closed their arms overhead, and in all sentinelled the path in stately array. The eye had no scope beyond the ranks of this magnificent body; Carleton park was celebrated for its trees; but magnificent though they were, and dearly as Fleda loved every form of forest beauty she felt oppressed. The eye forbidden to range, so was the mind, shut in to itself; and she only felt under the gloom and shadow of those great trees the shadow of the responsibilities and of the change that were coming upon her. But after a while the ranks began to be thinned and the ground to be broken; the little touches of beauty with which the sun had enlivened the woodland began to grow broader and cheerfuller; and then as the forest scattered away to the right and left, gay streams of light came through the glades and touched the surface of the rolling ground, where, in the hollows, on the heights, on the sloping sides of the dingles, knots of trees of yet more luxuriant and picturesque growth, planted or left by the cultivator's hand long ago, and trained by no hand but nature's, stood so as to distract a painter's eye; and just now, in the fresh gilding of the morning, and with all the witchery of the long shadows upon the uneven ground, certainly charmed Fleda's eye and mind both. Fancy was dancing again, albeit with one hand upon gravity's shoulder, and the dancing was a little nervous too. But she looked and caught her breath as she looked, while the road led along the very edge of a dingle, and then was lost in a kind of enchanted open woodland it seemed so and then passing through a thicket came out upon a broad sweep of green turf that wiled the eye by its smooth facility to the distant screen of oaks and beeches and firs on its far border. It was all new. Fleda's memory had retained only an indistinct vision of beauty, like the face of an angel in a cloud as painters have drawn it; now came out the beautiful features one after another, as if she had never seen them.

So far nature had seemed to stand alone. But now another hand appeared; not interfering with nature, but adding to her. The road came upon a belt of the shrubbery where the old tenants of the soil were mingled with lighter and gayer companionship, and in some instances gave it place, though in general the mingling was very graceful. There was never any crowding of effects; it seemed all nature still, only as if several climes had joined together to grace one. Then that was past; and over smooth undulating ground, bearing a lighter growth of foreign wood, with here and there a stately elm or ash that disdained their rivalry, the carriage came under the brown walls and turrets of the house. Fleda's mood had changed again, and, as the grave outlines rose above her, half remembered, and all the more for that imposing, she trembled at the thought of what she had come there to do and to be. She felt very nervous and strange and out of place, and longed for the familiar face and voice that would bid her be at home. Mrs. Carleton, now, was not enough of a stand-by. With all that, Fleda descended from the carriage with her usual quiet demureness; no one that did not know her well would have seen in her any other token of emotion than a somewhat undue and wavering colour.

They were welcomed, at least one of them was, with every appearance of sincerity by the most respectable-looking personage who opened to them, and whom Fleda remembered instantly. The array of servants in the hall would almost have startled her if she had not recollected the same thing on her first coming to Carleton. She stepped in with a curious sense of that first time, when she had come there a little child.

"Where is your master?" was Mrs. Carleton's immediate demand.

"Mr. Carleton set off this morning for Liverpool."

Mrs. Carleton gave a quick glance at Fleda, who kept her eyes at home.

"We did not meet him we have not passed him how long ago?" were her next rapid words.

"My master left Carleton as early as five o'clock; he gave orders to drive as fast as possible."

"Then he had gone through Hollonby an hour before we left it," said Mrs. Carleton, looking again to her companion; "but he will hear of us at Carstairs we stopped there yesterday afternoon he will be back again in a few hours, I am sure. Then we have been expected?"

"Yes Ma'am my master gave orders that you should be expected."

"Is all well, Popham?"

"All is well, Madam."

"Is Lady Peterborough here?"

"His Lordship and Lady Peterborough arrived the day before yesterday," was the succinct reply.

Drawing Fleda's arm within hers, and giving kind recognition to the rest who stood around, Mrs. Carleton led her to the stairs and mounted them, repeating in a whisper, "He will be here presently again." They went to Mrs. Carleton's dressing- room, Fleda wondering in an internal fever, whether "orders had been given" to expect her also? from the old butler's benign look at her, as he said, "All is well!" she could not help thinking it. If she maintained her outward quiet, it was the merest external crust of seeming; there was nothing like quiet beneath it; and Mrs. Carleton's kiss and fond words of welcome were hardly composing.

Mrs. Carleton made her sit down, and with very gentle hands was busy arranging her hair, when the housekeeper came in to pay her more particular respects, and to offer her services. Fleda hardly ventured a glance to see whether she looked benign. She was a dignified elderly person, as stately and near as handsome as Mrs. Carleton herself.

"My dear Fleda," said the latter, when she had finished the hair, "I am going to see my sister; will you let Mrs. Fothergill help you in anything you want, and take you then to the library you will find no one, and I will come to you there. Mrs. Fothergill, I recommend you to the particular care of this lady."

The recommendation was not needed, Fleda thought, or was very effectual; the housekeeper served her with most assiduous care, and in absolute silence. Fleda hurried the finishing of her toilet.

"Are the people quiet in the country?" she forced herself to say.

"Perfectly quiet, Ma'am. It needed only that my master should be at home to make them so."

"How is that?"

"He has their love and their ear, Ma'am, and so it is that he can just do his pleasure with them."

"How is it in the neighbouring country?"

"They're quiet, Ma'am, I believe mostly there's been some little disturbance in one place and another, and more fear of it, as well as I can make out, but it's well got over, as it appears. The noblemen and gentlemen in the country around were very glad, all of them, I am told, of Mr. Carleton's return. Is there nothing more I can do for you, Ma'am?"

The last question was put with an indefinable touch of kindliness which had not softened the respect of her first words. Fleda begged her to show the way to the library, which Mrs. Fothergill immediately did, remarking, as she ushered her in, that "those were Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms."

Fleda did not need to be told that; she put the remark and the benignity together, and drew a nervous inference. But Mrs. Fothergill was gone, and she was alone. Nobody was there, as Mrs. Carleton had said.

Fleda stood still in the middle of the floor, looking around her, in a bewildered effort to realize the past and the present; with all the mind in the world to cry, but there was too great a pressure of excitement, and too much strangeness of feeling at work. Nothing before her, in the dimly familiar place, served at all to lessen this feeling, and, recovering from her maze, she went to one of the glazed doors, which stood open, and turned her back upon the room with its oppressive recollections. Her eye lighted upon nothing that was not quiet now. A secluded piece of smooth green, partially bordered with evergreens, and set with light shrubbery of rare kinds, exquisitely kept; over against her a sweetbriar that seemed to have run wild, indicating, Fleda was sure, the entrance of the path to the rose garden, that her memory alone would hardly have helped her to find. All this in the bright early summer morning, and the sweet aromatic smell of firs and flowers coming with every breath. There were draughts of refreshment in the air. It composed her, and drinking it in delightedly, Fleda stood with folded arms in the doorway, half forgetting herself and her position, and going in fancy from the firs and the roses, over a very wide field of meditation indeed. So lost that she started fearfully on suddenly becoming aware that a figure had come just beside her.

It was an elderly and most gentlemanly-looking man, as a glance made her know. Fleda was reassured and ashamed in a breath. The gentleman did not notice her confusion, however, otherwise than by a very pleasant and well-bred smile, and immediately entered into some light remarks on the morning, the place, and the improvements Mr. Carleton had made in the latter. Though he said the place was one of those which could bear very well to want improvement; but Carleton was always finding something to do which excited his admiration.

"Landscape gardening is one of the pleasantest of amusements," said Fleda.

"I have just knowledge enough in the matter to admire; to originate any ideas is beyond me; I have to depend for them upon my gardener and my wife, and so I lose a pleasure, I suppose; but every man has his own particular hobby. Carleton, however, has more than his share he has half a dozen, I think."

"Half a dozen hobbies!" said Fleda.

"Perhaps I should not call them hobbies, for he manages to ride them all skilfully; and a hobby-horse, I believe, always runs away with a man."

Fleda could hardly return his smile. She thought people were possessed with an unhappy choice of subjects in talking to her that morning. But fancying that she had very ill kept up her part in the conversation, and must have looked like a simpleton, she forced herself to break the silence which followed the last remark, and asked the same question she had asked Mrs. Fothergill if the country was quiet?

"Outwardly quiet," he said; "O yes there is no more difficulty that is, none which cannot easily be handled. There was some danger a few months ago, but it is blown over; all was quiet on Carleton's estates so soon as he was at home, and that, of course, had great influence on the neighbourhood. No, there is nothing to be apprehended. He has the hearts of his people completely, and one who has their hearts can do what he pleases with their heads, you know. Well, he deserves it he has done a great deal for them."

Fleda was afraid to ask in what way; but perhaps he read the question in her eyes.

"That's one of his hobbies ameliorating the condition of the poorer classes on his estates. He has given himself to it for some years back; he has accomplished a great deal for them a vast deal indeed! He has changed the face of things, mentally and morally, in several places, with his adult schools, and agricultural systems, and I know not what; but the most powerful means, I think, after all, has been the weight of his personal influence, by which he can introduce and carry through any measure; neither ignorance, nor prejudice, nor obstinacy, seem to make head against him. It requires a peculiar combination of qualities, I think very peculiar and rare to deal successfully with the mind of the masses."

"I should think so, indeed," said Fleda.

"He has it I don't comprehend it and I have not studied his machinery enough to understand that; but I have seen the effects. Never should have thought he was the kind of man either but there it is I don't comprehend him. There is only one fault to be found with him, though."

"What is that?" said Fleda, smiling.

"He has built a fine Dissenting chapel down here towards Hollonby," he said, gravely, looking her in the face "and, what is yet worse, his uncle tells me, he goes there half the time himself."

Fleda could not help laughing, nor colouring, at his manner.

"I thought it was always considered a meritorious action to build a church," she said.

"Indubitably. But you see, this was a chapel."

The laugh and the colour both grew more unequivocal Fleda could not help it.

"I beg your pardon, Sir I have not learned such nice distinctions. Perhaps a chapel was wanted just in that place."

"That is presumable. But he might be wanted somewhere else. However," said the gentleman, with a good-humoured smile "his uncle forgives him; and if his mother cannot influence him, I am afraid nobody else will. There is no help for it. And I should be very sorry to stand ill with him. I have given you the dark side of his character."

"What is the other side in the contrast?" said Fleda, wondering at herself for her daring.

"It is not for me to say," he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders and an amused glance at her; "I suppose it depends upon people's vision but if you will permit me, I will instance a bright spot that was shown to me the other day, that I confess, when I look at it, dazzles my eyes a little."

Fleda only bowed; she dared not speak again.

"There was a poor fellow the son of one of Mr. Carleton's old tenants down here at Enchapel who was under sentence of death, lying in prison at Carstairs. The father, I am told, is an excellent man, and a good tenant; the son had been a miserable scapegrace, and now for some crime I forget what had at last been brought to justice. The evidence against him was perfect, and the offence was not trifling; there was not the most remote chance of a pardon, but it seemed the poor wretch had been building up his dependence upon that hope, and was resting on it; and, consequently, was altogether indisposed and unfit to give his attention to the subjects that his situation rendered proper for him.

"The gentleman who gave me this story was requested by a brother clergyman to go with him to visit the prisoner. They found him quite stupid unmovable by all that could be urged, or rather, perhaps, the style of the address, as it was described to me, was fitted to confound find bewilder the man rather than enlighten him. In the midst of all this, Mr. Carleton came in he was just then on the wing for America, and he had heard of the poor creature's condition in a visit to his father. He came my informant said like a being of a different planet. He took the man's hand he was chained foot and wrist 'My poor friend,' he said, 'I have been thinking of you here, shut out from the light of the sun, and I thought you might like to see the face of a friend;' with that singular charm of manner which he knows how to adapt to everybody and every occasion. The man was melted at once at his feet, as it were he could do anything with him. Carleton began then, quietly, to set before him the links in the chain of evidence which had condemned him one by one in such a way as to prove to him, by degrees, but irresistibly, that he had no hope in this world. The man was perfectly subdued sat listening and looking into those powerful eyes that perhaps you know taking in all his words, and completely in his hand. And then Carleton went on to bring before him the considerations that he thought should affect him in such a case, in a way that this gentleman said was indescribably effective and winning; till that hardened creature was broken down sobbing like a child actually sobbing!"

Fleda did her best, but she was obliged to hide her face in her hands, let what would be thought of her.

"It was the finest exhibition of eloquence, this gentleman said, he had ever listened to. For me it was an exhibition of another kind. I would have believed such an account of few men, but of all the men I know I would least have believed it of Guy Carleton a few years ago; even now I can hardly believe it. But it is a thing that would do honour to any man."

Fleda felt that the tears were making their way between her fingers, but she could not help it; and she presently knew that her companion had gone, and she was left alone again. Who was this gentleman? and how much did he know about her? More than that she was a stranger, Fleda was sure; and dreading his return, or that somebody else might come and find her with the tokens of tears upon her face, she stepped out upon the greensward, and made for the flaunting sweet-briar that seemed to beckon her to visit its relations.