"We've had first rate weather," he said;--"I don't want to see no better weather for sugar-makin'; it's as good kind o' weather as you need to have. It friz everythin' up tight in the night, and it thew in the sun this mornin' as soon as the sun was anywhere; the trees couldn't do no better than they have done. I guess we ha'n't got much this side o' two hundred gallon--I ain't sure about it, but that's what I think; and there's nigh two hundred gallon we've fetched down; I'll qualify to better than a hundred and fifty, or a hundred and sixty either. We should ha' had more yet if Mr. Skillcorn hadn't managed to spill over one cask of it--I reckon he wanted it for sass for his chicken."
"Now, Mr. Douglass!"--said Philetus, in a comical tone of deprecation.
"It is an uncommonly fine lot of sugar trees," said the doctor, "and they stand so on the ground as to give great felicities to the oxen."
"Now, Fleda," Earl went on, busy all the while with his iron ladle in dipping the boiling sap from one kettle into the other,--"you know how this is fixed when we've done all we've got to do with it?--it must be strained out o' this biler into a cask or a tub or somethin' 'nother,--anythin' that'll hold it,--and stand a day or so;--you may strain it through a cotton cloth, or through a woollen cloth, or through any kind of a cloth!--and let it stand to settle; and then when it's biled down--Barby knows about bilin' down--you can tell when it's comin' to the sugar when the yellow blobbers rises thick to the top and puffs off, and then it's time to try it in cold water,--it's best to be a leetle the right side o' the sugar and stop afore it's done too much, for the molasses will dreen off afterwards--"
"It must be clarified in the commencement," put in the doctor.
"O' course it must be clarified," said Earl,--"Barby knows about clarifyin'--that's when you first put it on--you had ought to throw in a teeny drop o' milk fur to clear it,--milk's as good as a'most anything,--or if you can get it calf's blood's better "--
"Eggs would be a more preferable ingredient on the present occasion, I presume," said the doctor. "Miss Ringgan's delicacy would be--a--would shrink from--a--and the albumen of eggs will answer all the same purpose."
"Well anyhow you like to fix it," said Earl,--"eggs or calf's blood--I won't quarrel with you about the eggs, though I never heerd o' blue ones afore, 'cept the robin's and bluebird's--and I've heerd say the swamp black bird lays a handsome blue egg, but I never happened to see the nest myself;--and there's the chippin' sparrow,--but you'd want to rob all the birds' nests in creation to get enough of 'em, and they ain't here in sugar time, nother; but anyhow any eggs'll do I s'pose if you can get 'em--or milk'll do if you ha'n't nothin' else--and after it is turned out into the barrel you just let it stand still a spell till it begins to grain and look clean on top"--
"May I suggest an improvement?" said the doctor. "Many persons are of the opinion that if you take and stir it up well from the bottom for a length of time it will help the coagulation of the particles. I believe that is the practice of Mr. Plumfield and others."
"'Tain't the practice of as good men as him and as good sugar-bilers, besides," said Earl; "though I don't mean to say nothin' agin Seth Plumfield nor agin his sugar, for the both is as good as you'd need to have; he's a good man and he's a good farmer--there ain't no better man in town than Seth Plumfield, nor no better farmer, nor no better sugar nother; but I hope there's as good; and I've seen as handsome sugar that wa'n't stirred as I'd want to see or eat either."
"It would lame a man's arms the worst kind!" said Philetus.
Fleda stood listening to the discussion and smiling, when Hugh suddenly wheeling about brought her face to face with Mr. Olmney.
"I have been sitting some time with Mrs. Rossitur," he said, "and she rewarded me with permission to come and look at you. I mean!--not that I wanted a reward, for I certainly did not--"
"Ah Mr. Olmney!" said Fleda laughing, "you are served right. You see how dangerous it is to meddle with such equivocal things as compliments. But we are worth looking at, aren't we? I have been standing here this half hour."
He did not say this time what he thought.
"Pretty, isn't it?" said Fleda. "Stand a little further back, Mr. Olmney--isn't it quite a wild-looking scene, in that peculiar light and with the snowy background? Look at Philetus now with that bundle of sticks--Hugh! isn't he exactly like some of the figures in the old pictures of the martyrdoms, bringing billets to feed the fire?--that old martyrdom of St. Lawrence--whose was it--Spagnoletto!--at Mrs. Decatur's--don't you recollect? It is fine, isn't it, Mr. Olmney?"
"I am afraid," said he shaking his head a little, "my eye wants training. I have not been once in your company I believe without your shewing me something I could not see."
"That young lady, sir," said Dr. Quackenboss from the far side of the fire, where he was busy giving it more wood,--"that young lady, sir, is a pattron to her--a--to all young ladies."
"A patron!" said Mr. Olmney.
"Passively, not actively, the doctor means," said Fleda softly.
"Well I won't say but she's a good girl," said Mr. Douglass in an abstracted manner, busy with his iron ladle,--"she means to be a good girl--she's as clever a girl as you need to have!"
Nobody's gravity stood this, excepting Philetus, in whom the principle of fun seemed not to be developed.
"Miss Ringgan, sir," Dr. Quackenboss went on with a most benign expression of countenance,--"Miss Ringgan, sir, Mr. Olmney, sets an example to all ladies who--a--have had elegant advantages. She gives her patronage to the agricultural interest in society."
"Not exclusively, I hope?" said Mr. Olmney smiling, and making the question with his eye of Fleda. But she did not meet it.
"You know," she said rather quickly, and drawing back from the fire, "I am of an agricultural turn perforce--in uncle Rolf's absence I am going to be a farmer myself."
"So I have heard--so Mrs. Rossitur told me,--but I fear--pardon me--you do not look fit to grapple with such a burden of care."
Hugh sighed, and Fleda's eyes gave Mr. Olmney a hint to be silent.
"I am not going to grapple with any thing, sir; I intend to take things easily."
"I wish I could take an agricultural turn too," said he smiling, "and be of some service to you."
"O I shall have no lack of service," said Fleda gayly;--"I am not going unprovided into the business. There is my cousin Seth Plumfield, who has engaged himself to be my counsellor and instructor in general; I could not have a better; and Mr. Douglass is to be my right hand; I occupying only the quiet and unassuming post of the will, to convey the orders of the head to the hand. And for the rest, sir, there is Philetus!"
Mr. Olmney looked, half laughing, at Mr. Skillcorn, who was at that moment standing with his hands on his sides, eying with concentrated gravity the movements of Earl Douglass and the doctor.
"Don't shake your head at him!" said Fleda. "I wish you had come an hour earlier, Mr. Olmney."
"Why?"
"I was just thinking of coming out here," said Fleda, her eyes flashing with hidden fun,--"and Hugh and I were both standing in the kitchen, when we heard a tremendous shout from the woodyard. Don't laugh, or I can't go on. We all ran out, towards the lantern which we saw standing there, and so soon as we got near we heard Philetus singing out, 'Ho, Miss Elster!--I'm dreadfully on't!'--Why he called upon Barby I don't know, unless from some notion of her general efficiency, though to be sure he was nearer her than the sap-boilers and perhaps thought her aid would come quickest. And he was in a hurry, for the cries came thick--'Miss Elster!--here!--I'm dreadfully on't'--"
"I don't understand--"
"No," said Fleda, whose amusement seemed to be increased by the gentleman's want of understanding,--"and neither did we till we came up to him. The silly fellow had been sent up for more wood, and splitting a log he had put his hand in to keep the cleft, instead of a wedge, and when he took out the axe the wood pinched him; and he had the fate of Milo before his eyes, I suppose, and could do nothing but roar. You should have seen the supreme indignation with which Barby took the axe and released him with 'You're a smart man, Mr. Skillcorn!'"
"What was the fate of Milo?" said Mr. Olmney presently.
"Don't you remember,--the famous wrestler that in his old age trying to break open a tree found himself not strong enough; and the wood closing upon his hands held him fast till the wild beasts came and made an end of him. The figure of our unfortunate wood-cutter though, was hardly so dignified as that of the old athlete in the statue.--Dr. Quackenboss, and Mr. Douglass,--you will come in and see us when this troublesome business is done?"
"It'll be a pretty spell yet," said Earl;--"but the doctor, he can go in,--he ha'n't nothin' to do. It don't take more'n half a dozen men to keep one pot a bilin'."
"Ain't there ten on 'em, Mr. Douglass?" said Philetus.
He that has light within his own clear breast,May sit i' the centre and enjoy bright day.
He that has light within his own clear breast,May sit i' the centre and enjoy bright day.
Milton.
Milton.
The farming plan succeeded beyond Fleda's hopes; thanks not more to her wisdom than to the nice tact with which the wisdom was brought into play. The one was eked out with Seth Plumfield's; the other was all her own. Seth was indefatigably kind and faithful. After his own day's work was done he used to walk down to see Fleda, go with her often to view the particular field or work just then in question, and give her the best counsel dictated by great sagacity and great experience. It was given too with equal frankness and intelligence, so that Fleda knew the steps she took and could maintain them against the prejudice or the ignorance of her subordinates. But Fleda's delicate handling stood her yet more in stead than her strength. Earl Douglass was sometimes unmanageable, and held out in favour of an old custom or a prevailing opinion in spite of all the weight of testimony and light of discovery that could be brought to bear upon him. Fleda would let the thing go. But seizing her opportunity another time she would ask him to try the experiment, on a piece of the ground; so pleasantly and skilfully that Earl could do nothing but shut his mouth and obey, like an animal fairly stroked into good humour. And as Fleda always forgot to remind him that she had been right and he wrong, he forgot it too, and presently took to the new way kindly. In other matters he could be depended on, and the seed-time and harvest prospered well. There was hope of making a good payment to Dr. Gregory in the course of a few months.
As the spring came forward Fleda took care that her garden should,--both gardens indeed. There she and Philetus had the game in their own hands, and beautifully it was managed. Hugh had full occupation at the mill. Many a dollar this summer was earned by the loads of fine fruit and vegetables which Philetus carried to Montepoole; and accident opened a new source of revenue. When the courtyard was in the full blaze of its beauty, one day an admiring passer-by modestly inquired if a few of those exquisite flowers might be had for money. They were given him most cheerfully that time; but the demand returned, accompanied by the offer, and Fleda obliged herself not to decline it. A trial it was to cut her roses and jessamines for anything but her own or her friends' pleasure, but according to custom she bore it without hesitation. The place became a resort for all the flower-lovers who happened to be staying at the Pool; and rose-leaves were changed into silver pennies as fast as in a fairy-tale.
But the delicate mainspring that kept all this machinery in order suffered from too severe a strain. There was too much running, too much considering, too much watchfulness. In the garden pulling peas and seeing that Philetus weeded the carrots right,--in the field or the woodyard consulting and arranging or maybe debating with Earl Douglass, who acquired by degrees an unwonted and concentrated respect for womankind in her proper person; breakfast waiting for her often before she came in; in the house her old housewifery concerns, her share in Barby's cares or difficulties, her sweet countenancing and cheering of her aunt, her dinner, her work;--then when evening came, budding her roses or tying her carnations or weeding or raking the ground between them, (where Philetus could do nothing,) or training her multiflora and sweet-briar branches;--and then often after all, walking up to the mill to give Hugh a little earlier a home smile and make his way down pleasant. No wonder if the energies which owed much of their strength to love's nerving, should at last give out, and Fleda's evening be passed in wearied slumbers. No wonder if many a day was given up to the forced quietude of a headache, the more grievous to Fleda because she knew that her aunt and Hugh always found the day dark that was not lightened by her sunbeam. How brightly it shone out the moment the cloud of pain was removed, winning the shadow from their faces and a smile to their lips, though solitude always saw her own settle into a gravity as fixed as it was soft.
"You have been doing too much, Fleda," said Mrs. Rossitur one morning when she came in from the garden.
"I didn't know it would take me so long," said Fleda drawing a long breath;--"but I couldn't help it. I had those celery plants to prick out,--and then I was helping Philetus to plant another patch of corn."
"He might have done that without help I should think."
"But it must be put in to-day, and he had other things to do."
"And then you were at your flowers?--"
"O well!--budding a few roses--that's only play. It was time they were done. But Iamtired; and I am going up to see Hugh--it will rest me and him too."
The gardening frock and gloves were exchanged for those of ordinary wear, and Fleda set off slowly to go up to the saw-mill.
She stopped a moment when she came upon the bridge, to look off to the right where the waters of the little run came hurrying along through a narrow wooded chasm in the hill, murmuring to her of the time when a little child's feet had paused there and a child's heart danced to its music. The freshness of its song was unchanged, the glad rush of its waters was as joyous as ever, but the spirits were quieted that used to answer it with sweeter freshness and lighter joyousness. Its faint echo of the old-time laugh was blended now in Fleda's ear with a gentle wail for the rushing days and swifter fleeing delights of human life;--gentle, faint, but clear,--she could hear it very well. Taking up her walk again with a step yet slower and a brow yet more quiet, she went on till she came in sight of the little mill; and presently above the noise of the brook could hear the saw going. To her childish ears what a signal of pleasure that had always been; and now,--she sighed, and stopping at a little distance looked for Hugh. He was there; she saw him in a moment going forward to stop the machinery, the piece of timber in hand having walked its utmost length up to the saw; she saw him throwing aside the new-cut board, and adjusting what was left till it was ready for another march up to headquarters. When it stopped the second time Fleda went forward. Hugh must have been busy in his own thoughts, for he did not see her until he had again adjusted the log and set the noisy works in motion. She stood still. Several huge timbers lay close by, ready for the saw; and on one of them where he had been sitting Fleda saw his Bible lying open. As her eye went from it to him it struck her heart with a pang that he looked tired and that there was a something of delicacy, even of fragility, in the air of face and figure both.
He came to meet her and welcomed her with a smile that coming upon this feeling set Fleda's heart a quivering. Hugh's smile was always one of very great sweetness, though never unshadowed; there was often something ethereal in its pure gentleness. This time it seemed even sweeter than usual, but though not sadder, perhaps less sad, Fleda could hardly command herself to reply to it. She could not at the moment speak; her eye glanced at his open book.
"Yes, it rests me," he said, answering her.
"Rests you, dear Hugh!--"
He smiled again. "Here is somebody else that wants resting, I am afraid," said he, placing her gently on the log; and before she had found anything to say he went off again to his machinery. Fleda sat looking at him and trying to clear her bosom of its thick breathing.
"What has brought you up here through the hot sun?" said he, coming back after he had stopped the saw, and sitting down beside her.
Fleda's lip moved nervously and her eye shunned meeting his. Softly pushing back the wet hair from his temples, she said,
"I had one of my fits of doing nothing at home--I didn't feel very bright and thought perhaps you didn't,--so on the principle that two negatives make an affirmative--"
"I feel bright," said Hugh gently.
Fleda's eye came down to his, which was steady and clear as the reflection of the sky in Deepwater lake,--and then hers fell lower.
"Why don't you, dear Fleda?"
"I believe I am a little tired," Fleda said, trying but in vain to command herself and look up,--"and there are states of body when anything almost is enough to depress one--"
"And what depresses you now?" said he, very steadily and quietly.
"O--I was feeling a little down about things in general," said Fleda in a choked voice, trying to throw off her load with a long breath;--"it's because I am tired, I suppose--"
"I felt so too, a little while ago," said Hugh. "But I have concluded to give all that up, Fleda."
Fleda looked at him. Her eyes were swimming full, but his were clear and gentle as ever, only glistening a little in sympathy with hers.
"I thought all was going wrong with us," he went on. "But I found it was only I that was wrong; and since that I have been quite happy, Fleda."
Fleda could not speak to him; his words made her pain worse.
"I told you this rested me," said he reaching across her for his book; "and now I am never weary long. Shall I rest you with it? What have you been troubling yourself about to-day?"
She did not answer while he was turning over the leaves, and he then said,
"Do you remember this, Fleda?--'Truly God is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart.'"
Fleda bent her head down upon her hands.
"I was moody and restless the other day," said Hugh,--"desponding of everything;--and I came upon this psalm; and it made me ashamed of myself. I had been disbelieving it, and because I could not see how things were going to work good I thought they were going to work evil. I thought we were wearing out our lives alone here in a wearisome way, and I forgot that it must be the very straightest way that we could get home. I am sure we shall not want anything that will do us good; and the rest I am willing to want--and so are you, Fleda?"
Fleda squeezed his hand,--that was all. For a minute he was silent, and then went on, without any change of tone.
"I had a notion awhile ago that I should like it if it were possible for me to go to college; but I am quite satisfied now. I have good time and opportunity to furnish myself with a better kind of knowledge, that I shall want where college learning wouldn't be of much use to me; and I can do it, I dare say, better here in this mill than if we had stayed in New York and I had lived in our favourite library."
"But dear Hugh," said Fleda, who did not like this speech in any sense of it,--"the two things do not clash. The better man the better Christian always, other things being equal. The more precious kind of knowledge should not make one undervalue the less?"
"No,"--he said; but the extreme quietness and simplicity of his reply smote Fleda's fears; it answered her words and waived her thought; she dared not press him further. She sat looking over the road with an aching heart.
"You haven't taken enough of my medicine," said Hugh smiling. "Listen, Fleda--'All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.'"
But that made Fleda cry again.
"'All his paths,' Fleda--then, whatever may happen to you, and whatever may happen to me, or to any of us.--I can trust him. I am willing any one should have the world, if I may have what Abraham had--'Fear not; I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward;'--and I believe I shall, Fleda; for it is not the hungry that he has threatened to send empty away."
Fleda could say nothing, and Hugh just then said no more. For a little while, near and busy as thoughts might be, tongues were silent. Fleda was crying quietly, the utmost she could do being to keep it quiet; Hugh, more quietly, was considering again the strong pillars on which he had laid his hope, and trying their strength and beauty; till all other things were to him as the mist rolling off from the valley is to the man planted on a watch tower.
His meditations were interrupted by the tramp of horse, and a party of riders male and female came past them up the hill. Hugh looked on as they went by; Fleda's head was not raised.
"There are some people enjoying themselves," said Hugh. "After all, dear Fleda, we should be very sorry to change places with those gay riders. I would not for a thousand worlds give my hope and treasure for all other they can possibly have, in possession or prospect."
"No, indeed!" said Fleda energetically, and trying to rouse herself;--"and besides that, Hugh, we have as it is a great deal more to enjoy than most other people. We are so happy--"
In each other, she was going to say, but the words choked her.
"Those people looked very hard at us, or at one of us," said Hugh. "It must have been you, I think, Fleda"
"They are welcome," said Fleda; "they couldn't have made much out of the back of my sun bonnet."
"Well, dear Fleda, I must content myself with little more than looking at you now, for Mr. Winegar is in a hurry for his timber to be sawn, and I must set this noisy concern a going again."
Fleda sat and watched him, with rising and falling hopes and fears, forcing her lips to a smile when he came near her, and hiding her tears at other times; till the shadows stretching well to the east of the meridian, admonished her she had been there long enough; and she left him still going backward and forward tending the saw.
As she went down the hill she pressed involuntarily her hands upon her heart, for the dull heavy pain there. But that was no plaster for it; and when she got to the bridge the soft singing of the little brook was just enough to shake her spirits from the doubtful poise they had kept. Giving one hasty glance along the road and up the hill to make sure that no one was near she sat down on a stone in the edge of the woods, and indulged in such weeping as her gentle eyes rarely knew; for the habit of patience so cultivated for others' sake constantly rewarded her own life with its sweet fruits. But deep and bitter in proportion was the flow of the fountain once broken up. She struggled to remind herself that "Providence runneth not on broken wheels," she struggled to repeat to herself, what she did not doubt that "allthe ways of the Lord are mercy and truth" to his people;--in vain. The slight check for a moment to the torrent of grief but gave it greater head to sweep over the barrier; and the self-reproach that blamed its violence and needlessness only made the flood more bitter. Nature fought against patience for awhile; but when the loaded heart had partly relieved itself patience came in again and she rose up to go home. It startled her exceedingly to find Mr. Olmney standing before her, and looking so sorrowful that Fleda's eyes could not bear it.
"My dear Miss Ringgan!--forgive me--I hope you will forgive me,--but I could not leave you in such distress. I knew that inyouit could only be from some very serious cause of grief."
"I cannot say it is from anything new, Mr. Olmney--except to my apprehensions."
"You are allwell?" he said inquiringly, after they had walked a few steps in silence.
"Well?--yes, sir,--" said Fleda hesitatingly,--"but I do not think that Hugh looks very well."
The trembling of her voice told him her thought. But he remained silent.
"You have noticed it?" she said hastily, looking up.
"I think you have told me he always was delicate?"
"And you have noticed him looking so lately, Mr. Olmney?"
"I have thought so,--but you say he always was that. If you will permit me to say so, I have thought the same of you, Miss Fleda."
Fleda was silent; her heart ached again.
"We would gladly save each other from every threatening trouble," said Mr. Olmney again after a pause;--"but it ought to content us that we do not know how. Hugh is in good hands, my dear Miss Ringgan."
"I know it, sir," said Fleda unable quite to keep back her tears,--"and I know very well this thread of our life will not bear the strain always,--and I know that the strands must in all probability part unevenly,--and I know it is in the power of no blind fate,--but that--"
"Does not lessen our clinging to each other. Oh no!--it grows but the tenderer and the stronger for the knowledge."
Fleda could but cry.
"And yet," said he very kindly,--"we who are Christians may and ought to learn to take troubles hopefully; for 'tribulation worketh patience; and patience,' that is, quiet waiting on God, 'works experience' of his goodness and faithfulness; 'and experience worketh hope; and that hope, we know, 'maketh not ashamed.'"
"I know it," said Fleda;--"but, Mr. Olmney, how easily the brunt of a new affliction breaks down all that chain of reasoning!"
"Yes!--" he said sadly and thoughtfully;--"but my dear Miss Fleda, you know the way to build it up again. I would be very glad to bear all need for it away from you!"
They had reached the gate. Fleda could not look up to thank him; the hand she held out was grasped, more than kindly, and he turned away.
Fleda's tears came hot again as she went up the walk; she held her head down to hide them and went round the back way.
Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal!--Twelfth Night.
Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal!--Twelfth Night.
"Well what did you come home for?" was Barby's salutation;--"here's company been waiting for you till they're tired, and I am sure I be."
"Company!!--" said Fleda.
"Yes, and it's ungrateful in you to say so," said Barby, "for she's been in a wonderful hurry to see you,--or to get somethin' to eat; I don't know which; a little o' both, I hope in charity."
"Why didn't you give her something to eat? Who is it?"
"I don't know who it is! It's one of your highfliers, that's all I can make out. She 'a'n't a hat a bit better than a man's beaver,--one 'ud think she had stole her little brother's for a spree, if the rest of her was like common folks; but she's got a tail to her dress as long as from here to Queechy Run; and she's been tiddling in and out here with it puckered up under her arm sixty times. I guess she belongs to some company of female militie, for the body of it is all thick with braid and buttons. I believe she ha'n't sot still five minutes since she come into the house, till I don't know whether I am on my head or my heels."
"But why didn't you give her something to eat?" said Fleda, who was hastily throwing off her gloves and smoothing her disordered hair with her hands into something of composure.
"Did!" said Barby;--"I give her some o' them cold biscuit and butter and cheese and a pitcher of milk--sot a good enough meal for anybody--but she didn't take but a crumb, and she turned up her nose at that. Come, go!--you've slicked up enough--you're handsome enough to shew yourself to her any time o' day, for all her jig-em-bobs."
"Where is aunt Lucy?"
"She's up stairs;--there's been nobody to see to her but me. She's had the hull lower part of the house to herself, kitchen and all, and she's done nothing but go out of one room into another ever since she come. She'll be in here again directly if you ain't spry."
Fleda went in, round to the west room, and there found herself in the arms of the second Miss Evelyn, who jumped to meet her and half stifled her with caresses.
"You wicked little creature! what have you been doing? Here have I been growing melancholy over the tokens of your absence, and watching the decline of the sun with distracted feelings these six hours."
"Six hours!" said Fleda smiling.
"My dear little Fleda!--it's so delicious to see you again!" said Miss Evelyn with another prolonged hug and kiss.
"My dear Constance!--I am very glad--But where are the rest?"
"It's unkind of you to ask after anybody but me, when I came here this morning on purpose to talk the whole day to you. Now dear little Fleda," said Miss Constance, executing an impatient little persuasive caper round her,--"won't you go out and order dinner? for I'm raging. Your woman did give me something, but I found the want of you had taken away all my appetite; and now the delight of seeing you has exhausted me, and I feel that nature is sinking. The stimulus of gratified affection is too much for me."
"You absurd child!" said Fleda,--"you haven't mended a bit. But I told Barby to put on the tea-kettle and I will administer a composing draught as soon as it can be got ready; we don't indulge in dinners here in the wilderness. Meanwhile suppose that exhausted nature try the support of this easy-chair?"
She put her visitor gently into it, and seating herself upon the arm held her hand and looked at her, with a smiling face and yet with eyes that were almost too gentle in their welcoming.
"My dear little Fleda!--you're as lovely as you can be! Are you glad to see me?"
"Very."
"Why don't you ask after somebody else?"
"I was afraid of overtasking your exhausted energies."
"Come and sit down here upon my lap!--you shall, or I won't say another word to you. Fleda! you've grown thin! what have you been doing to yourself?"
"Nothing, with that particular purpose."
"I don't care, you've done something. You have been insanely imagining that it is necessary for you to be in three or four places at the same time, and in the distracted effort after ubiquity you are in imminent danger of being nowhere--there's nothing left of you."
"I don't wonder you were overcome at the sight of me," said Fleda.
"But you are looking charmingly for all that," Constance went on;--"so charmingly that I feel a morbid sensation creeping all over me while I sit regarding you. Really, when you come to us next winter if you persist in being,--by way of shewing your superiority to ordinary human nature,--a rose without a thorn, the rest of the flowers may all shut up at once. And the rose reddens in my very face, to spite me!"
"Is 'ordinary human nature' typified by a thorn? You give it rather a poor character."
"I never heard of a Thorn that didn't bear an excellent character!" said Constance gravely.
"Hush!" said Fleda laughing;--"I don't want to hear about Mr. Thorn.--Tell me of somebody else."
"I haven't said a word about Mr. Thorn!" said Constance ecstatically, "but since you ask about him I will tell you. He has not acted like himself since you disappeared from our horizon--that is, he has ceased to be at all pointed in his attentions to me; his conversation has lost all the acuteness for which I remember you admired it; he has walked Broadway in a moody state of mind all winter, and grown as dull as is consistent with the essential sharpness of his nature. I ought to except our last interview, though, for his entreaties to mamma that she would bring you home with her were piercing."
Fleda was unable in spite of herself to keep from laughing, but entreated that Constance would tell her of somebody else.
"My respected parents are at Montepoole, with all their offspring,--that is, Florence and Edith,--I am at present anxiously enquired after, being nobody knows where, and to be fetched by mamma this evening. Wasn't I good, little Fleda, to run away from Mr. Carleton to come and spend a whole day in social converse with you?"
"Carleton!" said Fleda.
"Yes--O you don't know whoheis! he's a new attraction--there's been nothing like him this great while, and all New York is topsy-turvy about him; the mothers are dying with anxiety and the daughters with admiration; and it's too delightful to see the cool superiority with which he takes it all;--like a new star that all the people are pointing their telescopes at,--as Thorn said spitefully the other day. O he has turnedmyhead; I have looked till I cannot look at anything else. I can just manage to see a rose, but my dazzled powers of vision are equal to nothing more."
"My dear Constance!--"
"It's perfectly true! Why as soon as we knew he was coming to Montepoole I wouldn't let mamma rest till we all made a rush after him--and when we got here first and I was afraid he wasn't coming, nothing can express the state of my feelings!--But he appeared the next morning, and then I was quite happy," said Constance, rising and falling in her chair on what must have been ecstatic springs, for wire ones it had none.
"Constance!--" said Fleda with a miserable attempt at rebuke,--"how can you talk so!"
"And so we were all riding round here this morning and I had the self-denial to stop to see you and leave Florence and the Marlboroughs to monopolize him all the way home. You ought to love me for ever for it. My dear Fleda!--" said Constance, clasping her hands and elevating her eyes in mock ecstasy,--"if you had ever seen Mr. Carleton I--"
"I dare say I have seen somebody as good," said Fleda quietly.
"My dear Fleda!" said Constance, a little scornfully this time,--"you haven't the least idea what you are talking about! I tell you he is an Englishman--he's of one of the best families in England,--not such as you ever see here but once in an age,--he's rich enough to count Mr. Thorn over I don't know how many times."
"I don't like anybody the better for being an Englishman," said Fleda; "and it must be a small man whose purse will hold his measure."
Constance made an impatient gesture.
"But I tell you it isn't! We knew him when we were abroad, and we know what he is, and we know his mother very well. When we were in England we were a week with them down at their beautiful place in ----shire,--the loveliest time! You see she was over here with Mr. Carleton once before, a good while ago; and mamma and papa were polite to them, and so they shewed us a great deal of attention when we were in England. We had the loveliest time down there you can possibly conceive. And my dear Fleda he wears such a fur cloak!--lined with the most exquisite black fox."
"But, Constance!" said Fleda, a little vexed though laughing,--"any man may wear a fur cloak--the thing is, what is inside of it?"
"It is perfectly indifferent to me what is inside of it!" said Constance ecstatically. "I can see nothing but the edges of the black fox, especially when it is worn so very gracefully."
"But in some cases there might be a white fox within?"
"There is nothing of the fox about Mr. Carleton!" said Constance impatiently. "If it had been anybody else I should have said he was a bear two or three times; but he wears everything as he does his cloak, and makes you take what he pleases from him; what I wouldn't take from anybody else I know."
"With a fox lining?" said Fleda laughing.
"Then foxes haven't got their true character, that's all. Now I'll just tell you an instance--it was at a party somewhere--it was at that tiresome Mrs. Swinburne's, where the evenings are always so stupid, and there was nothing worth going or staying for but the supper,--except Mr. Carleton! and he never stays five minutes, except at two or three places; and it drives me crazy, because they are places I don't go to very often--"
"Suppose you keep your wits and tell me your story?"
"Well--don't interrupt me!--he was there, and he had taken me into the supper-room, when mamma came along and took it into her head to tell me not to take something--I forget what--punch, I believe,--because I had not been well in the morning. Now you know, it was absurd! I was perfectly well then, and I told her I shouldn't mind her; but do you believe Mr. Carleton wouldn't give it to me?--absolutely told me he wouldn't, and told me why, as coolly as possible, and gave me a glass of water and made me drink it; and if it had been anybody else I do assure you I would have flung it in his face and never spoken to him again; and I have been in love with him ever since. Nowisthat tea going to be ready?"
"Presently. How long have you been here?"
"O a day or two--and it has poured with rain every single day since we came, till this one;--and just think!"--said Constance with a ludicrously scared face,--"I must make haste and be back again. You see, I came away on principle, that I may strike with the effect of novelty when I appear again; but if I staytoolong, you know,--there is a point--"
"On the principle of the ice-boats," said Fleda, "that back a little to give a better blow to the ice, where they find it tough?"
"Tough!" said Constance.
"Does Florence like this paragon of yours as well as you do?"
"I don't know--she don't talk so much about him, but that proves nothing; she's too happy to talktohim.--I expect our family concord will be shattered by and by!" said Constance shaking her head.
"You seem to take the prospect philosophically," said Fleda, looking amused. "How long are you going to stay at the Pool?"
Constance gave an expressive shrug, intimating that the deciding of that question did not rest with her.
"That is to say, you are here to watch the transit of this star over the meridian of Queechy?"
"Of Queechy!--of Montepoole."
"Very well--of Montepoole. I don't wonder that nature is exhausted. I will go and see after this refection."
The prettiest little meal in the world was presently set forth for the two,--Fleda knew her aunt would not come down, and Hugh was yet at the mill; so she led her visitor into the breakfast-room alone, Constance by the way again fondly embracing her and repeating, "My dear little Fleda!--how glad I am to see you!"
The lady was apparently hungry, for there was a minute of silence while the refection begun, and then Constance exclaimed, perhaps with a sudden appreciation of the delicious bread and butter and cream and strawberries,
"What a lovely old room this is!--and what lovely times you have here, don't you, Fleda?"
"Yes--sometimes," Fleda said with a sigh.
"But I shall tell mamma you are growing thin, and the first minute we get home I shall send for you to come to us. Mrs. Thorn will be amazingly glad to see you."
"Has she got back from Europe?" said Fleda.
"Ages!--and she's been entertaining the world as hard as she could ever since. I have no doubt Lewis has confided to the maternal bosom all his distresses; and there never was anything like the rush that I expect will be made to our greenhouse next winter. O Fleda, you should see Mr. Carleton's greenhouses!"
"Should I?" said Fleda.
"Dear me! I hope mamma will come!" said Constance with a comical fidgety shake of herself;--"when I think of those greenhouses I lose my self-command. And the park!--Fleda, it's the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life; and it's all that delightful man's doing; only he won't have a geometric flower-garden, as I did everything I could think of to persuade him. I pity the woman that will be his wife,--she won't have her own way in a single thing; but then he will fascinate her into thinking that his way is the best, so it will do just as well I suppose. Do you know I can't conceive what he has come over here for? He has been here before, you know, and he don't seem to me to know exactly what he means to do; at least I can't find out, and I have tried."
"How long has he been here?"
"O a month or two--since the beginning of April, I believe. He came over with some friends of his--a Sir George Egerton and his family;--he is going to Canada, to be established in some post there, I forget what; and they are spending part of the summer here before they fix themselves at the North. It is easy to see whattheyare here for,--they are strangers and amusing themselves; but Mr. Carleton is at home, andnotamusing himself, at least he don't seem to be. He goes about with the Egertons, but that is just for his friendship for them; and he puzzles me. He don't snow whether he is going to Niagara,--he has been once already--and 'perhaps' he may go to Canada,--and 'possibly' he will make a journey to the West,--and I can't find out that he wants anything in particular."
"Perhaps he don't mean that you shall," said Fleda.
"Perhaps he don't; but you see that aggravates my state of mind to a distressing degree. And then I'm afraid he will go somewhere where I can't keep watch of him!--"
Fleda could not help laughing.
"Perhaps he was tired of home and came for mere weariness."
"Weariness! it's my opinion he has no idea there is such a word in the language,--I am certain if he heard it he would call for a dictionary the next minute. Why at Carleton it seems to me he was half the time on horseback, flying about from one end of the country to the other; and when he is in the house he is always at work at something; it's a piece of condescension to get him to attend to you at all; only when he does, my dear Fleda!--he is so enchanting that you live in a state of delight till next time. And yet I never could get him to pay me a compliment to this minute,--I tried two or three times, and he rewarded me with some very rude speeches."
"Rude!" said Fleda.
"Yes,--that is, they were the most graceful and fascinating things possible, but they would have been rudeness in anybody else. Whereismamma!" said Constance with another comic counterfeit of distress "My dear Fleda, it's the most captivating thing to breakfast at Carleton!--"
"I have no idea the bread and butter is sweeter there than in some other parts of the world," said Fleda.
"I don't know about the bread and butter," said Constance, "but those exquisite little sugar dishes! My dear Fleda, every one has his own sugar-dish and cream-ewer--the loveliest little things!--"
"I have heard of such things before," said Fleda.
"I don't care about the bread and butter," said Constance; "eating is immaterial, with those perfect little things right opposite to me. They weren't like any you ever saw, Fleda--the sugar-bowl was just a little plain oval box, with the lid on a hinge, and not a bit of chasing, only the arms on the cover; like nothing I ever saw but an old-fashioned silver tea-caddy; and the cream-jug a little straight up and down thing to match. Mamma said they were clumsy, but they bewitched me!--"
"I think everything bewitched you," said Fleda smiling. "Can't your head stand a sugar-dish and milk-cup?"
"My dear Fleda, I never had your superiority to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature--I can standonesugar-bowl, but I confess myself overcome by a dozen. How we have all wanted to see you, Fleda! and papa; you have captivated papa; and he says--"
"Never mind--don't tell me what he says," said Fleda.
"There--that's your modesty, that everybody raves about--I wish I could catch it. Fleda, where did you get that little Bible?--while I was waiting for you I tried to soothe my restless anticipations with examining all the things in all the rooms;--where did you get it?"
"It was given me a long while ago," said Fleda.
"But it is real gold on the outside!--the clasps and all--do you know it? it is not washed."
"I know it," said Fleda smiling; "and it is better than gold inside."
"Wasn't that mamma's favourite Mr. Olmney that parted from you at the gate?" said Constance after a minute's silence.
"Yes."
"Is he a favourite of yours too?"
"You must define what you mean by a favourite?" said Fleda gravely.
"Well, how do you like him?"
"I believe everybody likes him," said Fleda, colouring and vexed at herself that she could not help it. The bright eyes opposite her took note of the fact with a sufficiently wide-awake glance.
"He's very good!" said Constance hugging herself, and taking a fresh supply of butter,--"but don't let him know I have been to see you or he'll tell you all sorts of evil things about me for fear you should innocently be contaminated. Don't you like to be taken care of?"
"Very much," said Fleda smiling,--"by people that know how."
"I can't bear it!" said Constance, apparently with great sincerity;--"I think it is the most impertinent thing in the world people can do. I can't endure it--except from--! Oh my dear Fleda! it is perfect luxury to have him put a shawl round your shoulders!--"
"Fleda," said Earl Douglass putting his head in from the kitchen, and before he said any more bobbing it frankly at Miss Evelyn, half in acknowledgment of her presence and half as it seemed in apology for his own,--"Fleda, will you let Barby pack up somethin' 'nother for the men's lunch?--my wife would ha' done it, as she had ought to, if she wa'n't down with the teeth-ache, and Catherine's away on a jig to Kenton, and the men won't do so much work on nothin', and I can't say nothin' to 'em if they don't; and I'd like to get that 'ere clover field down afore night--it's goin' to be a fine spell o' weather. I was a goin' to try to get along without it; but I believe we can't."
"Very well," said Fleda. "But, Mr. Douglass, you'll try the experiment of curing it in cocks?"
"Well I don't know," said Earl in a tone of very discontented acquiescence,--"I don't see how anythin' should be as sweet as the sun for dryin' hay--I know folks says it is, and I've heerd 'em say it is! and they'll stand to it and you can't beat 'em off the notion it is; but somehow or 'nother I can't seem to come into it. I know the sun makes sweet hay, and I think the sun was meant to make hay, and I don't want to see no sweeter hay than the sun makes; it's as good hay as you need to have."
"But you wouldn't mind trying it for once, Mr. Douglass, just for me?"
"I'll do just what you please," said he with a little exculpatory shake of his head;--"'tain't my concern--it's no concern of mine--the gain or the loss'll be your'n, and it's fair you should have the gain or the loss, which ever on 'em you choose to have. I'll put it in cocks--how much heft should be in 'em?"
"About a hundred pounds--and you don't want to cut any more than you can put up to-night, Mr. Douglass. We'll try it."
"Very good! And you'll send along somethin' for the men--Barby knows," said Earl bobbing his head again intelligently at Fleda,--"there's four on 'em and it takes somethin' to feed 'em--workin' men'll put away a good deal o' meat."
He withdrew his head and closed the door, happily for Constance, who went off into a succession of ecstatic convulsions.
"What time of day do your eccentric hay-makers prefer for the rest of their meals, if they lunch at three o'clock? I never heard anything so original in my life."
"This is lunch number two," said Fleda smiling; "lunch number one is about ten in the morning; and dinner at twelve."
"And do they gladden their families with their presence at the other ordinary convivial occasions?"
"Certainly."
"And what do they have for lunch?"
"Varieties. Bread and cheese, and pies, and Quirlcakes; at every other meal they have meat."
"Horrid creatures!"
"It is only during haying and harvesting."
"And you have to see to all this! poor little Fleda! I declare, if I was you--I'd do something!--"
"No," said Fleda quietly, "Mrs. Douglass and Barby manage the lunch between them. I am not at all desperate."
"But to have to talk to these people!"
"Earl Douglass is not a very polished specimen," said Fleda smiling, "but I assure you in some of 'these people' there is an amount of goodness and wit, and shrewd practical sense and judgment, that would utterly distance many of those that would call them bears."
Constance looked a good deal more than she said.
"My dear little Fleda! you're too sensible for anything; but as I don't like sense from anybody but Mr. Carleton I would rather look at you in the capacity of a rose, smiling a gentle rebuke upon me while I talk nonsense."
And she did talk, and Fleda did smile and laugh, in spite of herself, till Mrs. Evelyn and her other daughters made their appearance.
Then Barby said she thought they'd have talked the house down; and she expected there'd be nothing left of Fleda after all the kissing she got. But it was not too much for Fleda's pleasure. Mrs. Evelyn was so tenderly kind, and Miss Evelyn as caressing as her sister had been, and Edith, who was but a child, so joyously delighted, that Fleda's eyes were swimming in happiness as she looked from one to the other, and she could hardly answer kisses and questions fast enough.
"Them is good-looking enough girls," said Barby as Fleda came back to the house after seeing them to their carriage,--"if they knowed how to dress themselves. I never see this fly away one 'afore--I knowed the old one as soon as I clapped my eyes onto her. Be they stopping at the Pool again?"
"Yes."
"Well when are you going up there to see 'em?"
"I don't know," said Fleda quietly. And then sighing as the thought of her aunt came into her head she went off to find her and bring her down.
Fleda's brow was sobered, and her spirits were in a flutter that was not all of happiness and that threatened not to settle down quietly. But as she went slowly up the stairs faith's hand was laid, even as her own grasped the balusters, on the promise,
"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies."
She set faith's foot down on those sure stepping-stones; and she opened her aunt's door and looked in with a face that was neither troubled nor afraid.