"A most exquisite picture!" said Thorn, "and the original don't stand so thick that one is in any danger of mistaking them. Is the painter Shakspeare?--I don't recollect--"
"I think Sidney, sir--I am not sure."
"But still, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs Evelyn, "this is only in general--I want very much to know the particulars;--what style of features belonged to this face?"
"The fairest, I think, I have ever known," said Mr. Carleton. "You asked me, Miss Evelyn, what was my notion of beauty;--this face was a good illustration of it. Not perfection of outline, though it had that too in very uncommon degree;--but the loveliness of mind and character to which these features were only an index; the thoughts were invariably telegraphed through eye and mouth more faithfully than words could give them."
"What kind of eyes?" said Florence.
His own grew dark as he answered,--
"Clear and pure as one might imagine an angel's--through which I am sure my good angel many a time looked at me."
Good angels were at a premium among the eyes that were exchanging glances just then.
"And Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn,--"is it fair to ask--this paragon--is she living still?"
"I hope so," he answered, with his old light smile, dismissing the subject.
"You spoke so much in the past tense," said Mrs. Evelyn apologetically.
"Yes, I have not seen it since it was a child's."
"A child's face!--Oh," said Florence, "I think you see a great many children's faces with that kind of look."
"I never saw but the one," said Mr. Carleton dryly.
So far Fleda listened, with cheeks that would certainly have excited Mrs. Thorn's alarm if she had not been happily engrossed with Miss Tomlinson's affairs; though up to the last two minutes the idea of herself had not entered Fleda's head in connection with the subject of conversation. But then feeling it impossible to make her appearance in public that evening, she quietly slipped out of the open window close by, which led into a little greenhouse on the piazza, and by another door gained the hall and the dressing-room.
When Dr. Gregory came to Mrs. Evelyn's an hour or two after, a figure all cloaked and hooded ran down the stairs and met him in the hall.
"Ready!" said the doctor in surprise.
"I have been ready some time, sir," said Fleda.
"Well," said he, "then we'll go straight home, for I've not done my work yet."
"Dear uncle Orrin!" said Fleda, "if I had known you had work to do I wouldn't have come."
"Yes you would!" said he decidedly.
She clasped her uncle's arm and walked with him briskly home through the frosty air, looking at the silent lights and shadows on the walls of the street and feeling a great desire to cry.
"Did you have a pleasant evening?" said the doctor when they were about half way.
"Not particularly, sir," said Fleda hesitating.
He said not another word till they got home and Fleda went up to her room. But the habit of patience overcame the wish to cry; and though the outside of her little gold-clasped Bible awoke it again, a few words of the inside were enough to lay it quietly to sleep.
"Well," said the doctor as they sat at breakfast the next morning,--"where are you going next?"
"To the concert, I must, to-night," said Fleda. "I couldn't help myself."
"Why should you want to help yourself?" said the doctor. "And to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night?"
"No sir, I believe not."
"I believe you will," said he looking at her.
"I am sure I should enjoy myself more at home, uncle Orrin. There is very little rational pleasure to be had in these assemblages."
"Rational pleasure!" said he. "Didn't you have any rational pleasure last night?"
"I didn't hear a single word spoken, sir, that was worth listening to,--at least that was spoken to me; and the hollow kind of rattle that one hears from every tongue makes me more tired than anything else, I believe;--I am out of tune with it, somehow."
"Out of tune!" said the old doctor, giving her a look made up of humourous vexation and real sadness,--"I wish I knew the right tuning-key to take hold of you!"
"I become harmonious rapidly, uncle Orrin, when I am in this pleasant little room alone with you."
"That won't do!" said he, shaking his head at the smile with which this was said,--"there is too much tension upon the strings. So that was the reason you were all ready waiting for me last night?--Well, you must tune up, my little piece of discordance, and go with me to Mrs. Thorn's to-morrow night--I won't let you off."
"With you, sir!" said Fleda.
"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you lest you get drawn into something else you don't like."
"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty--it is to be a large party and I have not a dress exactly fit."
"What have you got?" said he with a comic kind of fierceness.
"I have silks, but they are none of them proper for this occasion--they are ever so little old-fashioned."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing, sir," said Fleda; "for I don't want to go."
"You mend a pair of stockings to put on," said he nodding at her, "and I'll see to the rest."
"Apparently you place great importance in stockings," said Fleda laughing, "for you always mention them first. But please don't get anything for me, uncle Orrin--please don't! I have plenty for common occasions, and I don't care to go to Mrs. Thorn's."
"I don't care either," said the doctor, working himself into his great coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the aid of St. Crispin?"
He went off, and Fleda did not know whether to cry or to laugh at the vigorous way in which he trod through the hall and slammed the front door after him. Her spirits just kept the medium and did neither. But they were in the same doubtful mood still an hour after when he came back with a paper parcel he had brought home under his arm, and unrolled a fine embroidered muslin; her eyes were very unsteady in carrying their brief messages of thankfulness, as if they feared saying too much. The doctor, however, was in the mood for doing, not talking, by looks or otherwise. Mrs. Pritchard was called into consultation, and with great pride and delight engaged to have the dress and all things else in due order by the following night;hereyes saying all manner of gratulatory things as they went from the muslin to Fleda and from Fleda to Dr. Gregory.
The rest of the day was, not books, but needlefuls of thread; and from the confusion of laces and draperies Fleda was almost glad to escape and go to the concert,--but for one item; that spoiled it.
They were in their seats early. Fleda managed successfully to place the two Evelyns between her and Mr. Thorn, and then prepared herself to wear out the evening with patience.
"My dear Fleda!" whispered Constance, after some time spent in restless reconnoitring of everybody and everything,--"I don't see my English rose anywhere!"
"Hush!" said Fleda smiling. "That happened not to be an English rose, Constance."
"What was it?"
"American, unfortunately; it was a Noisette; the variety I think that they call 'Conque de Venus.'"
"My dear little Fleda, you're too wise for anything!" said Constance with a rather significant arching of her eyebrows. "You mustn't expect other people to be as rural in their acquirements as yourself. I don't pretend to know any rose by sight but the Queechy," she said, with a change of expression meant to cover the former one.
Fleda's face, however, did not call for any apology. It was perfectly quiet.
"But what has become of him?" said Constance with her comic impatience.--"My dear Fleda! if my eyes cannot rest upon that development of elegance the parterre is become a wilderness to me!"
"Hush, Constance!" Fleda whispered earnestly,--"you are not safe--he may be near you."
"Safe!--" ejaculated Constance; but a half backward hasty glance of her eye brought home so strong an impression that the person in question was seated a little behind her that she dared not venture another look, and became straightway extremely well-behaved.
He was there; and being presently convinced that he was in the neighbourhood of his little friend of former days he resolved with his own excellent eyes to test the truth of the opinion he had formed as to the natural and inevitable effect of circumstances upon her character; whether it could by possibility have retained its great delicacy and refinement under the rough handling and unkindly bearing of things seemingly foreign to both. He had thought not.
Truffi did not sing, and the entertainment was of a very secondary quality. This seemed to give no uneasiness to the Miss Evelyns, for if they pouted they laughed and talked in the same breath, and that incessantly. It was nothing to Mr. Carleton, for his mind was bent on something else. And with a little surprise he saw that it was nothing to the subject of his thoughts,--either because her own were elsewhere too, or because they were in league with a nice taste that permitted them to take no interest in what was going on. Even her eyes, trained as they had been to recluse habits, were far less busy than those of her companions; indeed they were not busy at all; for the greater part of the time one hand was upon the brow, shielding them from the glare of the gas-lights. Ostensibly,--but the very quiet air of the face led him to guess that the mind was glad of a shield too. It relaxed sometimes. Constance and Florence and Mr. Thorn and Mr. Thorn's mother were every now and then making demands upon her, and they were met always with an intelligent well-bred eye, and often with a smile of equal gentleness and character; but her observer noticed that though the smile came readily, it went as readily, and the lines of the face quickly settled again into what seemed to be an habitual composure. There were the same outlines, the same characters, he remembered very well; yet there was a difference; not grief had changed them, but life had. The brow had all its fine chiselling and high purity of expression; but now there sat there a hopelessness, or rather a want of hopefulness, that a child's face never knows. The mouth was sweet and pliable as ever, but now often patience and endurance did not quit their seat upon the lip even when it smiled. The eye with all its old clearness and truthfulness had a shade upon it that nine years ago only fell at the bidding of sorrow; and in every line of the face there was a quiet gravity that went to the heart of the person who was studying it. Whatever causes had been at work he was very sure had done no harm to the character; its old simplicity had suffered no change, as every look and movement proved; the very unstudied careless position of the fingers over the eyes shewed that the thoughts had nothing to do there.
On one half of his doubt Mr. Carleton's mind was entirely made up;--but education? the training and storing of the mind?--how had that fared? He would know!--
Perhaps he would have made some attempt that very evening towards satisfying himself; but noticing that in coming out Thorn permitted the Evelyns to pass him and attached himself determinately to Fleda, he drew back, and resolved to make his observations indirectly and on more than one point before he should seem to make them at all.
Hark! I hear the sound of coaches,The hour of attack approaches.
Hark! I hear the sound of coaches,The hour of attack approaches.
Gay.
Gay.
Mrs. Pritchard had arrayed Fleda in the white muslin, with an amount of satisfaction and admiration that all the lines of her face were insufficient to express.
"Now," she said, "you must just run down and let the doctor see you--afore you take the shine off--or he won't be able to look at anything else when you get to the place."
"That would be unfortunate!" said Fleda, and she ran down laughing into the room where the doctor was waiting for her; but her astonished eyes encountering the figure of Dr. Quackenboss she stopped short, with an air that no woman of the world could have bettered. The physician of Queechy on his part was at least equally taken aback.
"Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.
"I--I was going to say, Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor with a most unaffected obeisance,--"but--a--I am afraid, sir, it is a deceptive influence!"
"I hope not," said Dr. Gregory smiling, one corner of his mouth for his guest and the other for his niece. "Real enough to do real execution, or I am mistaken, sir."
"Upon my word, sir," said Dr. Quackenboss bowing again,--"I hope--a--Miss Ringgan!--will remember the acts of her executive power at home, and return in time to prevent an unfortunate termination!"
Dr. Gregory laughed heartily now, while Fleda's cheeks relieved her dress to admiration.
"Who will complain of her if she don't?" said the doctor. "Who will complain of her if she don't?"
But Fleda put in her question.
"How are you all at home, Dr. Quackenboss?"
"All Queechy, sir," answered the doctor politely, on the principle of 'first come, first served,'--"and individuals,--I shouldn't like to specify--"
"How are you all in Queechy, Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda.
"I--have the pleasure to say--we are coming along as usual," replied the doctor, who seemed to have lost his power of standing up straight;--"My sister Flora enjoys but poor health lately,--they are all holding their heads up at your house. Mr. Rossitur has come home."
"Uncle Rolf! Has he!" exclaimed Fleda, the colour of joy quite supplanting the other. "O I'm very glad!"
"Yes," said the doctor,--"he's been home now,--I guess, going on four days."
"I am very glad!" repeated Fleda. "But won't you come and see me another time, Dr. Quackenboss?--I am obliged to go out."
The doctor professed his great willingness, adding that he had only come down to the city to do two or three chores and thought she might perhaps like to take the opportunity--which would afford him such very great gratification.
"No indeed, faire Una," said Dr. Gregory, when they were on their way to Mrs. Thorn's,--"they've got your uncle at home now and we've got you; and I mean to keep you till I'm satisfied. So you may bring home that eye that has been squinting at Queechy ever since you have been here and make up your mind to enjoy yourself; I sha'n't let you go till you do."
"I ought to enjoy myself, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, squeezing his arm gratefully.
"See you do," said he.
The pleasant news from home had given Fleda's spirits the needed spur which the quick walk to Mrs. Thorn's did not take off.
"Did you ever see Fleda look so well, mamma?" said Florence, as the former entered the drawing-room.
"That is the loveliest and best face in the room," said Mr. Evelyn; "and she looks like herself to-night."
"There is a matchless simplicity about her," said a gentleman standing by.
"Her dress is becoming," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Why where did you ever see her, Mr. Stackpole, except at our house?" said Constance.
"At Mrs. Decatur's--I have had that pleasure--and once at her uncle's."
"I didn't know you ever noticed ladies' faces, Mr. Stackpole," said Florence.
"How Mrs. Thorn does look at her!" said Constance, under her breath. "It is too much!"
It was almost too much for Fleda's equanimity, for the colour began to come.
"And there goes Mr. Carleton!" said Constance. "I expect momentarily to hear the company strike up 'Sparkling and Bright.'"
'And there goes Mr. Carleton!' said Constance."And there goes Mr. Carleton!" said Constance.
"They should have done that some time ago, Miss Constance," said the gentleman.
Which compliment, however, Constance received with hardly disguised scorn, and turned her attention again to Mr. Carleton.
"I trust I do not need presentation," said his voice and his smile at once, as he presented himself to Fleda.
How little he needed it the flash of feeling which met his eyes said sufficiently well. But apparently the feeling was a little too deep, for the colour mounted and the eyes fell, and the smile suddenly died on the lips. Mr. Thorn came up to them, and releasing her hand Mr. Carleton stepped back and permitted him to lead her away.
"What do think ofthatface?" said Constance finding herself a few minutes after at his side.
"'That' must define itself," said he, "or I can hardly give a safe answer."
"What face? Why I mean of course the one Mr. Thorn carried off just now."
"You are her friend, Miss Constance," he said coolly. "May I ask for your judgment upon it before I give mine?"
"Mine? why I expected every minute that Mr. Thorn would make the musicians play 'Sparkling and Bright,' and tell Miss Ringgan that to save trouble he had directed them to express what he was sure were the sentiments of the whole company in one burst."
He smiled a little, but in a way that Constance could not understand and did not like.
"Those are common epithets," he said.
"Must I use uncommon?" said Constance significantly.
"No--but these may say one thing or another."
"I have said one thing," said Constance; "and now you may say the other."
"Pardon me--you have said nothing. These epithets are deserved by a great many faces, but on very different grounds; and the praise is a different thing accordingly."
"Well what is the difference?" said Constance.
"On what do you think this lady's title to it rests?"
"On what?--why on that bewitching little air of the eyes and mouth, I suppose."
"Bewitching is a very vague term," said he smiling again more quietly. "But you have had an opportunity of knowing it much better of late than I--to which class of bright faces would you refer this one? Where does the light come from?"
"I never studied faces in a class," said Constance a little scornfully. "Come from?--a region of mist and clouds I should say, for it is sometimes pretty well covered up."
"There are some eyes whose sparkling is nothing more than the play of light upon a bright bead of glass."
"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of herself after delaying as long as she dared.
"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of outward circumstances, and passes away with them."
"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that reflection would not utterly absorb."
She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was upon Mr. Carleton's arm and they were slowly sauntering down the rooms,--too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished for a trifle.
"There is the broad day-light of mere animal spirits," he went on, seeming rather to be suggesting these things for her consideration than eager to set forth any opinions of his own;--"there is the sparkling of mischief, and the fire of hidden passions,--there is the passing brilliance of wit, as satisfactory and resting as these gas-lights,--and there is now and then the light of refined affections out of a heart unspotted from the world, as pure and abiding as the stars, and like them throwing its soft ray especially upon the shadows of life."
"I have always understood," said Constance, "that cats' eyes are brightest in the dark."
"They do not love the light, I believe," said Mr. Carleton calmly.
"Well," said Constance, not relishing the expression of her companion's eye, which from glowing had suddenly become cool and bright,--"where would you put me, Mr. Carleton, among all these illuminators of the social system?"
"You may put yourself--where you please, Miss Constance," he said, again turning upon her an eye so deep and full in its meaning that her own and her humour fell before it; for a moment she looked most unlike the gay scene around her.
"Is not that the best brightness," he said speaking low, "that will last forever?--and is not that lightness of heart best worth having which does not depend on circumstances, and will find its perfection just when all other kinds of happiness fail utterly?"
"I can't conceive," said Constance presently, rallying or trying to rally herself,--"what you and I have to do in a place where people are enjoying themselves at this moment, Mr. Carleton!"
He smiled at that and led her out of it into the conservatory, close to which they found themselves. It was a large and fine one, terminating the suite of rooms in this direction. Few people were there; but at the far end stood a group among whom Fleda and Mr. Thorn were conspicuous. He was busying himself in putting together a quantity of flowers for her; and Mrs. Evelyn and old Mr. Thorn stood looking on; with Mr. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole was an Englishman, of certainly not very prepossessing exterior but somewhat noted as an author and a good deal sought after in consequence. At present he was engaged by Mrs. Evelyn. Mr. Carleton and Constance sauntered up towards them and paused at a little distance to look at some curious plants.
"Don't try for that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb Fuchsia that hung high,--"You are endangering sundry things besides yourself."
"I have learned, Miss Fleda," said Thorn as with much ado he grasped the beautiful cluster,--"that what we take the most pains for is apt to be reckoned the best prize,--a truth I should never think of putting into a lady's head if I believed it possible that a single one of them was ignorant of its practical value."
"I have this same rose in my garden at home," said Fleda.
"You are a great gardener, Miss Fleda, I hear," said the old gentleman. "My son says you are an adept in it."
"I am very fond of it, sir," said Fleda, answeringhimwith an entirely different face.
"I thought the delicacy of American ladies was beyond such a masculine employment as gardening," said Mr. Stackpole, edging away from Mrs. Evelyn.
"I guess this young lady is an exception to the rule," said old Mr. Thorn.
"I guess she is an exception to most rules that you have got in your note-book, Mr. Stackpole," said the younger man. "But there is no guessing about the garden, for I have with my own eyes seen these gentle hands at one end of a spade and her foot at the other;--a sight that--I declare I don't know whether I was most filled with astonishment or admiration!"
"Yes," said Fleda half laughing and colouring,--"and he ingenuously confessed in his surprise that he didn't know whether politeness ought to oblige him to stop and shake hands or to pass by without seeing me; evidently shewing that he thought I was about something equivocal."
The laugh was now turned against Mr. Thorn, but he went on cutting his geraniums with a grave face.
"Well," said he at length, "I think itissomething of very equivocal utility. Why should such gentle hands and feet spend their strength in clod-breaking, when rough ones are at command?"
There was nothing equivocal about Fleda's merriment this time.
"I have learned, Mr. Thorn, by sad experience, that the rough hands break more than the clods. One day I set Philetus to work among my flowers; and the first thing I knew he had pulled up a fine passion-flower which didn't make much shew above ground and was displaying it to me with the grave commentary, 'Well! that root did grow to a great haigth!'"
"Some mental clod-breaking to be done up there, isn't there?" said Thorn in a kind of aside. "I cannot express my admiration at the idea of your dealing with those boors, as it has been described to me."
"They do not deserve the name, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda. "They are many of them most sensible and excellent people, and friends that I value very highly."
"Ah, your goodness would made friends of everything."
"Not of boors, I hope," said Fleda coolly. "Besides, what do you mean by the name?"
"Anybody incapable of appreciating that of which you alone should be unconscious," he said softly.
Fleda stood impatiently tapping her flowers against her left hand.
"I doubt their power of appreciation reaches a point that would surprise you, sir."
"It does indeed--if I am mistaken in my supposition," he said with a glance which Fleda refused to acknowledge.
"What proportion do you suppose," she went on, "of all these roomfuls of people behind us,--without saying anything uncharitable,--what proportion of them, if compelled to amuse themselves for two hours at a bookcase, would pitch upon Macaulay's Essays, or anything like them, to spend the time?"
"Hum--really, Miss Fleda," said Thorn, "I should want to brush up my Algebra considerably before I could hope to find x, y, and z in such a confusion of the alphabet."
"Or extract the small sensible root of such a quantity of light matter," said Mr. Stackpole.
"Will you bear with my vindication of my country friends?--Hugh and I sent for a carpenter to make some new arrangement of shelves in a cupboard where we kept our books; he was one of these boors, Mr. Thorn, in no respect above the rest. The right stuff for his work was wanting, and while it was sent for he took up one of the volumes that were lying about and read perseveringly until the messenger returned. It was a volume of Macaulay's Miscellanies; and afterwards he borrowed the book of me."
"And you lent it to him?" said Constance.
"Most assuredly! and with a great deal of pleasure."
"And is this no more than a common instance, Miss Ringgan?" said Mr. Carleton.
"No, I think not," said Fleda; the quick blood in her cheeks again answering the familiar voice and old associations;--"I know several of the farmers' daughters around us that have studied Latin and Greek; and philosophy is a common thing; and I am sure there is more sense"--
She suddenly checked herself, and her eye which had been sparkling grew quiet.
"It is very absurd!" said Mr. Stackpole
"Why, sir?"
"O--these people have nothing to do with such things--do them nothing but harm!"
"May I ask again, what harm?" said Fleda gently.
"Unfit them for the duties of their station and make them discontented with it."
"By making it pleasanter?"
"No, no--not by making it pleasanter."
"By what then, Mr. Stackpole?" said Thorn, to draw him on and to draw her out, Fleda was sure.
"By lifting them out of it."
"And what objection to lifting them out of it?" said Thorn.
"You can't lift everybody out of it," said the gentleman with a little irritation in his manner,--"that station must be filled--there must always be poor people."
"And what degree of poverty ought to debar a man from the pleasures of education and a cultivated taste? such as he can attain?
"No, no, not that," said Mr. Stackpole;--"but it all goes to fill them with absurd notions about their place in society, inconsistent with proper subordination."
Fleda looked at him, but shook her head slightly and was silent.
"Things are in very different order on our side the water," said Mr. Stackpole hugging himself.
"Are they?" said Fleda.
"Yes--we understand how to keep things in their places a little better."
"I did not know," said Fleda quietly, "that it was bydesignof the rulers of England that so many of her lower class are in the intellectual condition of our slaves."
"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn laughing,--"what do you say to that, sir?"
Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.
"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier," pursued Mr. Stackpole;--"only serves to give them uppish and dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."
"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all are contented because none can get on, and in a republic none are contented because all can get on.'"
"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.
"That might do very well if the world were in a state of perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent and getting on. And the uppishness I am afraid is a national fault, sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.'"
"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan has followed the example of her friends the farmers' daughters?--or led them in it?--"
"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda colouring.
"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn, who was leisurely pruning the prickles from the stem of a rose.
"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me afterwards gravely that he was afraid I was studying too many things at once!--when I was innocent of all ornithology but what my eyes and ears had picked up in the woods; except some childish reminiscences of Audubon."
"That is just the right sort of learning for a lady," said Mr. Stackpole, smiling at her, however;--"women have nothing to do with books."
"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.
"Nothing, sir; it is one of those positions that are unanswerable."
"But Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that doctrine, sir. I do not believe in it at all."
"That is unfortunate--for my doctrine," said the gentleman.
"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"
"Not needed, ma'am,--a woman, as somebody says, knows intuitively all that is really worth knowing."
"Of what use is a mine that is never worked?" said Mr. Carleton.
"Itisworked," said Mr. Stackpole. "Domestic life is the true training for the female mind. One woman will learn more wisdom from the child on her breast than another will learn from ten thousand volumes."
"It is very doubtful how much wisdom the child will ever learn from her," said Mr. Carleton smiling.
"A woman who never saw a book," pursued Mr. Stackpole, unconsciously quoting his author, "may be infinitely superior, even in all those matters of which books treat, to the woman who has read, and read intelligently, a whole library."
"Unquestionably--and it is likewise beyond question that a silver sixpence may be worth more than a washed guinea."
"But a woman's true sphere is in her family--in her home duties, which furnish the best and most appropriate training for her faculties--pointed out by nature itself."
"Yes!" said Mr. Carleton,--"and for those duties, some of the very highest and noblest that are entrusted to human agency, the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought to its last point of perfectness. The wealth of a woman's mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought out and fashioned for its various ends, while yet those ends are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And for her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home, her home stores should be exhaustless--the stores she cannot go abroad to seek. I would add to strength beauty, and to beauty grace, in the intellectual proportions, so far as possible. It were ungenerous, in man to condemn thebesthalf of human intellect to insignificance merely because it is not his own."
Mrs. Evelyn wore a smile of admiration that nobody saw, but Fleda's face was a study while Mr. Carleton was saying this. Her look was fixed upon him with such intent satisfaction and eagerness that it was not till he had finished that she became aware that those dark eyes were going very deep into hers, and suddenly put a stop to the inquisition.
"Very pleasant doctrine to the ears that have an interest in it!" said Mr. Stackpole rather discontentedly.
"The man knows little of his own interest," said Mr. Carleton, "who would leave that ground waste, or would cultivate it only in the narrow spirit of a utilitarian. He needs an influence in his family not more refreshing than rectifying; and no man will seek that in one greatly his inferior. He is to be pitied who cannot fall back upon his home with the assurance that he has there something better than himself."
"Why, Mr. Carleton, sir--" said Mrs. Evelyn, with every line of her mouth saying funny things,--"I am afraid you have sadly neglected your own interest--have you anything at Carleton better than yourself?"
Suddenly cool again, he laughed and said, "You were there, Mrs. Evelyn."
"But Mr. Carleton,--" pursued the lady with a mixture of insinuation and fun,--"why were you never married?"
"Circumstances have always forbade it," he answered with a smile which Constance declared was the most fascinating thing she ever saw in her life.
Fleda was arranging her flowers, with the help of some very unnecessary suggestions from the donor.
"Mr. Lewis," said Constance with a kind of insinuation very different from her mother's, made up of fun and daring,--"Mr. Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany; while my attention was distracted by listening to yourspirituelconversation."
"Well, Miss Constance?"
"And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory--and in that case he would never give me another!"
It was impossible to help laughing at the distressful position of the young lady's eyebrows, and with at least some measure of outward grace Mr. Thorn set about complying with her request. Fleda again stood tapping her left hand with her flowers, wondering a little that somebody else did not come and speak to her; but he was talking to Mrs. Evelyn and Mr. Stackpole. Fleda did not wish to join them, and nothing better occurred to her than to arrange her flowers over again; so throwing them all down before her on a marble slab, she began to pick them up one by one and put them together, with it must be confessed a very indistinct realization of the difference between myrtle and lemon blossoms, and as she seemed to be laying acacia to rose, and disposing some sprigs of beautiful heath behind them, in reality she was laying kindness alongside of kindness and looking at the years beyond years where their place had been. It was with a little start that she suddenly found the person of her thoughts standing at her elbow and talking to her in bodily presence. But while he spoke with all the ease and simplicity of old times, almost making Fleda think it was but last week they had been strolling through the Place de la Concorde together, there was a constraint upon her that she could not get rid of and that bound eye and tongue. It might have worn off, but his attention was presently claimed again by Mrs. Evelyn; and Fleda thought best while yet Constance's bouquet was unfinished, to join another party and make her escape into the drawing-rooms.
Have you observed a sitting hare,List'ning, and fearful of the stormOf horns and hounds, clap back her ear,Afraid to keep or leave her form?
Have you observed a sitting hare,List'ning, and fearful of the stormOf horns and hounds, clap back her ear,Afraid to keep or leave her form?
Prior.
Prior.
By the Evelyns' own desire Fleda's going to them was delayed for a week, because, they said, a furnace was to be brought into the house and they would be all topsy-turvy till that fuss was over. Fleda kept herself very quiet in the mean time, seeing almost nobody but the person whom it was her especial object to shun. Do her best she could not quite escape him, and was even drawn into two or three walks and rides; in spite of denying herself utterly to gentlemen at home, and losing in consequence a visit from her old friend. She was glad at last to go to the Evelyns and see company again, hoping that Mr. Thorn would be merged in a crowd.
But she could not merge him; and sometimes was almost inclined to suspect that his constant prominence in the picture must be owing to some mysterious and wilful conjuration going on in the background. She was at a loss to conceive how else it happened that despite her utmost endeavours to the contrary she was so often thrown upon his care and obliged to take up with his company. It was very disagreeable. Mr. Carleton she saw almost as constantly, but though frequently near she had never much to do with him. There seemed to be a dividing atmosphere always in the way; and whenever he did speak to her she felt miserably constrained and unable to appear like herself. Why was it?--she asked herself in a very vexed state of mind. No doubt partly from the remembrance of that overheard conversation which she could not help applying, but much more from an indefinable sense that at these times there were always eyes upon her. She tried to charge the feeling upon her consciousness of their having heard that same talk, but it would not the more go off. And it had no chance to wear off, for somehow the occasions never lasted long; something was sure to break them up; while an unfortunate combination of circumstances, or of connivers, seemed to give Mr. Thorn unlimited facilities in the same kind. Fleda was quick witted and skilful enough to work herself out of them once in a while; more often the combination was too much for her simplicity and straight-forwardness.
She was a little disappointed and a little surprised at Mr. Carleton's coolness. He was quite equal to withstand or out-general the schemes of any set of manoeuvrers; therefore it was plain he did not care for the society of his little friend and companion of old time. Fleda felt it, especially as she now and then heard him in delightful talk with somebody else; making himself so interesting that when Fleda could get a chance to listen she was quite ready to forgive his not talking to her for the pleasure of hearing him talk at all. But at other times she said sorrowfully to herself, "He will be going home presently, and I shall not have seen him!"
One day she had successfully defended herself against taking a drive which Mr. Thorn came to propose, though the proposition had been laughingly backed by Mrs. Evelyn. Raillery was much harder to withstand than persuasion; but Fleda's quiet resolution had proved a match for both. The better to cover her ground, she declined to go out at all, and remained at home the only one of the family that fine day.
In the afternoon Mr. Carleton was there. Fleda sat a little apart from the rest, industriously bending over a complicated piece of embroidery belonging to Constance and in which that young lady had made a great blunder which she declared her patience unequal to the task of rectifying. The conversation went gayly forward among the others; Fleda taking no part in it beyond an involuntary one. Mr. Carleton's part was rather reserved and grave; according to his manner in ordinary society.
"What do you keep bothering yourself with that for?" said Edith coming to Fleda's side.
"One must be doing something, you know," said Fleda lightly.
"No you mustn't--not when you're tired--and I know you are. I'd let Constance pick out her own work."
"I promised her I would do it," said Fleda.
"Well, you didn't promise her when. Come!--everybody's been out but you, and you have sat here over this the whole day. Why don't you come over there and talk with the rest?--I know you want to, for I've watched your mouth going."
"Going!--how?"
"Going--off at the corners. I've seen it! Come."
But Fleda said she could listen and work at once, and would not budge. Edith stood looking at her a little while in a kind of admiring sympathy, and then went back to the group.
"Mr. Carleton," said the young lady, who was treading with laudable success in the steps of her sister Constance,--"what has become of that ride you promised to give me?"
"I do not know, Miss Edith," said Mr. Carleton smiling, "for my conscience never had the keeping of it."
"Hush, Edith!" said her mother; "do you think Mr. Carleton has nothing to do but to take you riding?"
"I don't believe he has much to do," said Edith securely. "But Mr. Carleton, you did promise, for I asked you and you said nothing; and I always have been told that silence gives consent; so what is to become of it?"
"Will you go now, Miss Edith?"
"Now?--O yes! And will you go out to Manhattanville, Mr. Carleton!--along by the river?"
"If you like. But Miss Edith, the carriage will hold another--cannot you persuade one of these ladies to go with us?"
"Fleda!" said Edith, springing off to her with extravagant capers of joy,--"Fleda, you shall go! you haven't been out to-day."
"And I cannot go out to-day," said Fleda gently.
"The air is very fine," said Mr. Carleton approaching her table, with no want of alacrity in step or tone, her ears knew;--"and this weather makes everything beautiful--has that piece of canvas any claims upon you that cannot be put aside for a little?"
"No sir," said Fleda,--"but--I am sorry I have a stronger reason that must keep me at home."
"She knows how the weather looks," said Edith,--"Mr. Thorn takes her out every other day. It's no use to talk to her, Mr. Carleton,--when she says she won't, she won't."
"Every other day!" said Fleda.
"No, no," said Mrs. Evelyn coming up, and with that smile which Fleda had never liked so little as at that minute,--"notevery other day, Edith, what are you talking of? Go and don't keep Mr. Carleton waiting."
Fleda worked on, feeling a little aggrieved. Mr. Carleton stood still by her table, watching her, while his companions were getting themselves ready; but he said no more, and Fleda did not raise her head till the party were off. Florence had taken her resigned place.
"I dare say the weather will be quite as fine to-morrow, dear Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn softly.
"I hope it will," said Fleda in a tone of resolute simplicity.
"I only hope it will not bring too great a throng of carriages to the door," Mrs. Evelyn went on in a tone of great internal amusement;--"I never used to mind it, but I have lately a nervous fear of collisions."
"To-morrow is not your reception-day," said Fleda.
"No, not mine," said Mrs. Evelyn softly,--"but that doesn't signify--it may be one of my neighbours'."
Fleda pulled away at her threads of worsted and wouldn't know anything else.
"I have read of the servants of Lot and the servants of Abraham quarrelling," Mrs. Evelyn went on in the same undertone of delight,--"because the land was too strait for them--I should be very sorry to have anything of the sort happen again, for I cannot imagine where Lot would go to find a plain that would suit him."
"Lot and Abraham, mamma!" said Constance from the sofa,--"what on earth are you talking about?"
"None of your business," said Mrs. Evelyn;--"I was talking of some country friends of mine that you don't know."
Constance knew her mother's laugh very well; but Mrs. Evelyn was impenetrable.
The next day Fleda ran away and spent a good part of the morning with her uncle in the library, looking over new books; among which she found herself quite a stranger, so many had made their appearance since the time when she had much to do with libraries or bookstores. Living friends, male and female, were happily forgotten in the delighted acquaintance-making with those quiet companions which, whatever their deficiencies in other respects, are at least never importunate nor unfaithful. Fleda had come home rather late and was dressing for dinner with Constance's company and help, when Mrs. Evelyn came into her room.
"My dear Fleda," said the lady, her face and voice as full as possible of fun,--"Mr. Carleton wants to know if you will ride with him this afternoon.--I told him I believed you were in general shy of gentlemen that drove their own horses--that I thought I had noticed you were,--but I would come up and see."
"Mrs. Evelyn!--you did not tell him that?"
"He said he was sorry to see you looked pale yesterday when he was asking you; and he was afraid that embroidery is not good for you. He thinks you are a very charming girl!--"
And Mrs. Evelyn went off into little fits of laughter which unstrung all Fleda's nerves. She stood absolutely trembling.
"Mamma!--don't plague her!" said Constance. "He didn't say so."
"He did!--upon my word!--" said Mrs. Evelyn, speaking with great difficulty;--"he said she was very charming, and it might be dangerous to see too much of her."
"You made him say that, Mrs. Evelyn!" said Fleda, reproachfully.
"Well I did ask him if you were not very charming, but he answered--without hesitation--" said the lady,--"I am only so afraid that Lot will make his appearance!--"
Fleda turned round to the glass, and went on arranging her hair, with a quivering lip.
"Lot, mamma!" said Constance somewhat indignantly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Evelyn in ecstacies,--"because the land will not bear both of them.--But Mr. Carleton is very much in earnest for his answer, Fleda my dear--what shall I tell him?--You need be under no apprehensions about going--he will perhaps tell you that you are charming, but I don't think he will say anything more. You know he is a kind of patriarch!--And when I asked him if he didn't think it might be dangerous to see too much of you, he said he thought it might to some people--so you see you are safe."
"Mrs. Evelyn, how could you use my name so!" said Fleda with a voice that carried a good deal of reproach.
"My dear Fleda, shall I tell him you will go?--You need not be afraid to go riding, only you must not let yourself be seen walking with him."
"I shall not go, ma'am," said Fleda quietly.
"I wanted to send Edith with you, thinking it would be pleasanter; but I knew Mr. Carleton's carriage would hold but two to-day. So what shall I tell him?"
"I am not going, ma'am," repeated Fleda.
"But what shall I tell him? I must give him some reason. Shall I say that you think a sea-breeze is blowing, and you don't like it?--or shall I say that prospects are a matter of indifference to you?"
Fleda was quite silent, and went on dressing herself with trembling fingers.
"My dear Fleda," said the lady bringing her face a little into order,--"won't you go?--I am very sorry--"
"So am I sorry," said Fleda. "I can't go, Mrs. Evelyn."
"I will tell Mr. Carleton you are very sorry," said Mrs. Evelyn, every line of her face drawing again,--"that will console him; and let him hope that you will not mind sea-breezes by and by, after you have been a little longer in the neighbourhood of them. I will tell him you are a good republican, and have an objection at present to an English equipage, but I have no doubt that it is a prejudice which will wear off."
She stopped to laugh, while Fleda had the greatest difficulty not to cry. The lady did not seem to see her disturbed brow; but recovering herself after a little, though not readily, she bent forward and touched her lips to it in kind fashion. Fleda did not look up; and saying again, "I will tell him, dear Fleda!"--Mrs. Evelyn left the room.
Constance after a little laughing and condoling, neither of which Fleda attempted to answer, ran off too, to dress herself; and Fleda after finishing her own toilette locked her door, sat down and cried heartily. She thought Mrs. Evelyn had been, perhaps unconsciously, very unkind; and to say that unkindness has not been meant is but to shift the charge from one to another vital point in the character of a friend, and one perhaps sometimes not less grave. A moment's passionate wrong may consist with the endurance of a friendship worth having, better than the thoughtlessness of obtuse wits that can never know how to be kind. Fleda's whole frame was still in a tremor from disagreeable excitement; and she had serious causes of sorrow to cry for. She was sorry she had lost what would have been a great pleasure in the ride,--and her great pleasures were not often,--but nothing would have been more impossible than for her to go after what Mrs. Evelyn had said;--she was sorry Mr. Carleton should have asked her twice in vain; what must he think?--she was exceeding sorry that a thought should have been put into her head that never before had visited the most distant dreams of her imagination,--so needlessly, so gratuitously;--she was very sorry, for she could not be free of it again, and she felt it would make her miserably hampered and constrained in mind and manner both, in any future intercourse with the person in question. And then again what would he think of that? Poor Fleda came to the conclusion that her best place was at home; and made up her mind to take the first good opportunity of getting there.
She went down to dinner with no traces of either tears or unkindness on her sweet face, but her nerves were quivering all the afternoon; she could not tell whether Mrs. Evelyn and her daughters found it out. And it was impossible for her to get back even her old degree of freedom of manner before either Mr. Carleton or Mr Thorn. All the more because Mrs. Evelyn was every now and then bringing out some sly allusion which afforded herself intense delight and wrought Fleda to the last degree of quietness. Unkind.--Fleda thought now it was but half from ignorance of the mischief she was doing, and the other half from the mere desire of selfish gratification. The times and ways in which Lot and Abraham were walked into the conversation were incalculable,--and unintelligible except to the person who understood it only too well. On one occasion Mrs. Evelyn went on with a long rigmarole to Mr. Thorn about sea-breezes, with a face of most exquisite delight at his mystification and her own hidden fun; till Fleda was absolutely trembling. Fleda shunned both the gentlemen at length with a kind of nervous horror.
One steamer had left New York, and another, and still Mr. Carleton did not leave it. Why he staid, Constance was as much in a puzzle as ever, for no mortal could guess. Clearly, she said, he did not delight in New York society, for he honoured it as slightly and partially as might be, and it was equally clear if he had a particular reason for staying he didn't mean anybody should know it.
"If he don't mean it, you won't find it out, Constance," said Fleda.
"But it is that very consideration, you see, which inflames my impatience to a most dreadful degree. I think our house is distinguished with his regards, though I am sure I can't imagine why, for he never condescends to anything beyond general benevolence when he is here, and not always to that. He has no taste for embroidery, or Miss Ringgan's crewels would receive more of his notice--he listens to my spirited conversation with a self-possession which invariably deprives me of mine!--and his ear is evidently dull to musical sensibilities, or Florence's harp would have greater charms. I hope there is a web weaving somewhere that will catch him--at present he stands in an attitude of provoking independence of all the rest of the world. It is curious!" said Constance with an indescribable face,--"I feel that the independence of another is rapidly making a slave of me!--"
"What do you mean, Constance?" said Edith indignantly. But the others could do nothing but laugh.
Fleda did not wonder that Mr. Carleton made no more efforts to get her to ride, for the very next day after his last failure he had met her driving with Mr. Thorn. Fleda had been asked by Mr. Thorn's mother in such a way as made it impossible to get off; but it caused her to set a fresh seal of unkindness to Mrs. Evelyn's behaviour.
One evening when there was no other company at Mrs. Evelyn's, Mr. Stackpole was entertaining himself with a long dissertation upon the affairs of America, past, present, and future. It was a favourite subject; Mr. Stackpole always seemed to have more complacent enjoyment of his easy chair when he could succeed in making every American in the room sit uncomfortably. And this time, without any one to thwart him, he went on to his heart's content, disposing of the subject as one would strip a rose of its petals, with as much seeming nonchalance and ease, and with precisely the same design, to make a rose no rose. Leaf after leaf fell under Mr. Stackpole's touch, as if it had been a black frost. The American government was a rickety experiment; go to pieces presently,--American institutions an alternative between fallacy and absurdity, the fruit of raw minds and precocious theories;--American liberty a contradiction;-- American character a compound of quackery and pretension;--American society (except at Mrs. Evelyn's) an anomaly;--American destiny the same with that of a Cactus or a volcano; a period of rest followed by a period of excitement; not however like the former making successive shoots towards perfection, but like the latter grounding every new face of things upon the demolition of that which went before. Smoothly and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half assented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently drumming upon her elbow with the fingers of her other hand, in the sheer necessity of giving some expression to her feelings. Mr. Stackpole at last got his finger upon the sore spot of American slavery, and pressed it hard.
"This is the land of the stars and the stripes!" said the gentleman in a little fit of virtuous indignation;--"This is the land where all are brothers!--where 'All men are born free and equal.'"
"Mr. Stackpole," said Fleda in a tone that called his attention,--"are you well acquainted with the popular proverbs of your country?"
"Not particularly," he said,--"he had never made it a branch of study."
"I am a great admirer of them."
He bowed, and begged to be excused for remarking that he didn't see the point yet.
"Do you remember this one, sir," said Fleda colouring a little,--"'Those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?'"
"I have heard it; but pardon me,--though your remark seems to imply the contrary I am in the dark yet. What unfortunate points of vitrification have I laid open to your fire?"
"I thought they were probably forgotten by you, sir."
"I shall be exceedingly obliged to you if you will put me in condition to defend myself."
"I think nothing could do that, Mr. Stackpole. Under whose auspices and fostering care was this curse of slavery laid upon America?"
"Why--of course,--but you will observe, Miss Ringgan, that at that day the world was unenlightened on a great many points;--since thenwehave cast off the wrong which we then shared with the rest of mankind."
"Ay sir, but not until we had first repudiated it and Englishmen had desired to force it back upon us at the point of the sword. Four times"--
"But my dear Fleda," interrupted Mrs. Evelyn, "the English nation have no slaves nor slave-trade--they have put an end to slavery entirely everywhere under their flag."
"They were very slow about it," said Fleda. "Four times the government of Massachusetts abolished the slave-trade under their control, and four times the English government thrust it back upon them. Do you remember what Burke says about that?--in his speech on Conciliation with America?"
"It don't signify what Burke says about it," said Mr. Stackpole rubbing his chin,--"Burke is not the first authority--but Miss Ringgan, it is undeniable that slavery and the slave-trade, too, does at this moment exist in the interior of your own country."
"I will never excuse what is wrong, sir; but I think it becomes an Englishman to be very moderate in putting forth that charge."
"Why?" said he hastily;--"we have done away with it entirely in our own dominions;--wiped that stain clean off. Not a slave can touch British ground but he breathes free air from that minute."
"Yes, sir, but candour will allow that we are not in a condition in this country to decide the question by atour de force."
"What is to decide it then?" said he a little arrogantly.
"The progress of truth in public opinion."
"And why not the government--as well as our government?"
"It has not the power, you know, sir."
"Not the power! well, that speaks for itself."
"Nothing against us, on a fair construction," said Fleda patiently. "It is well known to those who understand the subject"--
"Where did you learn so much about it, Fleda?" said Mrs. Evelyn humourously.
"As the birds pick up their supplies, ma'am--here and there.--It is well known, Mr. Stackpole, that our constitution never could have been agreed upon if that question of slavery had not been by common consent left where it was--with the separate state governments."
"The separate state governments--well, why do nottheyput an end to it? The disgrace is only shifted."
"Of course they must first have the consent of the public mind of those states."
"Ah!--their consent!--and why is their consent wanting?"
"We cannot defend ourselves there," said Mrs. Evelyn;--"I wish we could."
"The disgrace at least is shifted from the whole to a part. But will you permit me," said Fleda, "to give another quotation from my despised authority, and remind you of an Englishman's testimony, that beyond a doubt that point of emancipation would never have been carried in parliament had the interests of even a part of the electors been concerned in it."
"It was done, however,--and done at the expense of twenty millions of money."
"And I am sure that was very noble," said Florence.
"It was what no nation but the English would ever have done," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"I do not wish to dispute it," said Fleda; "but still it was doing what did not touch the sensitive point of their own well-being."
"Wethink there is a little national honour concerned in it," said Mr. Stackpole dryly, stroking his chin again.
"So does every right-minded person," said Mrs. Evelyn; "I am sure I do."
"And I am sure so do I," said Fleda; "but I think the honour of a piece of generosity is considerably lessened by the fact that it is done at the expense of another."
"Generosity!" said Mr. Stackpole,--"it was not generosity, it was justice;--there was no generosity about it."
"Then it deserves no honour at all," said Fleda, "if it was merely that--the tardy execution of justice is but the removal of a reproach."
"We Englishmen are of opinion, however," said Mr. Stackpole contentedly, "that the removers of a reproach are entitled to some honour which those who persist in retaining it cannot claim."
"Yes," said Fleda, drawing rather a long breath,--"I acknowledge that; but I think that while some of these same Englishmen have shewn themselves so unwilling to have the condition of their own factory slaves ameliorated, they should be very gentle in speaking of wrongs which we have far less ability to rectify."
"Ah!--I like consistency," said Mr. Stackpole. "America shouldn't dress up poles with liberty caps till all who walk under are free to wear them. She cannot boast that the breath of her air and the breath of freedom are one."
"Can England?" said Fleda gently,--"when her own citizens are not free from the horrors of impressment?"
"Pshaw!" said Mr. Stackpole, half in a pet and half laughing,--"why, where did you get such a fury against England?--you are the firstfairantagonist I have met on this side of the water."
"I wish I was a better one, sir," said Fleda laughing.
"Miss Ringgan has been prejudiced by an acquaintance with one or two unfortunate specimens," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Ay!" said Mr. Stackpole a little bitterly,--"America is the natural birthplace of prejudice,--always was."