Queechy Volume I Part 10

'Amontillado' was Hebrew to Fleda, but 'goblet' was intelligible.

"I am sorry!" she said; "I don't know where there is any spring up here, but we shall come to one going down the mountain."

"Do you know where all the springs are?"

"No, not all, I suppose," said Fleda; "but I know a good many.

I have gone about through the woods so much, and I always look for the springs."

"And who roams about through the woods with you?"

"Oh, n.o.body but grandpa," said Fleda. "He used to be out with me a great deal, but he can't go much now ? this year or two."

"Don't you go to school?"

"O no!" said Fleda, smiling.

"Then your grandfather teaches you at home?"

"No," said Fleda; father used to teach me; grandpa doesn't teach me much."

"What do you do with yourself all day long?"

"O, plenty of things," said Fleda, smiling again. "I read, and talk to grandpa, and go riding, and do a great many things."

"Has your home always been here, Fairy?" said Mr. Carleton, after a few minutes' pause.

Fleda said, "No, Sir," and there stopped; and then seeming to think that politeness called upon her to say more, she added ?

"I have lived with grandpa ever since father left me here, when he was going away among the Indians; I used to be always with him before."

"And how long ago is that?"

"It is ? four years, Sir; more, I believe. He was sick when he came back, and we never went away from Queechy again."

Mr. Carleton looked again silently at the child, who had given him these pieces of information with a singular, grave propriety of manner; and even as it were reluctantly.

"And what do you read, Fairy?" he said, after a minute.

"Stories of fairy-land?"

"No," said Fleda; "I haven't any. We haven't a great many books ? there are only a few up in the cupboard, and the Encyclopaedia; father had some books, but they are locked up in a chest. But there is a great deal in the Encyclopaedia."

"The Encyclopaedia!" said Mr. Carleton; ? "what do you read in that? what can you find to like there?"

"I like all about the insects, and birds, and animals; and about flowers, ? and lives of people, and curious things.

There are a great many in it."

"And what are the other books in the cupboard, which you read?"

"There's Quentin Durward," said Fleda, ? "and Rob Roy, and Guy Mannering in two little bits of volumes; and the Knickerbocker, and the Christian's Magazine, and an odd volume of Redgauntlet, and the Beauties of Scotland."

"And have you read all these, Miss Fleda?" said her companion, commanding his countenance with difficulty.

"I haven't read quite all of the Christian's Magazine, nor all of the Beauties of Scotland."

"All the rest."

"O yes," said Fleda, ? "and two or three times over. And there are three great red volumes besides, Robertson's History of something, I believe. I haven't read that either."

"And which of them all do you like the best?"

"I don't know," said Fleda, ? "I don't know but I like to read the Encyclopaedia as well as any of them. And then I have the newspapers to read too."

"I think, Miss Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, a minute after, "you had better let me take you with my mother over the sea, when we go back again, ? to Paris."

"Why, Sir?"

"You know," said he, half smiling, "your aunt wants you, and has engaged my mother to bring you with her, if she can."

"I know it," said Fleda. "But I am not going."

It was spoken not rudely, but in a tone of quiet determination.

"Aren't you too tired, Sir?" said she gently, when she saw Mr.

Carleton preparing to launch into the remaining hickory trees.

"Not I!" said he. "I am not tired till I have done, Fairy. And besides, cheese is working man's fare, you know, isn't it?"

"No," said Fleda, gravely, ? "I don't think it is."

"What then?" said Mr. Carleton, stopping as he was about to spring into the tree, and looking at her with a face of comical amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It isn't what our men live on," said Fleda, demurely eyeing the fallen nuts, with a head full of business.

They set both to work again with renewed energy, and rested not till the treasures of the trees had been all brought to the ground, and as large a portion of them as could be coaxed and shaken into Fleda's basket, had been cleared from the hulls and bestowed there. But there remained a vast quant.i.ty.

These with a good deal of labour, Mr. Carleton and Fleda gathered into a large heap in rather a sheltered place by the side of a rock, and took what measures they might to conceal them. This was entirely at Fleda's instance

"You and your maid Cynthia will have to make a good many journeys, Miss Fleda, to get all these home, unless you can muster a larger basket."

"O _that_'s nothing," said Fleda. "It will be all fun. I don't care how many times we have to come. You are _very_ good, Mr.

Carleton."

"Do you think so?" said he. "I wish I did. I wish you would make your wand rest on me, Fairy."

"My wand?" said Fleda.

"Yes ? you know your grandfather says you are a fairy, and carry a wand. What does he say that for, Miss Fleda?"

Fleda said she supposed it was because he loved her so much; but the rosy smile with which she said it would have let her hearer, if he had needed enlightening, far more into the secret than she was herself. And if the simplicity in her face had not been equal to the wit, Mr. Carleton would never have ventured the look of admiration he bestowed on her. He knew it was safe. _Approbation_ she saw, and it made her smile the rosier; but the admiration was a step beyond her; Fleda could make nothing of it.