Queechy Volume Ii Part 21

AS YOU LIKE IT.

"What have we to do to-night?" said Florence, at breakfast the next morning.

"You have no engagement, have you?" said her mother.

"No, Mamma," said Constance, arching her eyebrows ? "we are to taste the sweets of domestic life ? you, as head of the family, will go to sleep in the _dormeuse_, and Florence and I shall take turns in yawning by your side."

"And what will Fleda do?" said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing.

"Fleda, Mamma, will be wrapped in remorseful recollections of having enacted a mob last evening, and have enough occupation in considering how she shall repair damages."

"Fleda , my dear, she is very saucy," said Mrs. Evelyn, sipping her tea with great comfort.

"Why should we yawn to-night any more than last night?" said Fleda ? a question which Edith would certainly have asked if she had not been away at school. The breakfast was too late for both her and her father.

"Last night, my dear, your fractious disposition kept us upon half breath; there wasn't time to yawn. I meant to have eased my breast by laughing afterwards, but that expectation was stifled."

"What stifled it?"

"I was afraid!" said Constance, with a little flutter of her person up and down in her chair.

"Afraid of what?"

"And besides, you know, we can't have our drawing-rooms filled with distinguished foreigners every evening we are not at home. I shall direct the fowling-piece to be severe in his execution of orders to-night, and let n.o.body in. I forgot!"

exclaimed Constance, with another flutter ? "it is Mr. Thorn's night! My dearest mamma, will you consent to have the dormeuse wheeled round with its back to the fire? ? and Florence and I will take the opportunity to hear little Edith's lessons in the next room, unless Mr. Decatur comes. I must endeavour to make the Manton comprehend what he has to do."

"But what is to become of Mr. Evelyn?" said Fleda; "you make Mrs. Evelyn the head of the family very unceremoniously."

"Mr. Evelyn, my dear," said Constance, gravely, "makes a futile attempt semi-weekly to beat his brains out with a club; and every successive failure encourages him to try again; the only effect being a temporary decapitation of his family; and I believe this is the night on which he periodically turns a frigid eye upon their dest.i.tution."

"You are too absurd!" said Florence, reaching over for a sausage.

"Dear Constance!" said Fleda, half laughing, "why do you talk so?"

"Constance, behave yourself," said her mother.

"Mamma," said the young lady, "I am actuated by a benevolent desire to effect a diversion of Miss Ringgan's mind from its gloomy meditations, by presenting to her some more real subjects of distress."

"I wonder if you ever looked at such a thing," said Fleda.

"What 'such a thing'?"

"As a real subject of distress."

"Yes; I have one incessantly before me in your serious countenance. Why in the world, Fleda, don't you look like other people?"

"I suppose, because I don't feel like them."

"And why don't you? I am sure you ought to be as happy as most people."

"I think I am a great deal happier," said Fleda.

"Than I am?" said the young lady, with arched eyebrows. But they went down, and her look softened in spite of herself, at the eye and smile which answered her.

"I should be very glad, dear Constance, to know you were as happy as I."

"Why do you think I am not?" said the young lady, a little tartly.

"Because no happiness would satisfy me that cannot last."

"And why can't it last?"

"It is not built upon lasting things."

"Pshaw!" said Constance, "I wouldn't have such a dismal kind of happiness as yours, Fleda, for anything."

"Dismal!" said Fleda, smiling; "because it can never disappoint me? or because it isn't noisy?"

"My dear little Fleda," said Constance, in her usual manner, "you have lived up there among the solitudes till you have got morbid ideas of life, which it makes me melancholy to observe.

I am very much afraid they verge towards stagnation."

"No, indeed!" said Fleda, laughing; "but, if you please, with me the stream of life has flowed so quietly, that I have looked quite to the bottom, and know how shallow it is, and growing shallower; I could not venture my bark of happiness there; but with you it is like a spring torrent ? the foam and the roar hinder your looking deep into it."

Constance gave her a significant glance; a strong contrast to the earnest simplicity of Fleda's face, and presently inquired if she ever wrote poetry.

"Shall I have the pleasure, some day, of discovering your uncommon signature in the secular corner of some religious newspaper?"

"I hope not," said Fleda, quietly.

Joe Manton just then brought in a bouquet for Miss Evelyn, a very common enlivener of the breakfast-table, all the more when, as in the present case, the sisters could not divine where it came from. It moved Fleda's wonder to see how very little the flowers were valued for their own sake; the probable cost, the probable giver, the probable _eclat_, were points enthusiastically discussed and thoroughly appreciated; but the sweet messengers themselves were carelessly set by for other eyes, and seemed to have no attraction for those they were destined to. Fleda enjoyed them at a distance, and could not help thinking that Heaven sends almonds to those that have no teeth.

"This camellia will just do for my hair to-morrow night!" said Florence; "just what I want with my white muslin."

"I think I will go with you to-morrow, Florence," said Fleda; "Mrs. Decatur has asked me so often."

"Well, my dear, I shall be made happy by your company," said Florence abstractedly, examining her bouquet. "I am afraid it hasn't stem enough, Constance; never mind ? I'll fix it ?

where is the end of this myrtle? I shall be very glad, of course, Fleda, my dear, but" ? picking her bouquet to pieces ?

"I think it right to tell you, privately, I am afraid you will find it very stupid."

"Oh, I dare say she will not," said Mrs. Evelyn; "she can go and try, at any rate; she would find it very stupid with me here alone, and Constance at the concert; I dare say she will find some one there whom she knows."

"But the thing is, Mamma, you see, at these _conversaziones_ they never talk anything but French and German ? I don't know ? _of course_ I should be delighted to have Fleda with me, and I have no doubt Mrs. Decatur would be very glad to have her; but I am afraid she wont enjoy herself."

"I do not want to go where I shall not enjoy myself," said Fleda, quietly; "that is certain."

"Of course, you know, dear, I would a great deal rather have you than not; I only speak for what I think would be for your pleasure."

"I would do just as I felt inclined, Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn.