Queechy Volume Ii Part 25

"Shall I see you at Mrs. Decatur's, to-morrow?"

"No, Sir."

"I thought I understood," said he, in an explanatory tone, "from your friends, the Miss Evelyns, that they were going."

"I believe they are, and I did think of it; but I have changed my mind, and shall stay at home with Mrs. Evelyn."

After some further conversation, the hour for the drive was appointed, and Mr. Carleton took leave.

"Come for me twice, and Mrs. Evelyn refused without consulting me!" thought Fleda. "What could make her do so? How very rude he must have thought me! And how glad I am I have had an opportunity of setting that right!"

So, quitting Mrs. Evelyn, her thoughts went off upon a long train of wandering over the afternoon's talk.

"Wake up!" said the doctor, laying his hand kindly upon her shoulder; "you'll want something fresh again presently. What mine of profundity are you digging into now?"

Fleda looked up, and came back from her profundity with a glance and smile as simple as a child's.

"Dear uncle Orrin, how came you to leave me alone in the library?"

"Was that what you were trying to discover?"

"Oh no, Sir! But why did you, uncle Orrin? I might have been left utterly alone."

"Why," said the doctor, "I was going out, and a friend, that I thought I could confide in, promised to take care of you."

"A friend! ? n.o.body came near me," said Fleda.

"Then I'll never trust anybody again," said the doctor. "But what were you hammering at, mentally, just now? ? Come, you shall tell me."

"O nothing, uncle Orrin," said Fleda, looking grave again, however; "I was thinking that I had been talking too much to- day."

"Talking too much? ? why, whom have you been talking to?"

"Oh, n.o.body but Mr. Carleton."

"Mr. Carleton! Why, you didn't say six and a quarter words while he was here."

"No, but I mean in the library, and walking home."

"Talking too much! I guess you did," said the doctor; ? "your tongue is like

'the music of the spheres, So loud it deafens human ears.'

How came you to talk too much? I thought you were too shy to talk at all in company."

"No, Sir, I am not; I am not at all shy unless people frighten me. It takes almost nothing to do that; but I am very bold if I am not frightened."

"Were you frightened this afternoon?"

"No, Sir?"

"Well, if you weren't frightened, I guess n.o.body else was,"

said the doctor.

CHAPTER IX.

"Whence came this?

This is some token from a newer friend."

SHAKESPEARE.

The snow-flakes were falling softly and thick when Fleda got up the next morning.

"No ride for me to-day ? but how very glad I am that I had a chance of setting that matter right. What could Mrs. Evelyn have been thinking of? Very false kindness! if I had disliked to go ever so much, she ought to have made me, for my own sake, rather than let me seem so rude ? it is true she didn't know _how_ rude. O snow-flakes, how much purer and prettier you are than most things in this place!"

No one was in the breakfast-parlour when Fleda came down, so she took her book and the _dormeuse_, and had an hour of luxurious quiet before anybody appeared. Not a footfall in the house, nor even one outside to be heard, for the soft carpeting of snow which was laid over the streets. The gentle breathing of the fire the only sound in the room, while the very light came subdued through the falling snow and the thin muslin curtains, and gave an air of softer luxury to the apartment. "Money is pleasant," thought Fleda, as she took a little complacent review of all this before opening her book.

"And yet how unspeakably happier one may be without it, than another with it. Happiness never was locked up in a purse vet.

I am sure Hugh and I ? They must want me at home!" ?

There was a little sober consideration of the lumps of coal and the contented-looking blaze in the grate, a most essentially home-like thing ? and then Fleda went to her book, and for the s.p.a.ce of an hour turned over her pages without interruption. At the end of the hour "the fowling-piece,"

certainly the noisiest of his kind, put his head in, but seeing none of his ladies, took it and himself away again, and left Fleda in peace for another half-hour. Then appeared Mrs.

Evelyn in her morning wrapper, and only stopping at the bell- handle, came up to the _dormeuse_, and stooping down, kissed Fleda's forehead with so much tenderness that it won a look of most affectionate grat.i.tude in reply.

"Fleda, my dear, we set you a sad example. But you won't copy it. Joe, breakfast. Has Mr. Evelyn gone down town?"

"Yes, Ma'am, two hours ago."

"Did it ever occur to you, Fleda, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, breaking the lumps of coal with the poker, in a very leisurely satisfied kind of a way ? "Did it ever occur to you to rejoice that you were not born a business man? What a life ?"

"I wonder how it compares with that of a business woman," said Fleda, laughing. "There is an uncompromising old proverb which says ?

'Man's work is from sun to sun ?

But a woman's work is never done.' "

A saying which, she instantly reflected, was entirely beyond the comprehension of the person to whose consideration she had offered it.

And then came in Florence, rubbing her hands and knitting her eyebrows.

"Why, you don't look as bright as the rest of the world this morning," said Fleda.

"What a wretched storm!"