Queechy Volume Ii Part 7

"And a most slack partner. Why didn't you keep me company?"

"I never was made for waltzing," said Hugh, shaking his head.

"Not to the tune of the north wind? That has done me good, Hugh."

"So I should judge, by your cheeks."

"Poverty need not always make people poor," said Fleda, talking breath and his arm together. "You and I are rich, Hugh."

"And our riches cannot take to themselves wings and fly away,"

said Hugh.

"No, but besides those riches, there are the pleasures of the eye and the mind, that one may enjoy everywhere ? everywhere in the country at least ? unless poverty bear one down very hard; and they are some of the purest and most satisfying of any. Oh, the blessing of a good education! how it makes one independent of circ.u.mstances!"

"And circ.u.mstances are education, too," said Hugh, smiling. "I dare say we should not appreciate our mountains and woods so well, if we had had our old plenty of everything else."

"I always loved them," said Fleda. "But what good company they have been to us for years past, Hugh! ? to me especially; I have more reason to love them."

They walked on quietly and soberly to the brow of the table- land, where they parted; Hugh being obliged to go home, and Fleda wishing to pay a visit to her aunt Miriam.

She turned off alone to take the way to the high road, and went softly on, no longer, certainly, in the momentary spirits with which she had shaken hands with the wind, and skipped down the mountain; but feeling, and thankful that she felt, a cheerful patience to tread the dusty highway of life.

The old lady had been rather ailing, and from one or two expressions she had let fall, Fleda could not help thinking that she looked upon her ailments with a much more serious eye than anybody else thought was called for. It did not, however, appear to-day. She was not worse, and Fleda's slight anxious feeling could find nothing to justify it, if it were not the very calm and quietly happy face and manner of the old lady; and that, if it had something to alarm, did much more to soothe. Fleda had sat with her a long time, patience and cheerfulness all the while unconsciously growing in her company; when, catching up her bonnet with a sudden haste very unlike her usual collectedness of manner, Fleda kissed her aunt and was rushing away.

"But stop! where are you going, Fleda?"

"Home, aunt Miriam; I must, don't keep me."

"But what are you going that way for? you can't go home that way?"

"Yes, I can."

"How?"

"I can cross the blackberry hill behind the barn, and then over the east hill, and then there's nothing but the water- cress meadow."

"I sha'n't let you go that way alone; sit down and tell me what you mean ? what is this desperate hurry?"

But, with equal precipitation, Fleda had cast her bonnet out of sight behind the table, and the next moment turned, with the utmost possible quietness, to shake hands with Mr. Olmney.

Aunt Miriam had presence of mind enough to make no remark, and receive the young gentleman with her usual dignity and kindness.

He stayed some time, but Fleda's hurry seemed to have forsaken her. She had seized upon an interminable long gray stocking her aunt was knitting, and sat in the corner working at it most diligently, without raising her eyes unless spoken to.

"Do you give yourself no rest, at home or abroad, Miss Fleda?"

said the gentleman.

"Put that stocking down, Fleda," said her aunt; "it is in no hurry."

"I like to do it, aunt Miriam."

But she felt, with warming cheeks, that she did not like to do it with two people sitting still and looking at her. The gentleman presently rose.

"Don't go till we have had tea, Mr. Olmney," said Mrs.

Plumfield.

"Thank you, Ma'am; I cannot stay, I believe, unless Miss Fleda will let me take care of her down the hill by and by."

"Thank you, Mr. Olmney," said Fleda, "but I am not going home before night, unless they send for me."

"I am afraid," said he, looking at her, "that the agricultural turn has proved an overmatch for your energies."

"The farm don't complain of me, does it?" said Fleda, looking up at him with a comic, grave expression of countenance.

"No," said he, laughing, "certainly not; but, if you will forgive me for saying so, I think you complain of it, tacitly ? and that will raise a good many complaints in other quarters, if you do not take care of yourself."

He shook hands and left them; and Mrs. Plumfield sat silently looking at Fleda, who, on her part, looked at nothing but the gray stocking.

"What is all this, Fleda?"

"What is what, aunt Miriam?" said Fleda, picking up a st.i.tch with desperate diligence.

"Why did you want to run away from Mr. Olmney?"

"I didn't wish to be delayed, ? I wanted to get home."

"Then, why wouldn't you let him go home with you?"

"I liked better to go alone, aunt Miriam."

"Don't you like him, Fleda?"

"Certainly, aunt Miriam; very much."

"I think he likes you Fleda," said her aunt, smiling.

"I am very sorry for it," said Fleda, with great gravity.

Mrs. Plumfield looked at her for a few minutes in silence, and then said ?

"Fleda, love, come over here and sit by me, and tell me what you mean. Why are you sorry? It has given me a great deal of pleasure to think of it."

But Fleda did not budge from her seat or her stocking, and seemed tongue-tied. Mrs. Plumfield pressed for an answer.

"Because, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, with the prettiest red cheeks in the world, but speaking very clearly and steadily, "my liking only goes to a point which, I am afraid, will not satisfy either him or you."

"But why? ? it will go further."

"No, Ma'am."