Queechy Volume Ii Part 38

"and that is an honour you never made any pretensions to."

"Come, you shall not say that any more," said he, taking the kiss that Fleda had no mind to give him.

Half laughing, but with eyes that were all too ready for something else, she turned again to Hugh, when his brother had left the room, and looked wistfully in his face, stroking back the hair from his temples with a caressing hand.

"You are just as you were when I left you!" she said, with lips that seemed too unsteady to say more, and remained parted.

"I am afraid so are you," he replied; "not a bit fatter. I hoped you would be."

"What have you been smiling at so this evening?"

"I was thinking how well you talked."

"Why, Hugh! you should have helped me ? I talked too much."

"I would much rather listen," said Hugh. "Dear Fleda, what a different thing the house is with you in it!"

Fleda said nothing, except an inexplicable little shake of her head, which said a great many things; and then she and her aunt were left alone. Mrs. Rossitur drew her to her bosom, with a look so exceeding fond that its sadness was hardly discernible. It was mingled, however, with an expression of some doubt.

"What has made you keep so thin?"

"I have been very well, aunt Lucy ? thinness agrees with me."

"Are you glad to be home again, dear Fleda?"

"I am very glad to be with you, dear aunt Lucy!"

"But not glad to be home?"

"Yes, I am," said Fleda; "but somehow ? I don't know ? I believe I have got a little spoiled ? it is time I was at home, I am sure. I shall be quite glad after a day or two, when I have got into the works again. I am glad now, aunt Lucy."

Mrs. Rossitur seemed unsatisfied, and stroked the hair from Fleda's forehead, with an absent look.

"What was there in New York, that you were so sorry to leave?"

"Nothing, Ma'am, in particular," said Fleda, brightly; "and I am not sorry, aunt Lucy ? I tell you, I am a little spoiled with company and easy living ? I am glad to be with you again."

Mrs. Rossitur was silent.

"Don't you get up to uncle Rolf's breakfast, to-morrow, aunt Lucy."

"Nor you."

"I sha'n't, unless I want to; but there'll be nothing for you to do; and you must just lie still. We will all have our breakfast together when Charlton has his."

"You are the veriest sunbeam that ever came into a house,"

said her aunt, kissing her.

CHAPTER XI.

"My flagging soul flies under her own pitch."

DRYDEN.

Fleda mused as she went up stairs, whether the sun were a luminous body to himself or no, feeling herself at that moment dull enough. Bright was she, to others? nothing seemed bright to her. Every old shadow was darker than ever. Her uncle's unchanged gloom ? her aunt's unrested face ? Hugh's unaltered, delicate, sweet look, which always, to her fancy, seemed to write upon his face, "Pa.s.sing away!" ? and the thickening prospects whence sprang the miasm that infected the whole moral atmosphere ? alas, yes! ? "Money is a good thing,"

thought Fleda; "and poverty need not be a bad thing, if people can take it right; but if they take it wrong!"

With a very drooping heart, indeed, she went to the window.

Her old childish habit had never been forgotten; whenever the moon or the stars were abroad, Fleda rarely failed to have a talk with them from her window. She stood there, now, looking out into the cold, still night, with eyes just dimmed with tears ? not that she lacked sadness enough, but she did lack spirit enough to cry. It was very still; after the rattle and confusion of the city streets, that extent of snow-covered country, where the very shadows were motionless ? the entire absence of soil and of disturbance ? the rest of nature ? the breathlessness of the very wind ? all preached a quaint kind of sermon to Fleda. By the force of contrast, they told her what should be; and there was more yet ? she thought that by the force of example, they showed what might be. Her eyes had not long travelled over the familiar old fields and fences before she came to the conclusion that she was home in good time ? she thought she had been growing selfish, or in danger of it; and she made up her mind she was glad to be back again among the rough things of life, where she could do so much to smooth them for others, and her own spirit might grow to a polish it would never gain in the regions of ease and pleasure. " To do life's work!" thought Fleda, clasping her hands ? "no matter where ? and mine is here. I am glad I am in my place again ? I was forgetting I had one."

It was a face of strange purity and gravity that the moon shone upon, with no power to brighten as in past days; the shadows of life were upon the child's brow. But nothing to brighten it from within! One sweet, strong ray of other light suddenly found its way through the shadows, and entered her heart. "The Lord reigneth! let the earth be glad!" and then the moonbeams, pouring down with equal ray upon all the unevenness of this little world, seemed to say the same thing over and over. Even so! Not less equally his providence touches all ? not less impartially his faithfulness guides.

"The Lord reigneth! let the earth be glad!" There was brightness in the moonbeams now that Fleda could read this in them; she went to sleep, a very child again, with these words for her pillow.

It was not six, and darkness yet filled the world, when Mr.

Rossitur came down stairs, and softly opened the sitting-room door. But the home fairy had been at work; he was greeted with such a blaze of cheerfulness as seemed to say what a dark place the world was everywhere but at home; his breakfast- table was standing ready, well set and well supplied; and even as he entered by one door, Fleda pushed open the other, and came in from the kitchen, looking as if she had some strange spirit-like kindred with the cheery, hearty glow which filled both rooms.

"Fleda! ? you up at this hour!"

"Yes, uncle Rolf," she said, coming forward to put her hands upon his; "you are not sorry to see me, I hope."

But he did not say he was glad; and he did not speak at all; he busied himself gravely with some little matters of preparation for his journey. Evidently, the gloom of last night was upon him yet. But Fleda had not wrought for praise, and could work without encouragement; neither step nor hand slackened, till all she and Barby had made ready was in nice order on the table, and she was pouring out a cup of smoking coffee.

"You are not fit to be up," said Mr. Rossitur, looking at her; "you are pale, now. Put yourself in that arm-chair, Fleda, and go to sleep; I will do this for myself."

"No, indeed, uncle Rolf," she answered, brightly: "l have enjoyed getting breakfast very much at this out-of-the-way hour, and now I am going to have the pleasure of seeing you eat it. Suppose you were to take a cup of coffee instead of my shoulder!"

He took it and sat down; but Fleda found that the pleasure of seeing him was to be a very qualified thing. He ate like a business man, in unbroken silence and gravity; and her cheerful words and looks got no return. It became an effort at length to keep either bright. Mr. Rossitur's sole remarks during breakfast were, to ask if Charlton was going back that day, and if Philetus was getting the horse ready?

Mr. Skillcorn had been called in good time by Barby, at Fleda's suggestion, and coming down stairs had opined discontentedly that "a man hadn't no right to be took out of bed in the morning afore he could see himself." But this, and Barby's spirited reply, that "there was no chance of his doing _that_ at any time of day, so it was no use to wait," Fleda did not repeat. Her uncle was in no humour to be amused.

She expected almost that he would go off without speaking to her. But he came up kindly to where she stood watching him.

"You must bid me good-bye for all the family, uncle Rolf, as I am the only one here," she said, laughing.

But she was sure that the embrace and kiss which followed were very exclusively for her. They made her face almost as sober as his own.

"There will be a blessing for you," said he, "if there is a blessing anywhere!"

"_If_, uncle Rolf," said Fleda, her heart swelling to her eyes.

He turned away, without answering her.

Fleda sat down in the easy chair, then, and cried, but that lasted very few minutes; she soon left crying for herself to pray for him, that he might have the blessing he did not know.

That did not stop tears. She remembered the poor man sick of the palsy, who was brought in by friends to be healed, and that "Jesus seeing _their_ faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.' " It was a handle that faith took hold of and held fast, while love made its pet.i.tion. It was all she could do, she thought; _she_ never could venture to speak to her uncle on the subject.

Weary and tired, tears and longing at length lost themselves in sleep. When she awaked, she found the daylight broadly come, little King in her lap, the fire, instead of being burnt out, in perfect preservation, and Barby standing before it, and looking at her.