Queechy Volume Ii Part 66

A glance at Mrs. Evelyn's face, which was opposite her, and at one or two others, which had, undeniably, the air of being _arrested_, was enough for Fleda's quick apprehension. She knew they had been talking of her. Her eye stopped short of Mr.

Carleton's, and she coloured, and hesitated. No one spoke.

"By prosperity, you mean ?"

"Rank and fortune," said Florence, without looking up.

"Marrying a rich man, for instance," said Edith, "and having one's hands full."

This peculiar statement of the case occasioned a laugh all round, but the silence which followed seemed still to wait upon Fleda's reply.

"Am I expected to give a serious answer to that question?" she said, a little doubtfully.

"Expectations are not stringent things," said her first questioner, smiling. "That waits upon your choice."

"They are horridly stringent, _I_ think," said Constance.

"We shall all be disappointed, if you don't, Fleda, my dear."

"By wearing it 'well,' you mean making a good use of it?"

"And gracefully," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"I think I should say, then," said Fleda, after some little.

Hesitation, and speaking with evident difficulty ? "such an a experience as might teach one both the worth and the worthlessness of money."

Mr. Carleton's smile was a sufficiently satisfied one; but Mrs. Evelyn retorted ?

"The _worth_ and the _worthlessness!_ ? Fleda, my dear, I don't understand ?"

"And what experience teaches one the worth, and what the worthlessness of money?" said Constance; "mamma is morbidly persuaded that I do not understand the first ? of the second I have an indefinite idea, from never being able to do more than half that I want with it."

Fleda smiled and hesitated again, in a way that showed she would willingly be excused, but the silence left her no choice but to speak.

"I think,'' she said, modestly, "that a person can hardly understand the true worth of money ? the ends it can best subserve ? that has not been taught it by his own experience of the want; and" ?

"What follows?" said Mr. Carleton.

"I was going to say, Sir, that there is danger, especially when people have not been accustomed to it, that they will greatly overvalue and misplace the real worth of prosperity; unless the mind has been steadied by another kind of experience, and has learnt to measure things by a higher scale."

"And how when they _have_ been accustomed to it?" said Florence.

"The same danger, without the 'especially,' " said Fleda, with a look that disclaimed any a.s.suming.

"One thing is certain," said Constance, "you hardly ever see _les nouveaux riches_ make a graceful use of anything. Fleda, my dear, I am seconding all of your last speech that I understand. Mamma, I perceive, is at work upon the rest."

"I think we ought all to be at work upon it," said Mrs.

Evelyn, "for Miss Ringgan has made it out that there is hardly anybody here that is qualified to wear prosperity well."

"I was just thinking so," said Florence.

Fleda said nothing, and perhaps her colour rose a little.

"I will take lessons of her," said Constance, with eyebrows just raised enough to neutralize the composed gravity of the other features, "as soon as I have an amount of prosperity that will make it worth while."

"But I don't think," said Florence, "that a graceful use of things is consistent with such a careful valuation and considering of the exact worth of everything ? it's not my idea of grace."

"Yet _propriety_ is an essential element of gracefulness, Miss Evelyn."

"Well," said Florence, "certainly; but what then?"

"Is it attainable, in the use of means, without a nice knowledge of their true value?"

"But, Mr. Carleton, I am sure I have seen improper things ?

things improper in a way ? gracefully done?"

"No doubt; but, Miss Evelyn," said he, smiling, "the impropriety did not in those cases, I presume, attach itself to the other quality. The graceful _manner_ was strictly proper to its ends, was it not, however the ends might be false?"

"I don't know," said Florence, "you have gone too deep for me.

But do you think that close calculation, and all that sort of thing, is likely to make people use money, or anything else, gracefully? I never thought it did."

"Not close calculation alone," said Mr. Carleton.

"But do you think it is _consistent_ with gracefulness?"

"The largest and grandest views of material things that man has ever taken, Miss Evelyn, stand upon a basis of the closest calculation."

Florence worked at her worsted, and looked very dissatisfied.

"Oh, Mr. Carleton," said Constance, as he was going, "don't leave your vinaigrette ? there it is ? on the table."

He made no motion to take it up.

"Don't you know, Miss Constance, that physicians seldom like to have anything to do with their own prescriptions."

"It's very suspicious of them," said Constance; "but you must take it Mr. Carleton, if you please, for I shouldn't like the responsibility of its being left here; and I am afraid it would be dangerous to our peace of mind, besides."

"I shall risk that," he said, laughing. "Its work is not done."

"And then, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, and Fleda knew with what a look, "you know physicians are accustomed to be paid when their prescriptions are taken."

But the answer to this was only a bow, so expressive in its air of haughty coldness, that any further efforts of Mrs.

Evelyn's wit were chilled for some minutes after he had gone.

Fleda had not seen this. She had taken up the vinaigrette, and was thinking with acute pleasure that Mr. Carleton's manner last night and to-night had returned to all the familiar kindness of old times. Not as it had been during the rest of her stay in the city. She could be quite contented now to have him go back to England, with this pleasant remembrance left her. She sat turning over the vinaigrette, which to her fancy was covered with hieroglyphics that no one else could read; of her uncle's affair, of Charlton's danger, of her own distress, and the kindness which had wrought its relief, more penetrating and pleasant than even the fine aromatic scent which fairly typified it. Constance's voice broke in upon her musings.

"Isn't it awkward?" she said, as she saw Fleda handling and looking at the pretty toy ? "Isn't it awkward? I sha'n't have a bit of rest now for fear something will happen to that. I hate to have people do such things."

"Fleda, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I wouldn't handle it, my love; you may depend there is some charm in it ? some mischievous, hidden influence ? and if you have much to do with it, I am afraid you will find a gradual coldness stealing over you, and a strange forgetfulness of Queechy, and you will perhaps lose your desire ever to go back there any more."