Queechy Volume I Part 44

The doctor looked up comically at his niece and her husband, who were both sitting or standing close by.

" 'Sep. 10. Paolo e Virginia' ? in what language?"

"Italian, Sir; I was just beginning, and I haven't finished it yet."

" 'Sep. 16. Milner's Church History!' ?What the deuce! ? 'Vol.

2. Fairy Queen.' ? Why, this must have been a favourite book, too."

"That's one of the books Fleda loves best," said Hugh; ? "she went through that very fast."

"Over it, you mean, I reckon; how much did you skip, Fleda?"

"I didn't skip at all," said Fleda; "I read every word of it."

" ' Sep. 20. 2 Mem. de Sully.' Well, you're an industrious mouse, I'll say that for you. What's this? ? 'Don Quixote!' ?

'Life of Howard.' ? 'Nov. 17. 3 Fairy Queen.' ? 'Nov. 29. 4 Fairy Queen.' ? 'Dec. 8. 1 Goldsmith's England.' ? Well, if this list of books is a fair exhibit of your taste and capacity, you have a most happily proportioned set of intellectuals. Let us see ? history, fun, facts, nature, theology, poetry and divinity! ? upon my soul! ? and poetry and history the leading features! ? a little fun ? as much as you could lay your hand on, I'll warrant, by that pinch in the corner of your eye. And here, the eleventh of December, you finished the Fairy Queen; and ever since, I suppose, you have been imagining yourself the 'faire Una,' with Hugh standing for Prince Arthur or the Red-cross Knight ? haven't you?"

"No, Sir. I didn't imagine anything about it."

"Don't tell me. What did you read it for?"

"Only because I liked it, Sir. I liked it better than any other book I read last year."

"You did! Well, the year ends, I see, with another volume of Sully. I wont enter upon this year's list. Pray, how much of all these volumes do you suppose you remember? I'll try and find out next time I come to see you. I can give a guess, if you study with that little pug in your lap."

"He is not a pug!" said Fleda, in whose arms King was lying luxuriously ? "and he never gets into my lap, besides."

"Don't he! Why not?"

"Because I don't like it, Sir. I don't like to see dogs in laps."

"But all the ladies in the land do it, you little Saxon! it is universally considered a mark of distinction."

"I can't help what all the ladies in the land do," said Fleda.

"That wont alter my liking; and I don't think a lady's lap is a place for a dog."

"I wish you were my daughter!' said the old doctor, shaking his head at her with a comic fierce expression of countenance, which Fleda perfectly understood and laughed at accordingly.

Then as the two children with the dog went off into the other room, he said, turning to his niece and Mr. Rossitur ?

"If that girl ever takes a wrong turn with the bit in her teeth, you'll be puzzled to hold her. What stuff will you make the reins of?"

"I don't think she ever will take a wrong turn," said Mr.

Rossitur.

"A look is enough to manage her, if she did," said his wife. "

Hugh is not more gentle."

"I should be inclined rather to fear her not having stability of character enough," said Mr. Rossitur. "She is so very meek and yielding, I almost doubt whether anything would give her courage to take ground of her own, and keep it."

"Hum ? well, well!" said the old doctor, walking off after the children. "Prince Arthur, will you bring this damsel up to my den some of these days? ? the 'faire Una' is safe from the wild beasts, you know; ? and I'll show her books enough to build herself a house with, if she likes."

The acceptance of this invitation led to some of the pleasantest hours of Fleda's city life. The visits to the great library became very frequent. Dr. Gregory and the children were little while in growing fond of each other; he loved to see them, and taught them to come at such times as the library was free of visitors and his hands of engagements.

Then he delighted himself with giving them pleasure, especially Fleda, whose quick curiosity and intelligence were a constant amus.e.m.e.nt to him. He would establish the children in some corner of the large apartments, out of the way behind a screen of books and tables; and there, shut out from the world, they would enjoy a kind of fairyland pleasure over some volume or set of engravings that they could not see at home.

Hours and hours were spent so. Fleda would stand clasping her hands before Audubon, or rapt over a finely ill.u.s.trated book of travels, or going through and through, with Hugh, the works of the best masters of the pencil and the graver. The doctor found he could trust them, and then all the treasures of the library were at their disposal. Very often he put chosen pieces of reading into their hands; and it was pleasantest of all when he was not busy and came and sat down with them; for with all his odd manner he was extremely kind, and could and did put them in the way to profit greatly by their opportunities. The doctor and the children had nice times there together.

They lasted for many months, and grew more and more worth. Mr.

Schwiden carried off Marion, as Fleda had foreseen he would, before the end of spring; and after she was gone, something like the old pleasant Paris life was taken up again. They had no more company now than was agreeable, and it was picked not to suit Marion's taste, but her father's ? a very different matter. Fleda and Hugh were not forbidden the dinner-table, and so had the good of hearing much useful conversation, from which the former, according to custom, made her steady, precious gleanings. The pleasant evenings in the family were still better enjoyed than they used to be. Fleda was older; and the snug, handsome American house had a home-feeling to her that the wide Parisian saloons never knew. She had become bound to her uncle and aunt by all but the ties of blood; n.o.body in the house ever remembered that she was not born their daughter; except, indeed, Fleda herself, who remembered everything, and with whom the forming of any new affections or relations somehow never blotted out or even faded the register of the old. It lived in all its brightness; the writing of past loves and friends.h.i.+ps was as plain as ever in her heart; and often, often the eye and the kiss of memory fell upon it.

In the secret of her heart's core; for still, as at the first, no one had a suspicion of the movings of thought that were beneath that childish brow. No one guessed how clear a judgment weighed and decided upon many things. No one dreamed, amid their busy, bustling, thoughtless life, how often, in the street, in her bed, in company and alone, her mother's last prayer was in Fleda's heart; well cherished; never forgotten.

Her education and Hugh's meanwhile went on after the old fas.h.i.+on. If Mr. Rossitur had more time, he seemed to have no more thought for the matter; and Mrs. Rossitur, fine-natured as she was, had never been trained to self-exertion, and, of course, was entirely out of the way of training others. Her children were pieces of perfection, and needed no oversight; her house was a piece of perfection too. If either had not been, Mrs. Rossitur would have been utterly at a loss how to mend matters, ? except in the latter instance, by getting a new housekeeper; and as Mrs. Renney, the good woman who held that station, was in everybody's opinion another treasure, Mrs. Rossitur's mind was uncrossed by the shadow of such a dilemma. With Mrs. Renney, as with every one else, Fleda was held in highest regard ? always welcome to her premises, and to those mysteries of her trade which were sacred from other intrusion. Fleda's natural inquisitiveness carried her often to the housekeeper's room, and made her there the same curious and careful observer that she had been in the library or at the Louvre.

"Come," said Hugh, one day when he had sought and found her in Mrs. Renney's precincts ? "come away, Fleda! What do you want to stand here and see Mrs. Renney roll b.u.t.ter and sugar for?"

"My dear Mr. Rossitur," said Fleda, "you don't understand quelquechoses. How do you know but I may have to get my living by making them, some day?"

"By making what?" said Hugh.

"Quelquechoses ? Anglice, kickshaws ? alias, sweet trifles, denominated merrings."

"Pshaw, Fleda!"

"Miss. Fleda is more likely to get her living by eating them, Mr. Hugh, isn't she?" said the housekeeper.

"I hope to decline both lines of life," said Fleda, laughingly, as she followed Hugh out of the room. But her chance remark had grazed the truth sufficiently near.

Those years in New York were a happy time for little Fleda ? a time when mind and body flourished under the sun of prosperity. Luxury did not spoil her; and any one that saw her in the soft furs of her winter wrappings, would have said that delicate cheek and frame were never made to know the unkindliness of harsher things.

CHAPTER XVI

"Whereunto is money good?

Who has it not wants hardihood.

Who has it has much trouble and care, Who once has had it has despair."

LONGFELLOW. _From the German_.

It was the middle of winter. One day Hugh and Fleda had come home from their walk. They dashed into the parlour, complaining that it was bitterly cold, and began unrobing before the glowing grate, which was a ma.s.s of living fire from end to end. Mrs. Rossitur was there in an easy chair, alone, and doing nothing. That was not a thing absolutely unheard of, but Fleda had not pulled off her second glove before she bent down towards her, and in a changed tone tenderly asked if she did not feel well.

Mrs. Rossitur looked up in her face a minute, and then drawing her down, kissed the blooming cheeks, one and the other, several times. But as she looked off to the fire again, Fleda saw that it was through watering eyes. She dropped on her knees by the side of the easy chair, that she might have a better sight of that face, and tried to read it as she asked again what was the matter; and Hugh, coming to the other side, repeated her question. His mother pa.s.sed an arm round each, looking wistfully from one to the other, and kissing them earnestly, but she said only, with a very heart-felt emphasis, "Poor children!"

Fleda was now afraid to speak, but Hugh pressed his inquiry.

"Why 'poor', Mamma? what makes you say so?"

"Because you are poor really, dear Hugh. We have lost everything we have in the world."