She raised her eyes and gave him a look so grateful,
so loving, so happy, that it dwelt for ever in his
remembrance. A moment after it had faded, and
she stood still where he had left her, listening to
his footsteps as they went down the stairs. She
heard the last of them, and then sank upon her knees
by a chair and burst into a passion of tears.
Their time was now and she let them come. It
was not only the losing a loved and pleasant friend,
it was not only the stirring of sudden and disagreeable
excitement;—poor Elfie was crying for her
Bible. It had been her father’s own—it
was filled with his marks—it was precious
to her above price—and Elfie cried with
all her heart for the loss of it. She had done
what she had on the spur of the emergency—she
was satisfied she had done right; she would not take
it back if she could; but not the less her Bible was
gone, and the pages that loved eyes had looked upon
were for hers to look upon no more. Her very
heart was wrung that she should have parted with it,—and
yet,—what could she do?—It was
as bad as the parting with Mr. Carleton.
That agony was over, and even that was shortened,
for “Hugh would find out that she had been crying.”
Hours had passed, and the tears were dried, and the
little face was bending over the wonted tasks with
a shadow upon its wonted cheerfulness,—when
Rosaline came to tell her that Victor said there was
somebody in the passage who wanted to see her and
would not come in.
It was Mr. Carleton himself. He gave her a parcel,
smiled at her without saying a word, kissed her hand
earnestly, and was gone again. Fleda ran to her
own room, and took the wrappers off such a beauty of
a Bible as she had never seen; bound in blue velvet,
with clasps of gold and her initials in letters of
gold upon the cover. Fleda hardly knew whether
to be most pleased or sorry; for to have its place
so supplied seemed to put her lost treasure further
away than ever. The result was another flood of
very tender tears; in the very shedding of which however
the new little Bible was bound to her heart with cords
of association as bright and as incorruptible as its
gold mountings.
Chapter XV.
Her sports were such as carried
riches of knowledge upon the stream of
light.—Sidney.
Fleda had not been a year in Paris when her uncle
suddenly made up his mind to quit it and go home.
Some trouble in money affairs, felt or feared, brought
him to this step, which a month before he had no definite
purpose of ever taking. There was cloudy weather
in the financial world of New York and he wisely judged
it best that his own eyes should be on the spot to
see to his own interests. Nobody was sorry for
this determination. Mrs. Rossitur always liked
what her husband liked, but she had at the same time
a decided predilection for home. Marion was glad
to leave her convent for the gay world, which her
parents promised she should immediately enter.
And Hugh and Fleda had too lively a spring of happiness
within themselves to care where its outgoings should
be.
