Gon. Here is everything advantageous
to lift.
Ant. True; save means to live.
Tempest.
Fleda’s fatigue did not prevent her being up
before sunrise the next day. Fatigue was forgotten,
for the light of a fair spring morning was shining
in at her windows and she meant to see aunt Miriam
before breakfast. She ran out to find Hugh, and
her merry shout reached him before she did, and brought
him to meet her.
“Come, Hugh!—I’m going off
up to aunt Miriam’s, and I want you. Come!
Isn’t this delicious?”
“Hush!—” said Hugh. “Father’s
just here in the barn. I can’t go, Fleda.”
Fleda’s countenance clouded.
“Can’t go! what’s the matter?—can’t
you go, Hugh?”
He shook his head and went off into the barn.
A chill came upon Fleda. She turned away with
a very sober step. What if her uncle was in the
barn, why should she hush? He never had been a
check upon her merriment, never; what was coming now?
Hugh too looked disturbed. It was a spring morning
no longer. Fleda forgot the glittering wet grass
that had set her own eyes a sparkling but a minute
ago; she walked along, cogitating, swinging her bonnet
by the strings in thoughtful vibration,—till
by the help of sunlight and sweet air, and the loved
scenes, her spirits again made head and swept over
the sudden hindrance they had met. There were
the blessed old sugar maples, seven in number, that
fringed the side of the road,—how well Fleda
knew them. Only skeletons now, but she remembered
how beautiful they looked after the October frosts;
and presently they would be putting out their new green
leaves and be beautiful in another way. How different
in their free-born luxuriance from the dusty and city-prisoned
elms and willows she had left. She came to the
bridge then, and stopped with a thrill of pleasure
and pain to look and listen, Unchanged!—all
but herself. The mill was not going; the little
brook went by quietly chattering to itself, just as
it had done the last time she saw it, when she rode
past on Mr. Carleton’s horse. Four and
a half years ago!—And now how strange that
she had come to live there again.
Drawing a long breath, and swinging her bonnet again,
Fleda softly went on up the hill; past the saw-mill,
the ponds, the factories, the houses of the settlement.
The same, and not the same!—Bright with
the morning sun, and yet somehow a little browner
and homelier than of old they used to be. Fleda
did not care for that; she would hardly acknowledge
it to herself; her affection never made any discount
for infirmity. Leaving the little settlement
behind her thoughts as behind her back, she ran on
now towards aunt Miriam’s, breathlessly, till
field after field was passed and her eye caught a
bit of the smooth lake and the old farmhouse in its
old place. Very brown it looked, but Fleda dashed
on, through the garden and in at the front door.
