“Was that what you were trying to discover?”
“Oh no, sir! But why did you, uncle Orrin?
I might have been left utterly alone.”
“Why,” said the doctor, “I was going
out, and a friend that I thought I could confide in
promised to take care of you.”
“A friend!—Nobody came near me,”
said Fleda.
“Then I’ll never trust anybody again,”
said the doctor. “But what were you hammering
at, mentally, just now?—come, you shall
tell me.”
“O nothing, uncle Orrin,” said Fleda,
looking grave again however;—“I was
thinking that I had been talking too much to-day.”
“Talking too much?—why whom have
you been talking to?”
“O, nobody but Mr. Carleton.”
“Mr. Carleton! why you didn’t say six
and a quarter words while he was here.”
“No, but I mean in the library, and walking
home.”
“Talking too much! I guess you did,”
said the doctor;—“your tongue is
like
‘the music of the spheres, So loud
it deafens human ears.’
How came you to talk too much? I thought you
were too shy to talk at all in company.”
“No sir, I am not;—I am not at all
shy unless people frighten me. It takes almost
nothing to do that; but I am very bold if I am not
frightened.”
“Were you frightened this afternoon?”
“No sir.”
“Well, if you weren’t frightened, I guess
nobody else was,” said the doctor.
Whence came this?
This is some token from a newer friend.
Shakspeare.
The snow-flakes were falling softly and thick when
Fleda got up the next morning.
“No ride for me to-day—but how very
glad I am that I had a chance of setting that matter
right. What could Mrs. Evelyn have been thinking
of?—Very false kindness!—if I
had disliked to go ever so much she ought to have
made me, for my own sake, rather than let me seem so
rude—it is true she didn’t know how
rude. O snow-flakes—how much purer
and prettier you are than most things in this place!”
No one was in the breakfast parlour when Fleda came
down, so she took her book and the dormeuse and had
an hour of luxurious quiet before anybody appeared.
Not a foot-fall in the house; nor even one outside
to be heard, for the soft carpeting of snow which
was laid over the streets. The gentle breathing
of the fire the only sound in the room; while the very
light came subdued through the falling snow and the
thin muslin curtains, and gave an air of softer luxury
to the apartment. “Money is pleasant,”
thought Fleda, as she took a little complacent review
of all this before opening her book.—“And
yet how unspeakably happier one may be without it
than another with it. Happiness never was locked
up in a purse yet. I am sure Hugh and I,—They
must want me at home!—”
