“Advertisements!—But you couldn’t—what
would you put in?”
“Something that would catch his eye and nobody’s
else—that is easy, aunt Lucy.”
“But there is nobody to put them in, Fleda,—you
said uncle Orrin was going to Boston—”
“He wasn’t going there till next week,
but he was to be in Philadelphia a few days before
that—the letter might miss him.”
“Mr. Plumfield!—Couldn’t he?”
But Fleda shook her head.
“Wouldn’t do, aunt Lucy—he
would do all he could, but he don’t know New
York nor the papers—he wouldn’t know
how to manage it—he don’t know uncle
Rolf—shouldn’t like to trust it to
him.”
“Who then?—there isn’t a creature
we could ask—”
Fleda laid her cheek to her poor aunt’s and
said,
“I’ll do it.”
“But you must be in New York to do it, dear
Fleda,—you can’t do it here.”
“I will go to New York.”
“When?”
“To-morrow morning.”
“But dear Fleda, you can’t go alone!
I can’t let you, and you’re not fit to
go at all, my poor child!—” and between
conflicting feelings Mrs. Rossitur sat down and wept
without measure.
“Listen, aunt Lucy,” said Fleda, pressing
a hand on her shoulder,—“listen,
and don’t cry so!—I’ll go and
make all right, if efforts can do it. I am not
going alone—I’ll get Seth to go with
me; and I can sleep in the cars and rest nicely in
the steamboat—I shall feel happy and well
when I know that I am leaving you easier and doing
all that can be done to bring uncle Rolf home.
Leave me to manage, and don’t say anything to
Marion,—it is one blessed thing that she
need not know anything about all this. I shall
feel better than if I were at home and had trusted
this business to any other hands.”
“You are the blessing of my life,”
said Mrs. Rossitur.
“Cheer up, and come down and let us have some
tea,” said Fleda, kissing her; “I feel
as if that would make me up a little; and then I’ll
write the letters. I sha’n’t want
but very little baggage; there’ll be nothing
to pack up.”
Philetus was sent up the hill with a note to Seth
Plumfield, and brought home a favorable answer.
Fleda thought as she went to rest that it was well
the mind’s strength could sometimes act independently
of its servant the body, hers felt so very shattered
and unsubstantial.
I thank you for your company; but good
faith, I had as lief have been
myself alone.—As You Like It.
The first thing next morning Seth Plumfield came down
to say that he had seen Dr. Quackenboss the night
before and had chanced to find out that he was going
to New York too, this very day; and knowing that the
doctor would be just as safe an escort as himself,
Seth had made over the charge of his cousin to him;
“calculating,” he said, “that it
would make no difference to Fleda and that he had
better stay at home with his mother.”
