As some lone bird at day’s departing
hour
Sings in the sunbeam of the transient
shower,
Forgetful though its wings are wet the
while.
Bowles.
Happily possessed with the notion that there was some
hidden mystery in Fleda’s movements, Mrs. Pritchard
said not a word about her having gone out, and only
spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which
she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to
have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in
the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any
longer.
“Miss Fleda,” said she with a look of
very serious remonstrance,—“I don’t
know what you’re thinking of, but I know
you’re fixing to kill yourself. You are
no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were
to be out till seven o’clock this evening; and
if you saw yourself you wouldn’t want me to
say any more. There is not the least morsel of
colour in your face, and you look as if you had a
mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as
you can! You want to be in bed for two days running,
now this minute.”
“Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard,” said
Fleda smiling; “you are very careful of me;
but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards.”
The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence,
and then said, “Don’t, dear Miss Fleda!”—with
an energy of entreaty which brought the tears into
Fleda’s eyes. But she persisted in desiring
the carriage; and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing
however that she shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t
able to go after all. Fleda herself was not without
a doubt on the subject before the evening was over.
The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt;
and morning settled the question. She was not
able even to rise from her bed.
The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda
was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have
any care on the subject. The agitation of the
past days had given way to an absolute quiet that seemed
as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this
feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of
body. She was a mere child in the hands of her
nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, “if she
wouldn’t mind her telling,—the sweetest
baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to
it.”
The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when
Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and
sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard’s, coming
up the stairs and pattering along the entry to her
room; and with little ceremony in rushed Florence
and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda
with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their
questions about her looks and her illness, that she
was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.
“You horrid little creature!” said Constance,—“why
didn’t you come straight to our house? just
think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed
us to!—to say nothing of the extent of fiction
we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I
didn’t expect it of you, little Queechy.”
