“You do not feel the cold now, Elfie?”
“Not at all—not in the least—I
am perfectly comfortable—I am doing very
well—”
He stood still, and the changing lights and shades
on Fleda’s cheek grew deeper.
“Do you know where we are, Mr. Carleton?”
“Somewhere between a town the name of which
I have forgotten and a place called Quarrenton, I
think; and Quarrenton, they tell me, is but a few
miles from Greenfield. Our difficulties will vanish,
I hope, with the darkness.”
He walked again, and Fleda mused, and wondered at
herself in the black fox. She did not venture
another look, though her eye took in nothing very
distinctly but the outlines of that figure passing
up and down through the car. He walked perseveringly;
and weariness at last prevailed over everything else
with Fleda; she lost herself with her head leaning
against the bit of wood between the windows.
The rousing of the great coats, and the growing gray
light, roused her before her uneasy sleep had lasted
an hour. The lamps were out, the car was again
spotted with two long rows of window-panes, through
which the light as yet came but dimly. The morning
had dawned at last, and seemed to have brought with
it a fresh accession of cold, for everybody was on
the stir. Fleda put up her window to get a breath
of fresh air and see how the day looked.
A change of weather had come with the dawn. It
was not fine yet. The snowing had ceased, but
the clouds hung overhead still, though not with the
leaden uniformity of yesterday; they were higher and
broken into many a soft grey fold, that promised to
roll away from the sky by and by. The snow was
deep on the ground; every visible thing lapped in a
thick white covering; a still, very grave, very pretty
winter landscape, but somewhat dreary in its aspect
to a trainful of people fixed in the midst of it out
of sight of human habitation. Fleda felt that,
but only in the abstract; to her it did not seem dreary;
she enjoyed the wild solitary beauty of the scene
very much, with many a grateful thought of what might
have been. As it was, she left difficulties entirely
to others.
As soon as it was light the various inmates of the
strange dormitory gathered themselves up and set out
on foot for Quarrenton. By one of them Mr. Carleton
sent an order for a sleigh, which in as short a time
as possible arrived, and transported him and Fleda
and Mrs. Renney, and one other ill-bestead woman,
safely to the little town of Quarrenton.
Welcome the sour cup of prosperity!
Affliction may one day smile again,
and till then, Sit thee down, sorrow!—Love’s
Labour Lost.
