CHAPTER X.

A snake bedded himself under the threshold of a country house.'
L'ESTRANGE.

To Fleda's very great satisfaction Mr Thorn was not seen again for several days. It would have been to her very great comfort, too, if he could have been permitted to die out of mind as well as out of sight; but he was brought up before her "lots of times," till poor Fleda almost felt as if she was really in the moral neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, every natural growth of pleasure was so withered under the barren spirit of raillery. Sea-breezes were never so disagreeable since winds blew; and nervous and fidgety again whenever Mr Carleton was present, Fleda retreated to her work and the table, and withdrew herself as much as she could from notice and conversation; feeling humbled-feeling sorry and vexed and ashamed that such ideas should have been put into her head, the absurdity of which, she thought, was only equalled by their needlessness. "As much as she could" she withdrew; but that was not entirely; now and then interest made her forget herself, and quitting her needle she would give eyes and attention to the principal speaker as frankly as he could have desired. Bad weather and bad roads for those days put riding out of the question.

One morning she was called down to see a gentleman, and came eschewing in advance the expected image of Mr Thorn. It was a very different person.

"Charlton Rossitur! My dear Charlton, how do you do? Where did you come from?"

"You had better ask me what I have come for," he said, laughing as he shook hands with her.

"What have you come for?"

"To carry you home."

"Home, said Fleda.

"I am going up there for a day or two, and mamma wrote me I had better act as your escort, which, of course, I am most willing to do. See what mamma says to you."

"When are you going, Charlton ?" said Fleda, as she broke the seal of the note he gave her.

"To-morrow morning."

“That is too sudden a notice, Captain Rossitur," said Mrs Evelyn. "Fleda will hurry herself out of her colour, and then your mother will say there is something in sea-breezes that isn't good for her; and then she will never trust her within reach of them again-which I am sure Miss Ringgan would be sorry for."

Fleda took her note to the window, half angry with herself that a kind of banter, in which certainly there was very little wit, should have power enough to disturb her. But though the shaft might be a slight one, it was winged with a will; the intensity of Mrs Evelyn's enjoyment in her own mischief gave it all the force that was wanting. Fleda's head was in confusion; she read her aunt's note three times over before she had made up her mind on any point respecting it.

"MY DEAREST FLEDA,

"Charlton is coming home for a day or two-hadn't you better take the opportunity to return with him? I feel as if you had been long away, my dear child-don't you feel so too? Your uncle is very desirous of seeing you; and as for Hugh and me, we are but half ourselves. I would not still say a word about your coming home if it were for your good to stay; but I fancy from something in Mrs Evelyn's letter, that Queechy air will by this time do you good again; and opportunities of making the journey are very uncertain. My heart has grown lighter since I gave it leave to expect you.-Yours, my darling, “L. R.

"P.S.-I will write to Mrs E. soon.'

"What string has pulled these wires that are twitching me home?" thought Fleda, as her eyes went over and over the words which the feeling of the lines of her face would alone have told her were unwelcome. And why unwelcome ?—" One likes to be moved by fair means and not by foul," was the immediate answer. "And, besides, it is very disagreeable to be taken by surprise. When ever before, in any matter of my

staying or going, did aunt Lucy have any wish but my pleasure?" Fleda mused a little while; and then, with a perfect understanding of the machinery that had been at work, though an extremely vague and repulsed notion of the spring that had moved it, she came quietly out from her window and told Charlton she would go with him.

"But not to-morrow?" said Mrs Evelyn, composedly. “You will not hurry her off so soon as that, Captain Rossitur?"

"Furloughs are the stubbornest things in the world, Mrs Evelyn; there is no spirit of accommodation about them. Mine lies between to-morrow morning, and one other morning some two days thereafter; and you might as soon persuade Atlas to change his place. Will you be ready, coz?"

"I will be ready," said Fleda; and her cousin departed.

Now, my dear Fleda," said Mrs Evelyn, but it was with that funny face, as she saw Fleda standing thoughtfully before the fire" you must be very careful in getting your things together"

"Why, Mrs Evelyn ?"

"I am afraid you will leave something behind you, my love." "I will take care of that, ma'am; and that I may, I will go and see about it at once."

Very busy till dinner-time; she would not let herself stop to think about anything. At dinner, Mr Evelyn openly expressed his regrets for her going, and his earnest wishes that she would at least stay till the holidays were over.

"Don't you know Fleda better, papa," said Florence, ❝ than to try to make her alter her mind? When she says a thing is determined upon, I know there is nothing to do but submit with as good a grace as you can."

"I tried to make Captain Rossitur leave her a little longer," said Mrs Evelyn ; "but he says furloughs are immovable, and his begins to-morrow morning-so he was immovable too. I should keep her notwithstanding, though, if her aunt Lucy hadn't sent for her."

Well, see what she wants, and come back again," said Mr Evelyn.

"Thank you, sir," said Fleda, smiling gratefully—" I think not this winter."

"There are two or three of my friends that will be confoundedly taken aback," said Mr Evelyn, carefully helping himself to gravy.

"I expect that an immediate depopulation of New York will commence," said Constance, "and go on till the heights about Queechy are all thickly settled with elegant country seats, which is the conventional term for a species of mousetrap."

"Hush, you baggage," said her father. "Fleda, I wish you could spare her a little of your common sense, to go through the world with."

"Papa thinks, you see, my dear, that you have more than enough, which is not, perhaps, precisely the compliment he intended."

“I take the full benefit of his and yours," said Fleda, smiling.

After dinner, she had just time to run down to the library to bid Dr Gregory good-bye—her last walk in the city. It wasn't a walk she enjoyed much.

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"Going to-morrow!" said he. Why, I am going to Boston in a week-you had better stay, and go with me."

"I can't now, uncle Orrin-I am dislodged—and you know there is nothing to do then but to go."

"Come and stay with me till next week."

But Fleda said it was best not, and went home to finish her preparations.

She had no chance till late, for several gentlemen spent the evening with them. Mr Carleton was there part of the time, but he was one of the first to go; and Fleda could not find an opportunity to say that she should not see him again. Her timidity would not allow her to make one. But it grieved

her.

At last she escaped to her own room, where most of her packing was still to do. By the time half the floor and all the bed was strewn with neat-looking piles of things—the varieties of her modest wardrobe-Florence and Constance came in to see and talk with her, and sat down on the floor too; partly, perhaps, because the chairs were all bespoken in the service of boxes and baskets, and partly to follow what seemed to be the prevailing style of things.

"What do you suppose has become of Mr Thorn?" said Constance. "I have a presentiment that you will find him cracking nuts sociably with Mr Rossitur, or drinking one of aunt Lucy's excellent cups of coffee, in comfortable expectation of your return.”

"If I thought that, I should stay here," said Fleda. My dear, those were my cups of coffee."

“I wish I could make you think it, then," said Constance. "But you are glad to go home, aren't you, Fleda?" said Florence.

"She isn't," said her sister. "She knows mamma contemplates making a grand entertainment of all the Jews, as soon as she is gone. What does mamma mean by that, Fleda ?—I observe you comprehend her with most invariable quickness."

"I should be puzzled to explain all that your mother means," said Fleda, gently, as she went on bestowing her things in the trunk. "No, I am not particularly glad to go home, but I fancy it is time. I am afraid I have grown too accustomed to your luxury of life, and want knocking about to harden me a little."

"Harden you!" said Constance. "My dear Fleda, you are under a delusion. Why should any one go through an indurating process ?-will you inform me ?"

"I don't say that every one should," said Fleda; "but isn't it well for those whose lot does not lie among soft things?"

There was extreme sweetness, and a touching insinuation in her manner, and both the young ladies were silent for some time thereafter, watching somewhat wistfully the gentle hands and face that were so quietly busy, till the room was cleared again, and looked remarkably empty, with Fleda's trunk standing in the middle of it. And then, reminding them that she wanted some sleep to fit her for the hardening process, and must therefore send them away, she was left alone.

One thing Fleda had put off till then-the care of her bunch of flowers. They were beautiful still. They had given her a very great deal of pleasure; and she was determined they should be left to no servant's hands to be flung into the street. If it had been summer, she was sure she could have got buds from them; as it was, perhaps she might strike some cuttings; at all events, they should go home with her. So, carefully taking them out of the water, and wrapping the ends in some fresh earth she had got that very afternoon from her uncle's garden, Fleda bestowed them in the corner of her trunk that she had left for them, and went to bed, feeling weary in body, and in mind to the last degree quiet.

In the same mind and mood she reached Queechy the next