Susan Warner

“ Why his oxen didn't go distracted was a question; but the very vehemence and iteration of his cries at last drowned itself in Fleda's ear, and she could hear it like the wind's roaring, without thinking of it. She presently subsided to that. With a weary frame, and with that peculiar quietness of spirits that comes upon the ending of a day's work in which mind and body have both been busily engaged, and the sudden ceasing of any call upon either, fancy asked no leave, and dreamily roved hither and thither between the material and the spirit world; the will too subdued to stir. ”

“ Rossitur "I don't know whether there is any Fleda, do you know?"
"I was trying to think, aunt Lucy I don't believe there is any."
"Where is it?" said Barby.
"There is none, I believe," said Mrs. Rossitur
"Where was it, then?"
"Nowhere there has not been any in the house," said Fleda, raising herself up to see over the back of her sofa.
"There ha'n't been none!" said Miss Elster, in a tone more significant than her words, and shutting the door as abruptly as she had opened it.
"What upon earth does the woman mean?" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, springing up and advancing towards the kitchen door. ”

“ Neither Fleda nor her grandfather cared a jot for the want of elegancies which one despised, and the other, if she had ever known, had well nigh forgotten. What mattered it to her that the little old green wagon was rusty and worn, or that years and service had robbed the old mare of all the jauntiness she had ever possessed, so long as the sun shone and the birds sang? And Mr. Ringgan, in any imaginary comparison, might be pardoned for thinking that he was the proud man, and that his poor little equipage carried such a treasure as many a coach and four went without. ”

“ Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her, where the country people saw nothing but business and a place fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining. Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in stores of thought and associations of beauty. ”

“ Twenty- four hours had wrought a sad change. The child looked as if she had been ill for weeks. Her cheeks were colourless; the delicate brow would have seemed pencilled on marble but for the dark lines which weeping and watching, and still more sorrow, had drawn underneath; and the beautiful moulding of the features showed under the transparent skin like the work of the sculptor. She was not crying then, but the open pages of the great bible had been wet with very many tears since her head had rested there.
"Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, after a moment, "you must come with me." ”

“ Cynthy was absolutely silent. She sat before the fire, her feet stretched out towards it as far as they would go, and her arms crossed, and not moving her steady gaze at the smoking wood, or the chimney-back, whichever it might be; but there was in the corners of her mouth the threatening of a smile that Fleda did not at all like.
"What do you say to it, Cynthy?"
"I reckon you'd best get somebody else," said Miss Gall, with a kind of condescending dryness, and the smile showing a little more.
"Why?" said Fleda. "I would a great deal rather have an old friend than a stranger." ”

“ Rossitur's smile was not meant to be seen. But Mr. Carleton's, to the credit of his politeness and his understanding both, was frank as the old gentleman's own, as he answered, with a good-humoured shake of his head,
"I can readily believe it, Sir; and honour both your maxim and your practice. But I am not exactly in that line."
"Why don't you try the army?" said Mr. Ringgan, with a look of interest.
"There is not a cause worth fighting for," said the young man, his brow changing again. "It is only to add weight to the oppressor's hand, or throw away life in the vain endeavour to avert it. ”

“ Carleton would never have ventured the look of admiration he bestowed on her. He knew it was safe. Approbation she saw, and it made her smile the rosier; but the admiration was a step beyond her; Fleda could make nothing of it.
They descended the mountain now with a hasty step, for the day was wearing well on. At the spot where he had stood so long when they went up, Mr. Carleton paused again for a minute. In mountain scenery every hour makes a change. The sun was lower now, the lights and shadows more strongly contrasted, the sky of a yet calmer blue, cool and clear towards the horizon. ”

“ The room was full now, for every one, after depositing his gift, turned aside to see what others had brought and were bringing; and men and women, the young and old, had their several circles of gossip in various parts of the crowd. Apart from them all Fleda sat in her window, probably voted "elegant" by others than the doctor, for they vouchsafed her no more than a transitory attention, and sheered off to find something more congenial. She sat watching the people, smiling very often as some odd figure, or look, or some peculiar turn of expression or tone of voice, caught her ear or her eye. ”

“ It was with even an intensity of eagerness that she watched every point and turn of the landscape, endeavouring to lose nothing in her farewell view, to give her farewell look at every favourite clump of trees and old rock, and at the very mill-wheels, which for years ,whether working or at rest, had had such interest for her. If tears came to bid their good-by too, they were hastily thrown off, or suffered to roll quietly down; they might bide their time; but eyes must look now or never. How pleasant, how pleasant, the quiet old country seemed to Fleda as they went along! ”

“ The principal woman, who remained standing, broom in hand, to hear Fleda's business, was, in good truth, a dark personage her head covered with black hair, her person with a dingy black calico, and a sullen cloud lowering over her eye. At the corner of the fireplace was an old woman, laid by in an easy-chair; disabled, it was plain, not from mental but bodily infirmity; for her face had a cast of mischief which could not stand with the innocence of second childhood. At the other corner sat an elderly woman sewing, with tokens of her trade for yards on the floor around her. ”

“ At the brow of the table-land, Mr. Olmney left them to take a shorter cut to the high road, having a visit to make which the shortening day warned him not to defer.
"Put down your basket, and rest a minute, Hugh," said Fleda. "I had a world of things to talk to you about, and this blessed man has driven them all out of my head."
"But you are not sorry he came along with us?"
"O no. We had a very good time. How lovely it is, Hugh! Look at the snow down there without a track; and the woods have been dressed by the fairies. Oh, look how the sun is glinting on the west side of that hillock!" ”

“ Plumfield was just about setting off to work his way to the other side of the lot, when they came up with him.
Fleda was not ashamed of her aunt Miriam's son, even before such critical eyes as those of her uncle. Farmer-like as were his dress and air, they showed him, nevertheless, a well- built, fine-looking man, with the independent bearing of one who has never recognised any but mental or moral superiority. His face might have been called handsome; there was at least manliness in every line of it; and his excellent dark eye showed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. ”

“ Fleda! I wouldn't have said a word if I had thought it would have worried you so."
He would not indeed. But he had spoken as men so often speak, out of the depths of their own passion or bitterness, forgetting that they are wringing the chords of a delicate harp, and not knowing what mischief they have done till they find the instrument all out of tune, more often not knowing it ever. It is pity, for how frequently a discord is left that jars all life long; and how much more frequently still the harp, though retaining its sweetness and truth of tone to the end, is gradually unstrung. ”

“ Rossitur looked at her, and was dumb.
"Only don't you wear a sad face for anything!" Fleda went on earnestly; "we shall be perfectly happy if you and uncle Rolf only will be."
"My dear children!" said Mrs. Rossitur, wiping her eyes, "it is for you I am unhappy you and your uncle; I do not think of myself."
"And we do not think of ourselves, Mamma," said Hugh.
"I know it; but having good children don't make one care less about them," said Mrs. Rossitur, the tears fairly raining over her fingers. ”

“ But she did stop them, and looked up at him then with such a face so glowing through smiles and tears it was like a very rainbow of hope upon the cloud of their prospects. Mr. Rossitur felt the power of the sunbeam wand; it reached his heart; it was even with a smile that he said, as he looked at her
"Will you go to your uncle Orrin, Fleda?"
"Not if uncle Rolf will keep me."
"Keep you!" said Mr. Rossitur; "I should like to see who wouldn't keep you! There, Dr. Gregory, you have your answer."
"Hum! I might have known," said the doctor, "that the 'faire Una' would abjure cities. ”

“ Such a look, so pitiful in its sorrow, so appealing in its helplessness, so imposing in its purity, he had never seen, and it absolutely awed him. Many a child's face is lovely to look upon for its innocent purity, but more commonly it is not like this; it is the purity of snow, unsullied, but not unsulliable; there is another kind more ethereal, like that of light, which you feel is from another sphere and will not know soil. But there were other signs in the face that would have nerved Mr. Carleton's resolution if he had needed it. ”

“ Douglass we are obliged to her, but we do not want the mutton, Barby."
Hugh went to his chopping, and Fleda set out upon her walk the lines of her face settling into a most fixed gravity so soon as she turned away from the house. It was what might be called a fine winter's day cold and still, and the sky covered with one uniform grey cloud. The snow lay in uncompromising whiteness, thick over all the world a kindly shelter for the young grain and covering for the soil; but Fleda's spirits, just then in another mood, saw in it only the cold refusal to hope, and the barren check to exertion. ”

“ I will do neither."
"But all the world is open before such a young man as you," said Mr. Ringgan.
"A large world," said Mr. Carleton, with his former mixture of expression, "but there isn't much in it."
"Politics?" said Mr. Ringgan.
"It is to lose oneself in a seething-pot, where the scum is the most apparent thing."
"But there is society?" said Rossitur.
"Nothing better or more noble than the succession of motes that flit through a sunbeam into oblivion." ”

“ He turned away from the house, his mind full of the bright unsullied purity and single-hearted goodwill that had looked out of that beaming little face; he seemed to see them again in the flower he held in his hand, and he saw nothing else as he went.
Mr. Carleton preached to himself all the way home, and his text was a rose.
Laugh who will. To many it may seem ridiculous; and to most minds it would have been impossible; but to a nature very finely wrought and highly trained, many a voice that grosser senses cannot hear, comes with an utterance as clear as it is sweet-spoken ”

“ I have said what I ought not now," said Fleda, looking up, and seeming to check her tears, and the spring of them at once.
"So much security any woman has in a man without religion," said aunt Miriam, going back to her work. Fleda would have said something if she could; she was silent; she stood looking into the fire, while the tears seemed to come as it were by stealth, and ran down her face unregarded.
"Is Hugh not well?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, faintly; "he is not ill, but he never was very strong, and he exposes himself now, I know, in a way he ought not. ”

“ Fleda's nervous system was of the finest too, but, in short, she was as like a bird as possible. Perfect health, which yet a slight thing was enough to shake to the foundation; joyous spirits, which a look could quell; happy energies, which a harsh hand might easily crush for ever. Well for little Fleda that so tender a plant was permitted to unfold in so nicely tempered an atmosphere. A cold wind would soon have killed it. Besides all this, there were charming studies to be gone through every day with Hugh some for aunt Lucy to hear, some for masters and mistresses. ”

“ Oh, there is only one thing that ought to be very much minded in this world!"
That thought, sober though it was, brought sweet consolation. Fleda's tears, if they fell as fast, grew brighter, as she remembered, with singular tender joy, that her mother and her father had been ready to see the end of their journey, and were not afraid of it; that her grandfather and her aunt Miriam were happy in the same quiet confidence, and she believed she herself was a lamb of the Good Shepherd's flock. "And he will let none of his lambs be lost," she thought. "How happy I am! ”

“ Fleda's preparations were soon made, and with her basket on her arm she was ready to set forth.
"If pride had not been a little put down in me," she said, smiling, "I suppose I should rather stay at home than go with such a petty offering. And no doubt every one that sees it or hears of it will lay it to anything but the right reason. So much the world knows about the people it judges! It is too bad to leave you all alone, aunt Lucy."
Mrs. Rossitur pulled her down for a kiss a kiss in which how much was said on both sides! ”

“ WORDSWORTH.
"I've had such a delicious day, dear grandpa," said little
Fleda, as they sat at supper; "you can't think how kind Mr.
Carleton has been."
"Has he? Well, dear, I'm glad on't; he seems a very nice young man."
"He's a smart-looking feller," said Cynthy, who was pouring out the tea.
"And we have got the greatest quantity of nuts!" Fleda went on; "enough for all winter. Cynthy and I will have to make ever so many journeys to fetch 'em all; and they are splendid big ones. Don't you say anything to Mr. Didenhover, Cynthy." ”

“ More womanly sweetness than was in Mr. Ringgan's blue eye, a woman need not wish to have; and perhaps his sister's had not so much. There was no want of it in her heart, nor in her manner, but the many and singular excellences of her character were a little overshadowed by super-excellent housekeeping. Not a taint of the littleness that sometimes grows therefrom, not a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such pursuits is too apt to bring; on every important occasion aunt Miriam would come out, free and unshackled, from all the cobweb entanglements of housewifery ”

“ Mr. Evelyn kissed her. Mr. Thorn brought a little table to the side of the sofa for her cup of tea to stand on, and handed her the toast most dutifully; and her cousin Rossitur went back and forth between her and the tea-urn. All of the ladies seemed to take immense satisfaction in looking at her, they did it so much; standing about the hearth-rug with their cups in their hands, sipping their tea. Fleda was quite touched with everybody's kindness, but somebody at the back of the sofa, whom she did not see, was the greatest comfort of all. ”