Susan Warner

“ Carleton, how do you bear that, sir?" said Mrs. Evelyn. "Will you let such an assertion pass unchecked?"
"I would not if I could help it, Mrs. Evelyn."
"That isn't saying much for yourself," said Constance;--"but Fleda my dear, where did you get such an experience of waste and desolation?"
"Oh, 'man is a microcosm,' you know," said Fleda lightly.
"But you make it out that only one-half of mankind can appropriate that axiom," said Mr. Stackpole. "How can a woman know men's hearts so well?"
"On the principle that the whole is greater than a part?" said Mr. Carleton smiling. ”

“ Thou mayest lose friend after friend, and gain more than thou losest,--in that one."
"I know it," said Fleda;--"but dear aunt Miriam, don't you think human nature longs for some human sympathy and help too?"
"My sweet blossom!--yes--" said Mrs. Plumfield caressingly stroking her bowed head,--"but let him do what he will;--he hath said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'"
"I know that too," said Fleda weeping. "How do people bear life that do not know it!" ”

“ No wonder if the energies which owed much of their strength to love's nerving, should at last give out, and Fleda's evening be passed in wearied slumbers. No wonder if many a day was given up to the forced quietude of a headache, the more grievous to Fleda because she knew that her aunt and Hugh always found the day dark that was not lightened by her sunbeam. How brightly it shone out the moment the cloud of pain was removed, winning the shadow from their faces and a smile to their lips, though solitude always saw her own settle into a gravity as fixed as it was soft. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 shewed 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 shewed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. ”

“ What have you been doing, my child?"
"She has been doing everything, father," said Hugh.
"O! it's nothing," said Fleda, answering Mr. Rossitur's look and tone of affection with a bright smile. "I'm a little tired, that's all."
'A little tired!' She went to sleep on the sofa directly after supper and slept like a baby all the evening; but her power did not sleep with her; for that quiet, sweet, tired face, tired in their service, seemed to bear witness against the indulgence of anything harsh or unlovely in the same atmosphere. A gentle witness-bearing, but strong in its gentleness. ”

“ Rossitur had not moved when Fleda looked up again. The sun was yet lower; the sunbeams, more slant, touched not only that bright white stone--they passed on beyond, and carried the promise to those other grey ones, a little further off; that she had left--yes, for the last time; and Fleda's thoughts went forward swiftly to the time of the promise.--"Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. ”

“ These might stand for an emblem of the present; that, of the future,--grave, far-off, impenetrable;--and passing as it were the roses of time Fleda fixed upon that image of eternity; and weighing the one against the other, felt, never in her life more keenly, how wild it would be to forget in smelling the roses her preparations for that distant voyage that must be made from the shores where they grow. With one eye upon this brightest bits of earth before her, the other mentally was upon Hugh's grave. The roses could not be sweeter to any one ”

“ Rossitur," said Fleda pleasantly.--"Look at these roses, and don't ask me for papers!"
He did look a minute at the dish of flowers she was arranging for the breakfast table, and at the rival freshness and sweetness of the face that hung over them.
"You don't mean to say you live without a paper?"
"Look at these roses, and don't ask me for papers!"
"Well, it's astonishing how many things people can live without," said Fleda rather dreamily, intent upon settling an uneasy rose that would topple over.
"I wish you'd answer me really," said Charlton. "Don't you take a paper here?" ”

“ 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 cords 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fleda bent her head down upon her hands.
"I was moody and restless the other day," said Hugh,--"desponding of everything;--and I came upon this psalm; and it made me ashamed of myself. I had been disbelieving it, and because I could not see how things were going to work good I thought they were going to work evil. I thought we were wearing out our lives alone here in a wearisome way, and I forgot that it must be the very straightest way that we could get home. I am sure we shall not want anything that will do us good; and the rest I am willing to want--and so are you, Fleda?" ”

“ She cannot boast that the breath of her air and the breath of freedom are one."
"Can England?" said Fleda gently,--"when her own citizens are not free from the horrors of impressment?"
"Pshaw!" said Mr. Stackpole, half in a pet and half laughing,--"why, where did you get such a fury against England?--you are the first fair antagonist I have met on this side of the water."
"I wish I was a better one, sir," said Fleda laughing.
"Miss Ringgan has been prejudiced by an acquaintance with one or two unfortunate specimens," said Mrs. Evelyn. ”

“ I am very glad I shall not leave you alone, dear Fleda--very glad!--promise me you will not leave me any more."
"Don't talk so, dear Hugh!"
"But it is true, Fleda," said Hugh gently. "I know it. I sha'n't be here but a little while. I am so glad you are come home, dear Fleda!--You will not let anybody take you away till I am gone first?"
Fleda drew her arm close around Hugh's neck and was still,--still even to his ear,--for a good while. A hard battle must be fought, and she must not be weak, for his sake and for everybody's sake. ”

“ Fleda was silent with filling eyes.
"We do not seek our happiness in these things," he said tenderly. "I never found it in them. For years, whatever others may have judged, I have felt myself a poor man; because I had not in the world a friend in whom I could have entire sympathy. And if I am rich now, it is not in any treasure that I look to enjoy in this world alone."
"Oh do not, Mr. Carleton!" exclaimed Fleda, bowing her head in distress, and giving his hand an earnest entreaty. ”

“ Stackpole, smiling at her, however;--"women have nothing to do with books."
"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.
"Nothing, sir; it is one of those positions that are unanswerable."
"But Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that doctrine, sir. I do not believe in it at all."
"That is unfortunate--for my doctrine," said the gentleman.
"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"
"Not needed, ma'am,--a woman, as somebody says, knows intuitively all that is really worth knowing." ”

“ The snow still lay a foot thick over the ground, thawing a little in sunny spots; the trees quite bare and brown, the buds even of the early maples hardly shewing colour; the blessed evergreens alone doing their utmost to redeem the waste, and speaking of patience and fortitude that can brave the blast and outstand the long waiting and cheerfully bide the time when "the winter shall be over and gone." Poor Fleda thought they were like her in their circumstances, but she feared she was not like them in their strong endurance. ”

“ 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 days 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. ”

“ Evelyn?"
"Not at all--I agree with you, that Americans are prejudiced; but I think it will pass off, Mr. Stackpole, as they learn to know themselves and other countries better."
"But how do they deserve such a charge and such a defence? or how have they deserved it?" said Fleda.
"Tell her, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Why," said Mr. Stackpole,--"in their absurd opposition to all the old and tried forms of things, and rancorous dislike of those who uphold them; and in their pertinacity on every point where they might be set right, and impatience of hearing the truth." ”