Mrs. Rossitur

“ Marion's face was hid on the foot of the bed. Mrs. Rossitur did not move. Leaving Mr. Carleton on the near side of the bed Fleda went round to the place she seemed to have occupied before, at Hugh's right hand; and they were all still, for he was in a little doze, lying with his eyes closed, and the face as gently and placidly sweet as it had been in his boyhood. Perhaps Mr. Rossitur looked at it; but no other did just then, except Mr. Carleton. His eye rested nowhere else. The breathing of an infant could not be more gentle; the face of an angel not more peacefully at rest. ”

“ Rossitur stood like a man that did not care what happened or what became of him dumb and unrelenting suffering her sweet words and imploring tears, with no attempt to answer the one or stay the other. ”

“ Mrs. Rossitur was lying on the bed; but her first mood had changed, for at Fleda's soft word and touch she half rose up, and, putting both arms round her waist, laid her face against her. There were no tears still, only a succession of low moans, so inexpressibly weak and plaintive, that Fleda's nature could hardly bear them without giving way. A more fragile support was never clung to. Yet her trembling fingers, in their agony, moved caressingly among her aunt's hair and over her brow, as she begged her when she could, she was not able at first to let her know the cause that was grieving her. ”

“ Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went softly to one spot where the grass was not grown and where the bright white marble caught the eye and spoke of grief fresh too. Oh that that were grey and moss-grown like the others! The mother placed herself where the staring black letters of Hugh's name could not remind her so harshly that it no more belonged to the living; and sitting down on the ground hid her face; to struggle through the parting agony once more with added bitterness. ”

“ But it was kept to herself; her sorrowful good-byes were said in secret; before others, in all those weeks she was a very Euphrosyne; light, bright, cheerful, of eye and foot and hand; a shield between her aunt and every annoyance that she could take instead; a good little fairy, that sent her sunbeam wand, quick as a flash, where any eye rested gloomily. People did not always find out where the light came from, but it was her witchery.
The creditors would touch none of Mrs. Rossitur's things, her husband's honourable behaviour had been so thorough. ”

“ Rossitur was a man of cultivated mind and very refined and fastidious taste. He lived for the pleasures of Art and Literature and the society where these are valued. For this, and not without some secret love of display, he lived in Paris; not extravagant in his pleasures, nor silly in his ostentation, but leading, like a gentleman, as worthy and rational a life as a man can lead who lives only to himself, with no further thought than to enjoy the passing hours. ”

“ We have lost everything we have in the world."
"Mamma! What do you mean?"
"Your father has failed."
"Failed!--But, mamma, I thought he wasn't in business?"
"So I thought," said Mrs. Rossitur;--"I didn't know people could fail that were not in business; but it seems they can. He was a partner in some concern or other, and it's all broken to pieces, and your father with it, he says."
Mrs. Rossitur's face was distressful. They were all silent for a little; Hugh kissing his mother's wet cheeks. Fleda had softly nestled her head in her bosom. But Mrs. Rossitur soon recovered herself. ”

“ Perhaps a plant at once so strong and so delicate was safest without the hand of the dresser. At all events it was permitted to spring and to put forth all its native gracefulness alike unhindered and unknown. Cherished as little Fleda dearly was, her mind kept company with no one but herself,--and Hugh. As to externals,--music was uncommonly loved by both the children, and by both cultivated with great success. So much came under Mrs. Rossitur's knowledge. ”

“ Rossitur's frowning brow looked very little like it.
"What do you say to our country life, sir?"
"It's a confounded life, sir," said Mr. Rossitur, taking a pamphlet from the table to fold and twist as he spoke,--"it is a confounded life; for the head and the hands must either live separate, or the head must do no other work but wait upon the hands. It is an alternative of loss and waste, sir."
"The alternative seems to be of--a--limited application," said the doctor, as Fleda, having found that Hugh and Barby had been beforehand with her, now came back to the company. ”

“ 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!--and Fleda set forth, choosing as she very commonly did the old-time way through the kitchen. ”

“ But the mixture of feelings was too much for Fleda; her head sank lower on her aunt's bosom, and she wept aloud.
"But I don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Rossitur, as well as she could speak "I am as ignorant as a child!"
"Dear aunty! that is nothing God will teach you, if you ask him he has promised. Oh, ask him, aunt Lucy! I know you would be happier. I know it is better a million times to be a child of God, than to have everything in the world. ”

“ The children's hearts were struck, and they were silent again, only a trembling touch of Fleda's lips spoke sympathy and patience, if ever a kiss did.
"But, Mamma," said Hugh, after he had gathered breath for it, "do you mean to say that everything, literally everything, is gone? Is there nothing left?"
"Nothing in the world not a sou."
"Then what are we going to do?"
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head, and had no words. ”

“ Hugh held back, feeling or thinking that Fleda could do it better than he, and watching her progress, as Mrs. Rossitur took her hand from her face and smiled, at first mournfully, and then really mirthfully, in Fleda's face, at some sally that nobody but a nice observer would have seen was got up for the occasion; and it was hardly that, so completely had the child forgotten her own sorrow in ministering to that of another. "Blessed are the peacemakers!" It is always so. ”

“ Mr. Rossitur went out after breakfast, and Mrs. Rossitur busied herself with the breakfast cups and a tub of hot water, a work she never would let Fleda share with her and which lasted in consequence long enough, Barby said, to cook and eat three breakfasts. Fleda and Hugh sat looking at the floor and the fire respectively.
"I am going up the hill to get a sight of aunt Miriam," said Fleda, bringing her eyes from the fire upon her aunt.
"Well, dear, do. You have been shut up long enough by the snow. Wrap yourself up well, and put on my snow-boots." ”

“ Rossitur, and He will take care of the rest."
"I am willing!" she exclaimed. Fresh tears came, and came freely. Mr. Carleton said no more, till; hearing some noise of opening and shutting doors above stairs, Mrs. Rossitur hurriedly left the room, and Fleda came in by the other entrance.
"May I take you a little out of the way, Mr. Carleton?" she said, when they had passed through the Deepwater settlement. "I have a message to carry to Mrs. Elster a poor woman out here beyond the Lake. It is not a disagreeable place." ”

“ There are not a great many near by, but they don't mind coming from five or six miles off."
Mrs. Rossitur looked chilled and horrified. To her he had described a very wild country indeed. Fleda would have laughed if it had not been for her aunt's face; but that settled down into a doubtful anxious look that pained her. It pained the old doctor too.
"Come," said he touching her pretty chin with his forefinger,--"what are you thinking of? folks may be good folks and yet have tea at four o'clock, mayn't they?"
"When do they have dinner!" said Mrs. Rossitur. ”

“ Jane want to go?"
"Immediately! to-morrow; they are not willing to wait till we can get somebody. Think of it!"
"Well, let them go," said Fleda; "the sooner the better."
"Yes: and I am sure I don't want to keep them; but" and Mrs. Rossitur wrung her hands "I haven't money enough to pay them quite and they wont go without it."
Fleda felt shocked; so much that she could not help looking it.
"But can't uncle Rolf give it you?"
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head. "I have asked him."
"How much is wanting?"
"Twenty-five. Think of his not being able to give me that!"
Mrs. Rossitur burst into tears. ”

“ Carleton, musingly, "is a flower of the woods, raising its head above frost and snow and the rugged soil where fortune has placed it, with an air of quiet patient endurance; a storm wind may bring it to the ground, easily, but if its gentle nature be not broken, it will look up again, unchanged, and bide its time in unrequited beauty and sweetness to the end."
"The exotic for me!" cried Rossitur, "if I only had a place for her. I don't like pale elegancies." ”

“ Mrs. Rossitur found on her return that Hugh had obeyed her charge to the letter. He had made Fleda feel at home. They were sitting close together, Hugh's hand affectionately clasping hers, and he was holding forth on some subject with a gracious politeness that many of his elders might have copied; while Fleda listened and assented with entire satisfaction. The rest of the morning she passed in her aunt's arms; drinking draughts of pleasure from those dear bright eyes ”

“ Rossitur after a moment
A question men are not fond of answering, especially when they have not made up their minds. Mr. Rossitur was silent, and his wife too, after that.
"If I could get some long-headed Yankee to go along with him"--he remarked again, balancing his spoon on the edge of his cup in curious illustration of his own mental position at the moment; Donohan being the only fixed point and all the rest wavering in uncertainty. ”

“ It was strange that a young man, an admired man of fashion, a flattered favourite of the gay and great world, and, furthermore, a reserved and proud repeller of almost all who sought his intimacy, should seek and delight in the society of a little child. His mother would have wondered if she had known it. Mrs. Rossitur did marvel that even Fleda should have so won upon the cold and haughty young Englishman; and her husband said he probably chose to have Fleda with him because he could make up his mind to like nobody else ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who has it not wants hardihood,
Who has it has much trouble and care,
Who once has had it has despair.
Longfellow. From the German.
It was the middle of winter. One day Hugh and Fleda had come home from their walk. They dashed into the parlour, complaining that it was bitterly cold, and began unrobing before the glowing grate, which was a mass of living fire from end to end. Mrs. Rossitur was there in an easy chair, alone and doing nothing. ”

“ Rossitur's wrath was high, and he would have run over or knocked down anything less gentle that had stood in his way; but even the harshness of strength shuns to set itself in array against the meekness that does not oppose ”

“ Even so! Not less equally his providence touches all,--not less impartially his faithfulness guides. "The Lord reigneth! let the earth be glad!" There was brightness in the moonbeams now that Fleda could read this in them; she went to sleep, a very child again, with these words for her pillow.
It was not six, and darkness yet filled the world, when Mr. Rossitur came down stairs and softly opened the sitting-room door. ”

“ Rossitur, "all Americans are not like that lady you were talking of--it would be very unfair to make her a sample. I don't think I ever heard any one speak so in my life--you never heard me speak so."
"Dear aunt Lucy!--no,--I was only giving instance for instance. I have no idea that Mr. Carleton is a type of Englishmen in general--I wish he were. But I think it is the very people that cry out against superiority, who are the most happy to assert their own where they can; the same jealous feeling that repines on the one hand, revenges itself on the other." ”

“ Fleda looked across to Hugh to ask no more, and putting her arms round her aunt's neck and laying cheek to cheek, she spoke what comfort she could.
"Don't, dear aunt Lucy!--there will be some way--things always turn out better than at first--I dare say we shall find out it isn't so bad by and by. Don't you mind it, and then we won't. We can be happy anywhere together."
If there was not much in the reasoning there was something in the tone of the words to bid Mrs. Rossitur bear herself well. Its tremulous sweetness, its anxious love, was without a taint of self-recollection ”

“ Don't look at my cheeks till then."
"I shall disobey you constantly," said the doctor;--"but, my dear Miss Fleda, we must give you some felicities for reaching home, or Mrs. Rossitur will be--a--distressed when she sees them. Might I propose--that you should just bear your weight on this wood-sled and let my oxen and me have the honour--The cup of coffee, I am confident, would be at your lips considerably earlier--"
"The sun won't be a great haighth by the time we get there," said Philetus in a cynical manner ”