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"He said he was sorry to see you looked pale yesterday when he was asking you; and he was afraid that embroidery is not good for you. He thinks you are a very charming girl " And Mrs. Evelyn went off into little fits of laughter, which unstrung all Fleda's nerves. She stood absolutely trembling. "Mamma, don't plague her!" said Constance. "He didn't say so." "He did! upon my word!" said Mrs.
Again Fleda's lips almost voicelessly gave the answer. "Will you give me what I ventured to ask for?" said he gently, "the permission to work for you? Do not trouble those precious lips to speak the answer of these fingers will be as sure a warrant to me as all words that could be spoken that you do not deny my request." He had taken one of her hands in his own.
Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.
That chicken was not wasted in soup; it was converted into the nicest possible little fricassee, because the toast would make so much more of it; and to Fleda's own dinner little went beside the toast, that a greater portion of the rest might be for her aunt and Hugh. That same evening Seth Plumfield came into the kitchen while Fleda was there.
"Is she dead?" some one whispered, as eager hands reached out to secure his skiff to the bank. "As dead as I am," he answered with a laugh, and drew Fleda's canoe up alongside his skiff. He had a strange sensation of new life, as, with delicacy and gentleness, he lifted her up in his strong arms and stepped ashore.
But Fleda's keen ear discerned not only the deep affection, but something of regret in the voice, which troubled her. She stood, anxious and fearing while her grandfather lifting his hand again and again, let it fall gently upon hers; and amid all the fondness of the action, Fleda somehow seemed to feel in it the same regret.
Down each side of the table ran an advanced guard of little sauces, in Indian file, but in companies of three, the file leader of each being a saucer of custard, its follower a ditto of preserves, and the third keeping a sharp look-out in the shape of pickles; and to Fleda's unspeakable horror she discovered that the guests were expected to help themselves at will from these several stores with their own spoons, transferring what they took either to their own plates or at once to its final destination, which last mode several of the company preferred.
Thorn at once out of sight and out of mind; and gave herself with even more than her usual happy readiness to everything the way and the end of the way had for her. Those days were to be painted days in Fleda's memory. She thought Carleton was a very odd place. That is, the house, not the village which went by the same name.
Rossitur in the saloon when nobody or only a very few people were there; how pleasantly in those evenings the foundations were laid of a strong and enduring love for the works of art, painted, sculptured, or engraven, what a multitude of curious and excellent bits of knowledge Fleda's ears picked up from the talk of different people. They were capital ears; what they caught they never let fall.
Hugh had a great deal to say to her all the way home, of which Fleda's ears alone took the benefit, for her understanding received none of it; and when she at last came into the breakfast-room where the doctor was sitting, the fact of his being there was the only one which had entered her mind.
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