The weight of these things bowed Fleda to the ground and made her bury her face in her hands. But there was one item of happiness from which her thoughts never even in imagination dissevered themselves, and round it they gathered now in their weakness. A strong mind and heart to uphold hers ? a strong hand for hers to rest in ? that was a blessing; and Fleda would have cried heartily, but that her feelings were too high-wrought. They made her deaf to the light sound of footsteps coming over the gra.s.s, till two hands gently touched hers and lifted her up, and then Fleda was at home. But, surprised and startled, she could hardly lift up her face. Mr.
Carleton"s greeting was as grave and gentle as if she had been a stray child.
"Do not fancy I am going to thank you for the grace you have shown me," said he, lightly. "I know you would never have done it if circ.u.mstances had not been hard pleaders in my cause. I will thank you presently when you have answered one or two questions for me."
"Questions?" said Fleda, looking up. But she blushed the next instant at her own simplicity.
He was leading her back on the path she had come. No further, however, than to the first opening where the climbing dog-rose hung over the way. There he turned aside, crossing the little plot of greensward, and they ascended some steps cut in the rock to the chapel Fleda had looked at from a distance.
It stood high enough to command the same sea-view. On that side it was entirely open, and of very light construction on the others.
Several people were there; Fleda could hardly tell how many; and when Lord Peterborough was presented to her, she did not find out that he was her morning"s acquaintance. Her eye only took in besides that there were one or two ladies, and a clergyman in the dress of the Church of England; she could not distinguish. Yet she stood beside Mr. Carleton with all her usual quiet dignity, though her eye did not leave the ground, and her words were in no higher key than was necessary, and though she could hardly bear the unchanged easy tone of his.
The birds were in a perfect ecstasy all about them; the soft breeze came through the trees, gently waving the branches and stirring the spray wreaths of the roses, the very fluttering of summer"s drapery; some roses looked in at the lattice, and those which could not be there sent in their congratulations on the breath of the wind, while the words were spoken that bound them together.
Mr. Carleton then dismissing his guests to the house, went with Fleda again the other way. He had felt the extreme trembling of the hand which he took, and would not go in till it was quieted. He led her back to the very rose-bush where he had found her, and in his own way presently brought her spirit home from its trembling and made it rest; and then suffered her to stand a few minutes quite silent, looking out again over the fair rich spread of country that lay between them and the sea.
"Now tell me, Elfie," said he, softly, drawing back, with the same old caressing and tranquillizing touch, the hair that hung over her brow, "what you were thinking about when I found you here ? in the very luxury of seclusion ? behind a rose- bush."
Fleda looked a quick look, smiled, and hesitated, and then said it was rather a confusion of thoughts.
"It will be a confusion no longer when you have disentangled them for me."
"I don"t know" ? said Fleda. And she was silent, but so was he, quietly waiting for her to go on.
"Perhaps you will wonder at me, Mr. Carleton," she said, hesitating and colouring.
"Perhaps," he said, smiling; ? "but if I do, I will not keep you in ignorance, Elfie."
"I was almost bewildered, in the first place, with beauty ?
and then ?"
"Do you like the rose garden?"
"Like it! ? I cannot speak of it!"
"I don"t want you to speak of it," said he, smiling at her.
"What followed upon liking it, Elfie?"
"I was thinking," said Fleda, looking resolutely away from him, "in the midst of all this ? that it is not these things which make people happy."
"There is no question of that," he replied. "I have realized it thoroughly for a few months past."
"No, but seriously, I mean," said Fleda, pleadingly.
"And, seriously, you are quite right, dear Elfie. What then?"
"I was thinking," said Fleda, speaking with some difficulty ?
"of Hugh"s grave ? and of the comparative value of things; and, afraid, I believe ? especially ? here ?"
"Of making a wrong estimate?"
"Yes; and of not doing and being just what I ought."
Mr. Carleton was silent for a minute, considering the brow from which his fingers drew off the light screen.
"Will you trust me to watch over and tell you?"
Fleda did not trust her voice to tell him, but her eyes did it.
"As to the estimate ? the remedy is to "keep ourselves in the love of G.o.d;" and then these things are the gifts of our Father"s hand, and will never be put in compet.i.tion with him.
And they are never so sweet as when taken so."
"Oh, I know that!"
"This is a danger I share with you. We will watch over each other."
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.
"What shall I not do?" said he, half laughing and half gently, bringing her face near enough for his lips to try another kind of eloquence. "You shall not do this, Elfie, for any so light occasion. Was this the whole burden of those grave thoughts?"
"Not quite ? entirely" ? she said, stammering. "But grave thoughts are not always unhappy."
"Not always. I want to know what gave yours a tinge of that colour this morning."
"It was hardly that. You know what Foster says about "power to its very last particle being duty." ? I believe it frightened me a little."
"If you feel that as strongly as I do, Elfie, it will act as a strong corrective to the danger of false estimates."
"I do feel it," said Fleda. "One of my fears was that I should not feel it enough."
"One of my cares will be that you do not act upon it too fiercely," said he, smiling. "The power being limited, so is the duty. But you shall have power enough, Elfie, and work enough. I have precisely what I have needed ? my good sprite back again."
"With a slight difference."
"What difference?"
"She is to act under direction now."
"Not at all ? only under safe control," he said, laughing.
"I am very glad of the difference, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a grave and grateful remembrance of it.
"If you think the sprite"s old office is gone, you are mistaken," said he. "What were your other fears? ? one was that you should not feel enough your responsibility, and the other that you might forget it."
"I don"t know that there were any other particular fears,"