"I want to ask you something, if you won't mind my saying it." "What is it?" said he, reading in her face that a request was behind. "I will do it."

Her eyes sparkled, but she seemed to have some difficulty in going on. "I will do it, whatever it is," he said, watching her.

"Will you wait for me one moment, Mr. Carleton ?"

"Half an hour."

She sprang away, her face absolutely flashing pleasure through her tears. It was much soberer, and again doubtful and changing colour, when a few minutes afterwards she came back with a book in her hand. With a striking mixture of timidity, modesty, and eagerness in her countenance she came forward, and putting the little volume, which was her own Bible, into Mr. Carleton's hands, said under her breath, "Please read it.", She did not venture to look up.

He saw what the book was; and then taking the gentle hand which had given it, he kissed it two or three times. If it had been a princess's he could not with more respect.

"You have my promise. Elfie," he said. "I need not repeat it?"

She raised her eyes and gave him a look so grateful, so loving, so happy, that it dwelt for ever in his remembrance. A moment after it had faded, and she stood still where he had left her, listening to his footsteps as they went down the stairs. She heard the last of them, and then sank upon her knees by a chair and burst into a pasion of tears. Their time was now and she let them come. It was not only the losing a loved and pleasant friend, it was not only the stirring of sudden and disagreeable excitementpoor Elfie was crying for her Bible. It had been her father's own-it was filled with his marks-it was precious to her above price-and Elfie cried with all her heart for the loss of it. She had done what she had on the spur of the emergency-she was satisfied she had done right; she would not take it back if she could; but not the less her Bible was gone, and the pages that loved eyes had looked upon were for hers to look upon no more. Her very heart was wrung that she should have parted with it—and yet— what could she do? It was as bad as the parting with Mr. Carleton.

That agony was over, and even that was shortened for " 'Hugh would find out that she had been crying.' " Hours had passed, and the tears were dried, and the little face was bending over the wonted tasks with a shadow upon its wonted cheerfulness, when Rosaline came to tell her that Victor said there was somebody in the passage who wanted to see her and would not come in.

It was Mr. Carleton himself. He gave her a parcel, smiled at her without saying a word, kissed her hand earnestly, and was gone again. Fleda ran to her own room, and took the wrappers off such a beauty of a Bible as she had never seen; bound in blue velvet, with clasps of gold and her initials in letters of gold upon the cover. Fleda hardly knew whether to be most pleased or sorry; for to have its place so supplied seemed to put her lost freasure further away than ever. The result was another flood of very tender tears; in the very shedding of which however the new little Bible was bound to her heart with cords of association as bright and as incorruptible as its gold mountings.

F

CHAPTER XV.

Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight -Sidney. LEDA had not been a year in Paris when her uncle suddenly made up his mind to quit it and go home. Some trouble in money affairs, felt or feared, brought him to this step, which a month before he had no definite purpose of ever taking. There was cloudy weather in the financial world of New York, and he wisely judged it best that his own eyes should be on the spot to see to his own interests. Nobody was sorry for this determination. Mrs. Rossitur always liked what her husband liked, but she had at the same time a decided predilection for home. Marion was glad to leave her convent for the gay world, which her parents promised she should immediately enter. And Hugh and Fleda had too lively a spring of happiness within themselves to care where its outgoings should be.

So home they came, in good mood, bringing with them all manner of Parisian delights that Paris could part with. Furniture, that at home at least they might forget where they were; dresses, that at home or abroad nobody might forget where they had been; pictures and statuary and engravings and books, to satisfy a taste really strong and well cultivated. And indeed the other items were quite as much for this purpose as for any other. A French cook for Mr. Rossitur, and even Rosaline for his wife, who declared she was worth all the rest of Paris. Hugh cared little for any of these things; he brought home a treasure of books and a flute, to which he was devoted. Fleda cared for them all, even Monsieur Emile and Rosaline, for her uncle's and aunt's sake; but her special joy was a beautiful little King Charles which had been sent her by Mr. Carleton a few weeks before. It came with the kindest of letters, saying that some matters had made it inexpedient for him to pass through Paris on his way home, but that he hoped nevertheless to see her soon. That intimation was the only thing that made Fleda sorry to leave Paris. The little dog was a beauty, allowed to be so not only by his mistress but by everyone else; of the true black and tan colours; and Fleda's dearly loved and constant companion.

The life she and Hugh led was little changed by the change of place. They went out and came in as they had done in Paris, and took the same quiet but intense happiness in the same quiet occupations and pleasures; only the Tuileries and Champs Elysées had a miserable substitute in the Battery, and no substitute at all anywhere else. And the pleasant drives in the environs of Paris were missed too and had nothing in New York to supply their place. Mrs. Rossitur always said it was impossible to get out of New York by land, and not worth the trouble to do it by water. then in the house Fleda thought that there was a great gain. The dirty Parisian Hotel was well exchanged for the bright clean well-appointed house in State-street. And if Broadway was disagreeable, and the Park a weariness to the eyes, after the dressed gardens of the French capital, Hugh and Fleda made it up in the delights of the luxuriously furnished library and the dear at-home feeling of having the whole house their own.

But

They were left, those two children, quite as much to themselves as ever. Marion was going into company, and she and her mother were swallowed up in the consequent necessary calls upon their time. Marion never had been anything to Fleda. She was a fine handsome girl, outwardly, but seemed to have more of her father than her mother in her composition, though colder natured and more wrapped up in self than Mr. Rossitur would be called by anybody that knew him. She had never done anything to

draw Fleda towards her, and even Hugh had very little of her attention. They did not miss it. They were everything to each other.

Everything for now morning and night there was a sort of whirlwind in the house which carried the mother and daughter round and round and permitted no rest; and Mr. Rossitur himself was drawn in. It was worse than it had been in Paris. There, with Marion in her convent, there were often evenings when they did not go abroad nor receive company, and spent the time quietly and happily in each other's society. No such evenings now; if by chance there were an unoccupied one Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter were sure to be tired and Mr. Rossitur busy.

Hugh and Fleda in those bustling times retreated to the library; Mr. Rossitur would rarely have that invaded; and while the net was so eagerly cast for pleasure among the gay company below, pleasure had often slipped away and hid herself among the things on the library table, and was dancing on every page of Hugh's book, and minding each stroke of Fleda's pencil, and cocking the spaniel's ears whenever his mistress looked at him. King, the spaniel, lay on a silk cushion on the library table, his nose just touching Fleda's fingers. Fleda's drawing was mere amusement; she and Hugh were not so burthened with studies that they had not always their evenings free, and to tell truth, much more than their evenings. Masters indeed they had; but the heads of the house were busy with the interests of their grown-up child, and perhaps with other interests; and took it for granted that all was going right with the young ones.

"Haven't we a great deal better time than they have downstairs, Fleda?" said Hugh, one of these evenings.

"Hum-yes

answered Fleda, abstractedly, stroking into order some old man in her drawing with great intentness." King !—you rascal-keep back and be quiet, sir!"

Nothing could be conceived more gentle and loving than Fleda's tone of fault-finding, and her repulse only fell short of a caress.

"What's he doing?

"Wants to get into my lap."

"Why don't you let him?'

"Because I don't choose to-a silk cushion is good enough for his majesty King- -"(laying her soft cheek against the little dog's soft head and forsaking her drawing for the purpose).

"How you do love that dog!" said Hugh.

"Very well-why should't I?-provided he steals no love from anybody else," said Fleda, still caressing him.

"What a noise somebody is making downstairs,” said Hugh. "I don't think I should ever want to go to large parties, Fleda, do you?”

"I don't know," said Fleda, whose natural taste for society was strongly developed; "it would depend upon what kind of parties they were.

"I shouldn't like them, I know, of whatever kind," said Hugh. "What are you smiling at?"

66

Only Mr. Pickwick's face, that I am drawing here."

Hugh came round to look and laugh, and then began again.

"I can't think of anything pleasanter than this room as we are now." "You should have seen Mr. Carleton's library," said Fleda in a musing tone, going on with her drawing.

"Was it so much better than this?"

Fleda's eyes gave a slight glance at the room and then looked down again with a little shake of her head sufficiently expressive,

ti Well,” said Hugh, "you and I do not want any better than this, do we, Fleda?"

Fleda's smile, a most satisfactory one, was divided between him and King.

"I don't believe," said Hugh, "you would have loved that dog near so well if anybody else had given him to you."

"I don't believe I should!-not a quarter," said Fleda with sufficient distinctness.

"I never liked that Mr. Carleton as well as you did.'

"That is because you did not know him," said Fleda quietly.

"Do you think he was a good man, Fleda?"

"He was very good to me," said Fleda, "always. What rides I did have on that great black horse of his ! "

"A black horse?"

"Yes, a great black horse, strong, but so gentle, and he went so delightfully. His name was Harold. Oh I should like to see that horse!-When I wasn't with him, Mr. Carleton used to ride another, the greatest beauty of a horse, Hugh; a brown Arabian-so slender and delicate-her name was Zephyr, and she used to go like the wind to be sure. Mr. Carleton said he wouldn't trust me on such a fly-away thing.'

"But you didn'nt use to ride alone?" said Hugh.

"Oh no!—and I wouldn't have been afraid if he had chosen to take me on any one."

"But do you think, Fleda, he was a good man? as I mean?"

"I am sure he was better than a great many others," answered Fleda evasively; "the worst of him was infinitely better than the best of half the people downstairs, -Mr. Sweden included."

"Sweden !-you don't call his name right.'

"The worse it is called the better, in my opinion," said Fleda.

"Well, I don't like him; but what makes you dislike him so much?" "I don't know-partly because Uncle Rolf and Marion like him so much, I believe I don't think there is any moral expression in his face." "I wonder why they like him," said Hugh.

It was a somewhat irregular and desultory education that the two children gathered under this system of things. The masters they had were rather for accomplishments and languages than for anything solid; the rest they worked out for themselves. Fortunately they both loved books, and rational books; and hours and hours, when Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter were paying or receiving visits, they, always together, were stowed away behind the book-cases or in the library window poring patiently over pages of various complexion; the soft turning of the leaves or Fleda's frequent attentions to King the only sound in the room. They walked together, talking of what they had read, though indeed they ranged beyond that into nameless and numberless fields of speculation, where if they sometimes found fruit, they as often lost their way. However the habit of ranging was something. Then when they joined the rest of the family at the dinnertable, especially if others were present, and most especially if a certain German gentleman happened to be there, who the second winter after their return Fleda thought came very often, she and Hugh would be sure to find the strange talk of the world that was going on unsuited and wearisome to them, and they would make their escape upstairs again to handle the pencil and to play the flute and to read, and to draw plans for the future, while King crept upon the skirts of his mistress's gown and laid his little head on her feet. Nobody ever thought of sending them to school. Hugh was a

child of frail health, and though not often very ill was often near it; and as for Fleda, she and Hugh were inseparable; and besides by this time her uncle and aunt would almost as soon have thought of taking the mats off their delicate shrubs in winter as of exposing her to any atmosphere less genial than that of home.

For Fleda this doubtful course of mental training wrought singularly well. An uncommonly quick eye and strong memory and clear head, which she had even in childhood, passed over no field of truth or fancy without making their quiet gleanings; and the stores thus gathered, though somewhat miscellaneous and unarranged, were both rich and uncommon, and more than any one or she herself knew. Perhaps such a mind thus left to itself knew a more free and luxuriant growth than could ever have flourished within the confinement of rules. 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. Also every foreign Signor and Madame that came into the house to teach them spoke with enthusiasm of the apt minds and flexile tongues that honoured their instructions. In private and in public the gentle, docile, and affectionate children answered every wish both of taste and judgment. And perhaps, in a world where education is not understood, their guardians might be pardoned for taking it for granted that all was right where nothing appeared that was wrong; certainly they took no pains to make sure of the fact. In this case, one of a thousand, their neglect was not punished with disappointment. They never found out that Hugh's mind wanted the strengthening that early skilful training might have given it. His intellectual tastes were not so strong as Fleda's; his reading was more superficial; his gleanings not so sound and in far fewer fields, and they went rather to nourish sentiment and fancy than to stimulate thought or lay up food for it. But his parents saw nothing of this.

The third winter had not passed, when Fleda's discernment saw that Mr. Sweden, as she called him, the German gentleman, would not cease coming to the house till he had carried off Marion with him. Her opinion on the subject was delivered to no one but Hugh.

That winter introduced them to a better acquaintance. One evening Dr. Gregory, an uncle of Mrs. Rossitur's, had been dining with her and was in the drawing-room. Mr. Schwiden had been there too, and he and Marion and one or two other young people had gone out to some popular entertainment. The children knew little of Dr. Gregory but that he was a very respectable-looking elderly gentleman, a little rough in his manners; the doctor had not long been returned from a stay of some years in Europe, where he had been collecting rare books for a fine public library, the charge of which was now entrusted to him. After talking some time with Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur the doctor pushed round his chair to take a look at the children.

"So that's Amy's child," said he. "Come here, Amy."

"That is not my name," said the little girl, coming forward. "Isn't it? It ought to be. What is it then?"

"Elfleda."

"Elfleda! Where in the name of all that is auricular did you get such an outlandish name?