know what I am taking up, I know very well what I am laying down; and it does not signify a straw what comes after-if it was a snail-shell, that would cover my head!"

"Hum!" said the old doctor; "the snail is very well in his way, but I have no idea that he was ever cut out for a farmer.

"Do you think you will find it a business you would like, Mr. Rossitur?" said his wife timidly.

"I tell you," said he, facing about, "it is not a question of liking. I will like anything that will bury me out of the world !"

Poor Mrs. Rossitur. She had not yet come to wishing herself buried alive, and she had small faith in the permanence of her husband's taste for it. She looked desponding.

"You don't suppose," said Mr. Rossitur, stopping again in the middle of the floor after another turn and a half, " you do not suppose that I am going to take the labouring of the farm upon myself? I shall employ some one, of course, who understands the matter, to take all that off my hands."

The doctor thought of the old proverb and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; but neither of them spoke.

"Of course," said Mr. Rossitur, haughtily, as he went on with his walk, "I do not expect any more than you to live in the backwoods the life we have been leading here. That is at an end."

"Is it a very wild country?" asked Mrs. Rossitur of the doctor.

"No wild beasts, my dear, if that is your meaning; and I do not suppose there are even many snakes left by this time."

"No, but, dear uncle, I mean, is ft in an unsettled state?"

"No, my dear, not at all-perfectly quiet.

66

66

Ah, but do not play with me," exclaimed poor Mrs. Rossitur, between laughing and crying; I mean is it far from any town and not among neighbours ?"

"Far enough to be out of the way of morning calls," said the doctor; "and when your neighbours come to see you they will expect tea by four o'clock. 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 doleful anxious look that pained her. It pained the old doctor too.

"Come," said he, touching her pretty chin with his fore finger, "what are you thinking of? Folks may be good folks and yet have tea at four o'clock, mayn't they?"

see.

"When do they have dinner?" said Mrs. Rossitur.

"I really don't know. When you get settled up there I'll come and

"Hardly," said Mrs. Rossitur. "I don't believe it would be possible for Emile to get dinner before the tea-time; and I am sure I shouldn't like to propose such a thing to Mrs. Renney."

The doctor fidgeted about a little on the hearth-rug and looked comical, perfectly understood by one acute observer in the corner.

"Are you wise enough to imagine, Lucy," said Mr. Rossitur, sternly, "that you can carry your whole establishment with you? What do you suppose Emile and Mrs. Renney would do in a farm-house?"

"I can do without whatever you can," said Mrs. Rossitur, meekly. "I

did not know that you would be willing to part with Emile, and I do not think Mrs. Renney would like to leave us.'

"I told you before, it is no more a question of liking," answered he.

And if it were," said the doctor, "I have no idea that Monsieur Emile and Madame Renney would be satisfied with the style of a country kitchen, or think the interior of Yankee land a hopeful sphere for their energies.” "What sort of a house is it?" said Mrs. Rossitur.

"What sort of a house? Humph-large enough, I am told. It will accommodate you, in one way."

"Comfortable?"

"I don't know," said the doctor, shaking his head; "depends on who's in it. No house is that per se. But I reckon there isn't much plate glass. I suppose you'll find the doors all painted blue, and every fireplace with a crane in it."

"A crane!" said Mrs. Rossitur, to whose imagination the word suggested nothing but a large water-bird with a long neck.

"Ay," said the doctor. "But it's just as well. You won't want hanging lamps there, and candelabra would hardly be in place either, to hold tallow candles."

"Tallow candles!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur. Her husband winced, but said nothing.

66

Ay," said the doctor_again, "and make them yourself, if you are a good housewife. Come, Lucy," said he, taking her hand, "do you know how the wild fowl do on the Chesapeake? duck and swim under water till they can show their heads with safety? 'Twon't spoil your eyes to see by a tallow candle."

Mrs. Rossitnr half smiled, but looked anxiously toward her husband.

"Pooh, pooh! Rolf won't care what the light burns that lights him to independence; and when you get there you may illuminate with a whole whale if you like. By the way, Rolf, there is a fine water power up yonder, and a saw-mill in good order, they tell me, but a short way from the house. Hugh might learn to manage it, and it would be fine employment for him. "Hugh!" said his mother disconsolately. Mr. Rossitur neither spoke nor looked an answer. Fleda sprang forward. "A saw-mill!-Uncle Orrin !-where is it?" "Just a little way from the house, they say. You can't manage it, fair Saxon! though you look as if you would undertake all the mills in creation, for a trifle."

"No, but the place, Uncle Orrin; where is the place?"

"The place? Hum-why it's up in Wyandot County-some five or six miles from the Montepoole Spring—what's this they call it ?—Queechy!— By the way!" said he, reading Fleda's countenance, "it is the very place where your father was born!-it is! I didn't think of that before."

Fleda's hands were clasped.

"Oh I am very glad!" she said. "It's my old home. It is the most lovely place, Aunt Lucy!-most lovely-and we shall have some good neighbours there too. Oh I am very glad! The dear old saw-mill!” "Dear old saw-mill !" said the doctor looking at her. "Rolf, I'll tell you what, you shall give me this girl. I want her. I can take better care of her, perhaps, now than you can. Let her come to me when you leave the city-it will be better for her than to help work the saw-mill; and I

have as good a right to her as anybody, for Amy before her was like my own child."

The doctor spoke not with his usual light jesting manner, but very seriously. Hugh's lips parted,-Mrs. Rossitur looked with a sad thoughtful look at Fleda,-Mr. Rossitur walked up and down looking at nobody. Fleda watched him.

"What does Fleda herself say?" said he stopping short suddenly. His face softened and his eye changed as it fell upon her, for the first time that day. Fleda saw her opening; she came to him, within his arms, and laid her head upon his breast.

"What does Fleda say?" said he, softly kissing her.

Fleda's tears said a good deal, that needed no interpreter. She felt her uncle's hand passed more and more tenderly over her head, so tenderly that it made it all the more difficult for her to govern herself and stop her tears. 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. Come here, you Elf!" and he wrapped her in his arms so tight she could not stir,-"I have a spite against you for this. amends will you make me for such an affront?"

What

"Let me take breath," said Fleda laughing, "and I'll tell you. You don't want any amends, Uncle Orrin."

"Well," said he, gazing with more feeling than he cared to show into that sweet face, so innocent of apology-making, "you shall promise me that you will not forget Uncle Orrin and the old house in Bleecker Street." Fleda's eyes grew more wistful.

"And will you promise me that if ever you want anything you will come or send straight here?"

"If ever I want anything I can't get nor do without," said Fleda.

"Pshaw!" said the doctor letting her go, but laughing at the same time. "Mind my words, Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur; if ever that girl takes the wrong bit in her mouth-well, well! I'll go home."

Home he went. The rest drew together particularly near, round the fire; Hugh at his father's shoulder, and Fleda kneeling on the rug between her uncle and aunt with a hand on each; and there was not one of them whose gloom was not lightened by her bright face and cheerful words of hope that in the new scenes they were going to "they would all be so happy.'

The days that followed were gloomy; but Fleda's ministry was unceasing. Hugh seconded her well, though more passively. Feeling less pain himself, he perhaps for that very reason was less acutely alive to it in others; not so quick to foresee and ward off, not so skilful to allay it. Fleda seemed to have intuition for the one and a charm for the other. To her there was pain in every parting; her sympathies clung to whatever wore the livery of habit. There was hardly any piece of furniture, there was no book or marble or picture, that she could take leave of without a pang. 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. They even presented him with one or two pictures which he sold for a considerable sum; and to Mrs. Rossitur they gave up all the plate in daily use; a matter of great rejoicing to Fleda, who knew well how sorely it would have been missed. She and her aunt had quite a little library too, of their own private store; a little one it was indeed, but the worth of every volume was now trebled in her eyes. Their furniture was all left behind; and in its stead went some of neat light painted wood which looked to Fleda deliciously countryfied. A promising cook and housemaid were engaged to go with them to the wilds; and about the first of April they turned their backs upon the city.

Q

CHAPTER XVII.

The thresher's weary flingin-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me:
And whan the day had closed his e'e,
Far i' the west,

Ben i' the spence, right penisvelie,

I 'gaed to rest.—Burns.

UEECHY was reached at night. Fleda had promised herself to be off almost with the dawn of light the next morning to see aunt Miriam, but a heavy rain kept her fast at home the whole day. It was very well; she was wanted there.

Despite the rain and her disappointment it was impossible for Fleda to lie abed from the time the first grey light began to break in at her windows, those old windows that had rattled their welcome to her all night. She was up and dressed and had had a long consultation with herself over matters and prospects, before anybody else had thought of leaving the indubitable comfort of a feather bed for the doubtful contingency of happiness that awaited them downstairs. Fleda took in the whole length and breadth of it, half wittingly and half through some finer sense than that of the understanding.

The first view of things could not strike them pleasantly; it was not to be looked for. The doors did not happen to be painted blue; they were a deep chocolate colour; doors and wainscot. The fireplaces were not all furnished with cranes, but they were all uncouthly wide and deep. Nobody would have thought them so indeed in the winter, when piled up with blazing hickory logs, but in summer they yawned uncomfortably upon the eye.

The ceilings were low; the walls rough papered or rougher whitewashed; the sashes not hung; the rooms, otherwise well enough proportioned, stuck with little cupboards, in recesses and corners and out of the way places, in a style impertinently suggestive of housekeeping, and fitted to shock any symmetrical set of nerves. The old house had undergone a thorough putting in order, it is true; the chocolate paint was just dry, and the paper hangings freshly put up; and the bulk of the new furniture had been sent on before and unpacked, though not a single article of it was in its right place. The house was clean and tight, that is, as tight as it ever was. But the colour had been unfortunately chosen-perhaps there was no help for that; the paper was very coarse and countryfied; the big windows were startling, they looked so bare without any manner of drapery; and the

long reaches of wall were unbroken by mirror or picture-frame. And this to eyes trained to eschew ungracefulness and that abhorred a vacuum as much as nature is said to do! Even Fleda felt there was something disagreeable in the change, though it reached her more through the channel of other people's sensitiveness than her own. To her it was the dear old nouse still, though her eyes had seen better things since they loved it. No corner or recess could have a pleasanter filling, to her fancy, than the old brown cupboard or shelves which had always been there. But what would her uncle say to them! and to that dismal paper! and what would aunt Lucy think of those rattling window-sashes! this cool raw day too, for the first!

Think as she might Fleda did not stand still to think. She had gone softly all over the house, taking a strange look at the old places and the images with which memory filled them, thinking of the last time, and many a time before that; and she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long before anybody else was downstairs; the two tired servants were just rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen and speculating themselves awake. Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a decent breakfast (by the way she grudged them the old kitchen) Fleda set about trying what her wand could do towards brightening the face of affairs in the other part of the house. It was quite cold enough for a fire, luckily. She ordered one made, and meanwhile busied herself with the various stray packages and articles of wearing apparel that lay scattered about giving the whole place a look of discomfort. Fleda gathered them up and bestowed them in one or two of the impertinent cupboards, and then undertook the labour of carrying out all the wrong furniture that had got into the breakfast-room and bringing in that which really belonged there from the hall and the parlour beyond; moving like a mouse that she might not disturb the people upstairs. A quarter of an hour was spent in arranging to the best advantage these various pieces of furniture in the room; it was the very same in which Mr. Carleton and Charlton Rossitur had been received the memorable day of the roast pig dinner, but that was not the uppermost association in Fleda's mind. Satisfied at last that a happier effect could not be produced with the given materials, and well pleased too with her success, Fleda turned to the fire. It was made, but not by any means doing its part to encourage the other portions of the room to look their best. Fleda knew something of wood fires from old times; she laid hold of the tongs, and touched and loosened and coaxed a stick here and there, with a delicate hand, till, seeing the very opening it had wanted-without which neither fire nor hope can keep its activity—the blaze sprang up energetically, crackling through all the piled oak and hickory and driving the smoke clean out of sight. Fleda had done her work. It would have been a misanthropical person indeed that could have come into the room then and not felt his face brighten. One other thing remained-setting the breakfast table; and Fleda would let no hands but hers do it this morning; she was curious about the setting of tables. How she remembered or divined where everything had been stowed; how quietly and efficiently her little fingers unfastened hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table-linen was found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid in most exquisite order on the table. State-street never saw better. Fleda stood and looked at it then, in immense satisfaction, seeing that her uncle's eye would miss nothing of its accustomed gratification. To her the old room, shining with firelight and new furniture, was perfectly charming. If those great windows were staringly bright, health and cheerfulness seemed