"I will do anything that will please you, Fleda."

"It is not to please me," she answered meekly.

"I would not have spoken a word last night if I had known it would have grieved you so.

"I am sorry you should have none but so poor a reason for doing right," said Fleda gently.

"Upon my word, I think you are about as good reason as anybody need have," said Charlton.

She put her hand upon his arm and looked up-such a look of pure rebuke as carried to his mind the full force of the words she did not speak,-"Who art thou that carest for a worm which shall die, and forgettest the Lord thy Maker?" Charlton's eyes fell. Fleda turned gently away and began to mend the fire. He stood watching her for a little.

"What do you think of me, Fleda?" he said at length.

"A little wrong-headed," answered Fleda, giving him a glance and a smile. "I don't think you are very bad."

"If you will go with me, Fleda, you shall make what you please of me!" He spoke half in jest, half in earnest, and did not himself know at the moment which way he wished Fleda to take it. But she had no notion of any depth in his words.

"A hopeless task!" she answered lightly, shaking her head, as she got down on her knees to blow the fire; "I am afraid it is too much for me. I have been trying to mend you ever since you came, and I cannot see the slightest change for the better!"

"Where is the bellows?" said Charlton in another tone.

"It has expired—its last breath," said Fleda. "In other words, it has lost its nose.'

"Well, look here," said he laughing and pulling her away, "you will stand a fair chance of losing your face if you put it in the fire. You sha'n't do it. Come and show me where to find the scattered parts of that old wind instrument, and I will see if it cannot be persuaded to play again.”

C

CHAPTER XXV.

I dinna ken what I should want

If I could get but a man.-Scotch Ballad.

APT. ROSSITUR did no work at the saw-mill.

But Fleda's words

had not fallen to the ground. He began to show care for his fellowcreatures in getting the bellows mended; his next step was to look to his gun; and from that time so long as he stayed the table was plentifully supplied with all kinds of game the season and the country could furnish. Wild ducks and partridges banished pork and bacon even from memory; and Fleda joyfully declared she would not see another omelette again till she was in distress.

While Charlton was still at home came a very urgent invitation from Mrs. Evelyn that Fleda should pay them a long visit in New York, bidding her care for no want of preparation, but come and make it there. Fleda demurred, however, on that very score. But before her answer was written, another missive came from Dr. Gregory, not asking so much as demanding her presence, and enclosing a fifty dollar bill, for which he said he would hold her responsible till she had paid him with-not her own hands--but her own lips. There was no withstanding the manner of this entreaty.

Fleda packed up some of Mrs. Rossitur's laid-by silks, to be refreshed with an air of fashion, and set off with Charlton at the end of his furlough.

To her simple spirit of enjoyment the weeks ran fast; and all manner of novelties and kindnesses helped them on. It was a time of cloudless pleasure. But those she had left thought it long. She wrote them how delightfully she kept house for the old doctor, whose wife had long been dead, and how joyously she and the Evelyns made time fly. And every pleasure she felt awoke almost as strong a throb in the hearts at home. But they missed her, as Barby said, "dreadfully;" and she was most dearly welcomed when she came back. It was just before New Year.

For half an hour there was most gladsome use of eyes and tongues. Fleda had a great deal to tell them.

"How well-how well you are looking, dear Fleda!" said her aunt for the third or fourth time.

"That's more than I can say for you and Hugh, aunt Lucy. What have you been doing to yourselves?"

"Nothing new," they said, as her eyes went from one to the other.

"I guess you have wanted me!" said Fleda, shaking her head as she kissed them both again.

"I guess we have," said Hugh, "but don't fancy we have grown thin upon the want.

"But where's uncle Rolf? You didn't tell me."

"He is gone to look after those lands in Michigan." "In Michigan! When did he go?"

"Very soon after you."

And you didn't let me know! Oh, why didn't you? How lonely you

must have been!"

66

"Let you know indeed!" said Mrs. Rossitur, wrapping her in her arms again. Hugh and I counted every week that you stayed with more and more pleasure each one.

"I understand!" said Fleda, laughing under her aunt's kisses.

"Well,

I am glad I am at home again to take care of you. I see you can't get

along without me!"

"People have been very kind, Fleda," said Hugh.

"Have they?"

"Yes, thinking we were desolate, I suppose.

to aunt Miriam's goodness and pleasantness.'

There has been no end

"Oh, aunt Miriam, always!" said Fleda; "and Seth." "Catharine Douglass has been up twice to ask if her mother could do anything for us; and Mrs. Douglass sent us once a rabbit and once a quantity of wild pigeons that Earl had shot. Mother and I lived upon pigeons for I don't know how long. Barby wouldn't eat 'em-she said she liked pork better; but I believe she did it on purpose.'

"Like enough," said Fleda, smiling from her aunt's arms where she still lay.

دو

"And Seth has sent you plenty of your favourite hickory-nuts, very fine ones; and I gathered butternuts enough for you near home. "Everything is for me," said Fleda. "Well, the first thing I do shall be to make some butternut candy for you. You won't despise that, Mr. Hugh?

Hugh smiled at her and went on—

"And your friend, Mr. Olmney, has sent us a corn-basket full of the superbest apples you ever saw, He has one tree of the finest in Queechy,

he says."

"My friend!" said Fleda, colouring a little.

"Well, I don't know whose he is if he isn't yours," said Hugh.

"And

even the Finns sent us some fish that their brother had caught, because, they said, they had more than they wanted. And Dr. Quackenboss sent us a goose and a turkey. We didn't like to keep them, but we were afraid if we sent them back it would not be understood."

"Send them back!" said Fleda. "That would never do! All Queechy would have rung with it."

"Well, we didn't," said Hugh. "But so we sent one of them to Barby's old mother for Christmas."

"Poor Dr. Quackenboss!" said Fleda. "That man has as near as possible killed me two or three times. As for the others, they are certainly the oddest of all the finny tribes. I must go out and see Barby for a minute."

It was a good many minutes, however, before she could get free to do any such thing.

"You ha'n't lost no flesh," said Barby shaking hands with her anew. "What did they think of Queechy keep down in York?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask them," said Fleda. "How goes the world with you, Barby?"

"I'm mighty glad you are come home, Fleda," said Barby lowering her voice.

"Why?" said Fleda in a like tone.

"I guess I ain't all that's glad of it," Miss Elster went on, with a glance of her bright eye.

"I guess not," said Fleda reddening a little; "but what is the matter?' "There's two of our friends ha'n't made us but one visit a piece since— oh, ever since some time in October!"

"Well never mind the people," said Fleda, "Tell me what you were going to say."

"And Mr. Olmney," said Barby not minding her, "he's took and sent us a great basket chock full of apples. Now wa'n't that smart of him, when he knowed there wa'n't no one here that cared about 'em?”

"They are a particularly fine kind," said Fleda.

66

Did you hear about the goose and turkey?"

"Yes," said Fleda laughing.

"The doctor thinks he has done the thing just about right this time, I s'pect. He had ought to take out a patent right for his invention. He'd feel spry if he knowed who eat one on 'em.'

"Never mind the doctor, Barby. Was this what you wanted to see me for?"

"No," said Barby changing her tone. "I'd give something it was. I've been all but at my wit's end; for you know Mis' Rossitur ain't no hand about anything I couldn't say a word to her; and ever since he went away we have been just winding ourselves up. I thought I should clear out, when Mis' Rossitur said maybe you wa'n't a coming till next week." "But what is it, Barby? what is wrong?"

"There ha'n't been anything right, to my notions, for a long spell," said Barby, wringing out her dish-cloth hard and flinging it down to give herself uninterruptedly to talk; "but now you see Didenhover nor none of the men never comes near the house to do a chore; and there ain't wood to last three days; and Hugh ain't fit to cut it if it was piled up in the yard; and there ain't the first stick of it out of the woods yet.' Fleda sat down and looked very thoughtfully into the fire.

"He had ought to ha' seen to it afore he went away, but he ha'n't done it, and there it is.

66

'Why, who takes care of the cows?" said Fleda.

"Oh, never mind the cows," said Barby; "they ain't suffering; I wish we was as well off as they be; but I guess when he went away he made a hole in our pockets for to mend his'n. I don't say he hadn't ought to ha' done it, but we've been pretty short ever sen, Fleda; we're in the last bushel of flour, and there ain't but a handful of corn meal, and mighty little sugar, white or brown. I did say something to Mis' Rossitur, but all the good it did was to spile her appetite, I s'pose; and if there's grain in the floor there ain't nobody to carry it to mill, nor to thrash it, nor a team to draw it, fur's I know."

66 Hugh cannot cut wood!" said Fleda; "nor drive to mill either, in this weather.

"I could go to mill," said Barby, "now you're to hum, but that's only the beginning; and it's no use to try to do everything—flesh and blood must stop somewhere."

"No indeed!" said Fleda. "We must have somebody immediately." "That's what I had fixed upon," said Barby. "If you could get hold of some young feller that wa'n't so up with an idee that he was a grown man and too big to be told, I'd just clap to and fix that little room upstairs for him and give him his victuals here, and we'd have some good of him; instead o' having him streakin' off just at the minute when he'd ought to be along. "Who is there we could get, Barby?"

I don't know," said Barby; "but they say there is never a nick that there ain't a jog some place; so I guess it can be made out. I asked Mis' Plumfield, but she didn't know anybody that was out of work; nor Seth Plumfield. I'll tell you who does; that is, if there is anybody, Mis' Douglass. She keeps hold of one end of 'most everybody's affairs, I tell her. Anyhow she's a good hand to go to.'

"I'll go there at once," said Fleda. "Do you know anything about making maple sugar, Barby?" "There's lots

"That's the very thing!" exclaimed Barby, ecstatically. o' sugar maples on the farm, and it's murder to let them go to loss; and they ha'n't done us a speck o' good ever since I come here. And in your grandfather's time they used to make barrels and barrels. You and me and Hugh, and somebody else we'll have, we could clap to and make as much sugar and molasses in a week as would last us till spring come round again. There's no sense into it! All we'd want would be to borrow a team some place. I had all that in my head long ago. If we could see the last of that man Didenhover oncet, I'd take hold of the plough myself and see if I couldn't make a living out of it! I don't believe the world would go now, Fleda, if it wa'n't for women. I never see three men yet that didn't try me more than they were worth.

'Patience, Barby!" said Fleda smiling. "Let us take things quietly." "Well, I declare I'm beat, to see how you take 'em," said Barby, looking at her lovingly.

"Don't you know why, Barby?"

"I s'pose I do," said Barby, her face softening still more, "or I can guess.

“Because I know that all these troublesome things will be managed in the best way and by my best friend, and I know that He will let none of them hurt me. I am sure of it-isn't that enough to keep me quiet?” Fleda's eyes were filling and Barby looked away from them.

"Well it beats me," she said, taking up her dishcloth again, "why you should have anything to trouble you. I can understand wicked folks being plagued, but I can't see the sense of the good ones.

Troubles are to make good people better, Barby.

"Well," said Barby, with a very odd mixture of real feeling and seeming want of it, "it's a wonder I never got religion, for I will say that all the decent people I ever see were of that kind! Mis' Rossitur ain't though, is she?"

"No," said Fleda, a pang crossing her at the thought that all her aunt's loveliness must tell directly and heavily in this case to lighten religion's testimony. It was that thought and no other which saddened her brow as she went back into the other room.

"Troubles already!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "You will be sorry you have come back to them, dear."

"No, indeed!" said Fleda, brightly, "I am very glad I have come home. We will try and manage the troubles, aunt Lucy."

There was no doing anything that day, but the very next afternoon Fleda and Hugh walked down through the snow to Mrs. Douglass's. It was a long walk and a cold one, and the snow was heavy; but the pleasure of being together made up for it all. It was a bright walk too, in spite of everything.

In a most thrifty-looking well-painted farm-house lived Mrs. Douglass. "Why 'tain't you, is it?" she said when she opened the door. "Catharine said it was, and I said I guessed it wa'n't, for I reckoned you had made up your mind not to come and see me at all. How do you do?"

The last sentence in the tone of hearty and earnest hospitality. Fleda made her excuses.

"Ay, ay! I can understand all that just as well as if you said it. I know how much it means too. Take off your hat."

Fleda said she could not stay, and explained her business.

"So you ha'n't come to see me after all. Well, now, take of your hat, 'cause I won't have anything to say to you till you do. I'll give you supper right away.

"But I have left my aunt alone, Mrs. Douglass; and the afternoons are so short now it would be dark before we could get home."

"Serve her right for not coming along! and you sha'n't walk home in the dark, for Earl will harness the team and carry you home like a streak, the horses have nothing to do. Come, you sha'n't go.'

And as Mrs. Douglass laid violent hands on her bonnet Fleda thought best to submit. She was presently rewarded with the promise of the very person she wanted-a boy, or young man, then in Earl Douglass's employ; but his wife said "she guessed he'd give him up to her;" and what his wife said, Fleda knew, Earl Douglass was in the habit of making good.

"I

"There ain't enough to do to keep him busy," said Mrs. Douglass. told Earl he made me more work than he saved; but he's hung on till

"What sort of a boy is he, Mrs. Douglass?"

"He ain't a steel trap, I tell you beforehand," said the lady, with one of her sharp intelligent glances; "he don't know which way to go till you shew him; but he's a clever enough kind of a chap, he don't mean no harm. I guess he'll do for what you want."

"Is he to be trusted?"

"Trust him with anything but a knife and fork," said she, with another Look and shake of the head. "He has no idea but what everything on the