Queechy Volume Ii Part 23

Her countenance absolutely fell.

"I sometimes think," said he, turning over the leaves of her book, "that these are the best companions.h.i.+p one can have ?

the world at large is very unsatisfactory."

"O, how much!" said Fleda, with a long breath. "The only pleasant thing that my eyes rested upon as I came through the streets this afternoon, was a huge bunch of violets that somebody was carrying. I walked behind them as long as I could."

"Is your old love for Queechy in full force?" said Mr.

Carleton, still turning over the leaves, and smiling.

"I believe so ? I should be very sorry to live here long ? at home I can always go out and find society that refreshes me."

"You have set yourself a high standard," he said, with no displeased expression of the lips.

"I have been charged with that," said Fleda; "but is it possible to set too high a standard, Mr. Carleton?"

"One may leave one's-self almost alone in the world."

"Well, even then," said Fleda, "I would rather have only the image of excellence than be contented with inferiority."

"Isn't it possible to do both?" said he, smiling again.

"I don't know," said Fleda; "perhaps I am too easily dissatisfied ? I believe I have grown fastidious, living alone ? I have sometimes almost a disgust at the world and everything in it."

"I have often felt so," he said; "but I am not sure that it is a mood to be indulged in ? likely to further our own good or that of others."

"I am sure it is not," said Fleda; "I often feel vexed with myself for it; but what can one do, Mr. Carleton?"

"Don't your friends the flowers help you in this?"

"Not a bit," said Fleda ? "they draw the other way; their society is so very pure and satisfying, that one is all the less inclined to take up with the other."

She could not tell quite what to make of the smile with which he began to speak; it half abashed her.

"When I spoke, a little while ago," said he, "of the best cure for an ill mood, I was speaking of secondary means simply ?

the only really humanizing, rectifying, peace-giving thing I ever tried, was looking at time in the light of eternity, and shaming or melting my coldness away in the rays of the Sun of Righteousness."

Fleda's eyes, which had fallen on her book, were raised again with such a flash of feeling that it quite prevented her seeing what was in his. But the feeling was a little too strong ? the eyes went down, lower than ever, and the features showed that the utmost efforts of self-command were needed to control them.

"There is no other cure," he went on in the same tone; ? "but disgust and weariness and selfishness shrink away and hide themselves before a word or a look of the Redeemer of men.

When we hear him say, 'I have bought thee ? thou art mine,' it is like one of those old words of healing, 'Thou art loosed from thine infirmity' ? 'Be thou clean' ? and the mind takes sweetly the grace and the command together, 'That he who loveth G.o.d love his brother also.' Only the preparation of the gospel of peace can make our feet go softly over the roughnesses of the way."

Fleda did not move, unless her twinkling eyelashes might seem to contradict that.

"I need not tell you," Mr. Carleton went on, a little lower, "where this medicine is to be sought."

"It is strange," said Fleda, presently, "how well one may know, and how well one may forget. But I think the body has a great deal to do with it sometimes ? these states of feeling, I mean."

"No doubt it has; and in these cases the cure is a more complicated matter. I should think the roses would be useful there?"

Fleda's mind was crossed by an indistinct vision of peas, asparagus, and sweet corn; she said nothing.

"An indirect remedy is sometimes the very best that can be employed. However, it is always true that the more our eyes are fixed upon the source of light, the less we notice the shadows that things we are pa.s.sing fling across our way."

Fleda did not know how to talk for a little while; she was too happy. Whatever kept Mr. Carleton from talking, he was silent also. Perhaps it was the understanding of her mood.

"Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, after a little time, "did you ever carry out that plan of a rose-garden that you were talking of a long while ago?"

"You remember it?" said he, with a pleased look. "Yes, that was one of the first things I set about, after I went home ?

but I did not follow the regular fas.h.i.+on of arrangement that one of your friends is so fond of."

"I should not like that for anything," said Fleda, "and least of all for roses."

"Do you remember the little shrubbery path that opened just in front of the library windows ?leading, at the distance of half a mile, to a long, narrow, winding glen?"

"Perfectly well," said Fleda, ? "through the wood of evergreens ? Oh, I remember the glen very well."

"About half way from the house," said he, smiling at her eyes, "a glade opens, which merges at last in the head of the glen ?

I planted my roses there ? the circ.u.mstances of the ground were very happy for disposing them according to my wish."

"And how far?"

"The roses? ? Oh, all the way, and some distance down the glen. Not a continuous thicket of them," he added, smiling again ? "I wished each kind to stand so that its peculiar beauty should be fully relieved and appreciated; and that would have been lost in a crowd."

"Yes, I know it," said Fleda; "one's eye rests upon the chief objects of attraction, and the others are hardly seen ? they do not even serve as foils. And they must show beautifully against that dark background of firs and larches!"

"Yes; and the windings of the ground gave me every sort of situation and exposure. I wanted room, too, for the different effects of ma.s.ses of the same kind growing together, and of fine individuals or groups standing alone, where they could show the full graceful development of their nature."

"What a pleasure! ? What a beauty it must be!"

"The ground is very happy ? many varieties of soil and exposure were needed for the plants of different habits, and I found or made them all. The rocky beginnings of the glen even furnished me with south walls for the little tea-roses, and the Macartneys, and musk roses; the banksias I kept nearer home."

"Do you know them all, Mr. Carleton?"

"Not quite," said he, smiling at her.

"I have seen one banksia ? the Macartney is a name that tells me nothing."

"They are evergreens ? with large white flowers ? very abundant and late in the season, but they need the shelter of a wall with us."

"I should think you would say 'with me,' " said Fleda. "I cannot conceive that the head-quarters of the rose tribe should be anywhere else."

"One of the queens of the tribe is there, in the neighbourhood of the Macartneys ? the difficult _rosa sulphurea_ ? it finds itself so well accommodated, that it condescends to play its part to perfection. Do you know that?"

"Not at all."

"It is one of the most beautiful of all, though not my favourite ? it has large double yellow flowers, shaped like the Provence ? very superb, but as wilful as any queen of them all."

"Which is your favourite, Mr. Carleton?"