Queechy Volume Ii Part 82

Fleda hesitated, and he pressed the matter no further; but, more unwilling to displease him than herself, she presently went on, with some difficulty; wording what she had to say with as much care as she could.

"I was thinking, how grat.i.tude ? or not grat.i.tude alone ? but how one can be full of the desire to please another ? a fellow-creature ? and find it constantly easy to do or bear anything for that purpose; and how slowly and coldly duty has to move alone in the direction where it should be the swiftest and warmest."

She knew he would take her words as simply as she said them; she was not disappointed. He was silent a minute, and then said gravely, ?

"Is this a late discovery, Elfie?"

"No ? only I was realizing it strongly just now."

"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps, and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."

"You have said that before," said Fleda, still keeping her head down.

"What?"

"About my being a help to you!"

"It will not be the first time," said he, smiling; "nor the second. Your little hand first held up a gla.s.s to gather the scattered rays of truth that could not warm me, into a centre where they must burn."

"Very innocently," said Fleda, with a little unsteady feeling of voice.

"Very innocently!" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "A veritable lens could hardly have been more unconscious of its work, or more pure of design."

"I do not think that was quite so, either, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda.

"It was so, my dear Elfie, and your present speech is nothing against it. This power of example is always unconsciously wielded; the medium ceases to be clear so soon as it is made anything but as medium. The bits of truth you aimed at me wittingly would have been nothing, if they had not come through that medium."

"Then apparently one's prime efforts ought to be directed to one's self."

"One's first efforts, certainly Your silent example was the first thing that moved me."

"Silent example!" said Fleda, catching her breath a little.

"Mine ought to be very good, for I can never do good in any other way."

"You used to talk pretty freely to me."

"It wasn't my fault, I am certain," said Fleda, half laughing.

"Besides, I was sure of my ground. But, in general, I never can speak to people about what will do them any good."

"Yet, whatever be the power of silent example, there are often times when a word is of incalculable importance."

"I know it," said Fleda, earnestly; "I have felt it very often, and grieved that I could not say it, even at the very moment when I knew it was wanting."

"Is that right, Elfie?"

"No," said Fleda, with quick watering eyes; "it is not right at all; but it is const.i.tutional with me. I never can talk to other people of what concerns my own thoughts and feelings."

"But this concerns other people's thoughts and feelings."

"Yes; but there is an implied revelation of my own."

"Do you expect to include me in the denomination of 'other people?' "

"I don't know," said Fleda, laughing.

"Do you wish it?"

Fleda looked down and up, and coloured, and said she didn't know.

"I will teach you," said he, smiling.

The rest of the day, by both, was given to Hugh.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"O what is life but a sum of love, And death but to lose it all?

Weeds be for those that are left behind, And not for those that fall!"

MILNES.

"Here's something come, Fleda," said Barby, walking into the sick-room one morning, a few days afterwards; "a great bag of something ? more than you can eat up in a fortnight; it's for Hugh."

"It's extraordinary that anybody should send me a great bag of anything eatable," said Hugh.

"Where did it come from?" said Fleda.

"Philetus fetched it ? he found it down to Mr. Sampion's, when he went with the sheep-skins."

"How do you know it's for me?" said Hugh.

" 'Cause it's written on, as plain as a pikestaff. I guess it's a mistake, though."

"Why?" said Fleda; "and what is it?"

"Oh, I don't much think 'twas meant for him," said Barby.

"It's oysters."

"Oysters!"

"Yes ? come out and look at 'em ? you never see such fine fellows. I've heerd say," said Barby, abstractedly, as Fleda followed her out, and she displayed to view some magnificent Ostraceans ? "I've heerd say that an English s.h.i.+lling was worth two American ones; but I never understood it rightly, till now."

To all intents and purposes those were English oysters, and worth twice as much as any others, Fleda secretly confessed.

That evening, up in the sick room ? it was quite evening, and all the others of the family were taking rest, or keeping Mr.

Rossitur company down stairs ? Fleda was carefully roasting some of the same oysters for Hugh's supper. She had spread out a glowing bed of coals on the hearth, and there lay four or five of the big bivalves, snapping and sputtering in approbation of their quarters, in a most comfortable manner; and Fleda, standing before the fire, tended them with a double kind of pleasure. From one friend, and for another, those were most odorous oysters. Hugh sat watching them and her, the same in happy simplicity that he had been at eleven years old.