"Why aint you in bed, Flidda?" said Cynthy, with some sharpness. "That's what you had ought to be. I am sure your grandpa wants you to be abed."
"But tell me," said Fleda, anxiously.
"I don't know as there's anything the matter with him," said Cynthy. "Nothing much, I suppose. What makes you think anything is the matter?"
"Because I heard you telling Watkins to go for aunt Miriam."
Fleda could not say, - "and the doctor."
"Well, your grandpa thought he'd like to have her come down, and he don't feel right well, so I sent Watkins up; but you'd better go to bed, Flidda; you'll catch cold if you sit up o' night."
Fleda was unsatisfied, the more because Cynthy would not meet the keen searching look with which the little girl tried to read her face. She was not to be sent to bed, and all Cynthy's endeavours to make her change her mind were of no avail. Fleda saw in them but fresh reason for staying, and saw besides, what Cynthy could not hide, a somewhat of wandering and uneasiness in her manner which strengthened her resolution. She sat down in the chimney corner, resolved to wait till her aunt Miriam came; there would be satisfaction in her, for aunt Miriam always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
It was a miserable three quarters of an hour. The kitchen seemed to wear a strange desolate look, though seen in its wonted bright light of fire and candles, and in itself nice and cheerful as usual. Fleda looked at it also through that vague fear which casts its own lurid colour upon everything. The very flickering of the candle blaze seemed of ill omen, and her grandfather's empty chair stood a signal of pain to little Fleda whenever she looked at it. She sat still, in submissive patience, her cheek pale with the working of a heart too big for that little body. Cynthia was going in and out of her grandfather's room, but Fleda would not ask her any more questions, to be disappointed with word-answers; she waited, but the minutes seemed very long, and very sad.
The characteristic outward calm which Fleda had kept, and which belonged to a nature uncommonly moulded to patience and fortitude, had yet perhaps heightened the pressure of excited fear within. When at last she saw the cloak and hood of aunt Miriam coming through the moonlight to the kitchen door, she rushed to open it, and quite overcome for the moment, threw her arms around her and was speechless. Aunt Miriam's tender and quiet voice comforted her.
"You up yet, Fleda! Hadn't you better go to bed? 'Tisn't good for you."
"That's what I've been a-telling her," said Cynthy, "but she wa'n't a mind to listen to me."