"A stranger's hands cannot be more tender of her than ours will be," said Mr. Carleton, his warm pressure of aunt Miriam's hand repeating the promise. "My mother will bring a carriage for her this afternoon, if you will permit."
"If you please, Sir, since it must be, it does not matter a day sooner or later," repeated aunt Miriam "if she can be got away I don't know whether it will be possible."
Mr. Carleton had his own private opinion on that point. He merely promised to be there again in a few hours, and took his leave.
He came, with his mother, about five o'clock in the afternoon. They were shown this time into the kitchen, where they found two or three neighbours and friends with aunt Miriam and Cynthy. The former received them with the same calm simplicity that Mr. Carleton had admired in the morning, but said she was afraid their coming would be in vain; she had talked with Fleda about the proposed plan, and could not get her to listen to it. She doubted whether it would be possible to persuade her. And yet
Aunt Miriam's self-possession seemed to be shaken when she thought of Fleda; she could not speak of her without watering eyes.
"She's fixing to be sick as fast as ever she can," remarked Cynthia, dryly in a kind of aside meant for the audience; "there wa'n't a grain of colour in her face when I went in to try to get her out a little while ago; and Mis' Plumfield ha'n't the heart to do anything with her, nor nobody else."
"Mother, will you see what you can do?" said Mr. Carleton.
Mrs. Carleton went, with all expression of face that her son, nobody else, knew meant that she thought it a particularly disagreeable piece of business. She came back after the lapse of a few minutes, in tears.
"I can do nothing with her," she said hurriedly; "I don't know what to say to her, and she looks like death. Go yourself, Guy; you can manage her, if any one can."
Mr. Carleton went immediately.