"A saw-mill! Uncle Orrin! where is it?"
"Just a little way from the house, they say. You can't manage it, fair Saxon! though you look as if you would undertake all the mills in creation, for a trifle."
"No, but the place, uncle Orrin; where is the place?"
"The place? Hum why it's up in Wyandot County some five or six miles from the Montepoole Spring what's this they call it? Queechy! By the way!" said he, reading Fleda's countenance, "it is the very place where your father was born! it is! I didn't think of that before."
Fleda's hands were clasped.
"Oh, I am very glad!" she said. "It's my old home. It is the most lovely place, aunt Lucy! most lovely and we shall have some good neighbours there too. Oh, I am very glad! The dear old saw-mill! "
"Dear old saw-mill!" said the doctor, looking at her. "Rolf, I'll tell you what, you shall give me this girl. I want her. I can take better care of her, perhaps, now, than you can. Let her come to me when you leave the city it will be better for her than to help work the saw-mill; and I have as good a right to her as anybody, for Amy before her was like my own child."
The doctor spoke not with his usual light jesting manner, but very seriously. Hugh's lips parted Mrs. Rossitur looked with a sad thoughtful look at Fleda Mr. Rossitur walked up and down looking at nobody. Fleda watched him.
"What does Fleda herself say?" said he, stopping short suddenly. His face softened, and his eye changed as it fell upon her, for the first time that day. Fleda saw her opening; she came to him, within his arms, and laid her head upon his breast.
"What does Fleda say?" said he, softly kissing her.