"Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep."
SHELLEY.
The days of summer flew by, for the most part lightly, over the heads of Hugh and Fleda. The farm was little to them but a place of pretty and picturesque doings, and the scene of nameless delights by wood and stream, in all which, all that summer, Fleda rejoiced; pulling Hugh along with her, even when sometimes he would rather have been poring over his books at home. She laughingly said it was good for him, and one half, at least, of every fine day their feet were abroad. They knew nothing, practically, of the dairy, but that it was an inexhaustible source of the sweetest milk and butter, and, indirectly, of the richest custards and syllabubs. The flock of sheep that now and then came in sight, running over the hill-side, were to them only an image of pastoral beauty, and a soft link with the beauty of the past. The two children took the very cream of country life. The books they had left were read with greater eagerness than ever. When the weather was "too lovely to stay in the house," Shakespeare, or Massillon, or Sully, or the "Curiosities of Literature," or "Corinne," or Milner's Church History for Fleda's reading was as miscellaneous as ever was enjoyed under the flutter of leaves and along with the rippling of the mountain spring; whilst King curled himself up on the skirt of his mistress's gown, and slept for company; hardly more thoughtless and fearless of harm than his two companions. Now and then Fleda opened her eyes to see that her uncle was moody and not like himself, and that her aunt's gentle face was clouded in consequence; and she could not sometimes help the suspicion that he was not making a farmer of himself; but the next summer-wind would blow these thoughts away, or the next look of her flowers would put them out of her head. The whole courtyard in front of the house had been given up to her peculiar use as a flower garden, and there she and Hugh made themselves very busy.
But the summer-time came to an end.
It was a November morning, and Fleda had been doing some of the last jobs in her flower-beds. She was coming in with spirits as bright as her cheeks, when her aunt's attitude and look, more than usually spiritless, suddenly checked them. Fleda gave her a hopeful kiss, and asked for the explanation.
"How bright you look, darling!" said her aunt, stroking her cheek.
"Yes, but you don't, aunt Lucy. What has happened?"
"Mary and Jane are going away."
"Going away! What for?"
"They are tired of the place don't like it, I suppose."
"Very foolish of them! Well, aunt Lucy, what matter? we can get plenty more in their room."