"How delicious the open air feels!"
"What has this visit produced?" said Hugh.
"An invitation to a party, and a slight possibility that at the party I may find what I want."
"A party," said Hugh. Fleda laughed and explained.
"And do you intend to go?"
"Not I at least I think not. But, Hugh, don't say anything about all this to aunt Lucy. She would be troubled."
Fleda had certainly, when she came away, no notion of improving her acquaintance with Miss Anastasia; but the supper, and the breakfast and the dinner of the next day, with all the nameless and almost numberless duties of house work that filled up the time between, wrought her to a very strong sense of the necessity of having some kind of "help" soon. Mrs. Rossitur wearied herself excessively with doing very little, and then looked so sad to see Fleda working on, that it was more disheartening and harder to bear than the fatigue. Hugh was a most faithful and invaluable coadjutor, and his lack of strength was, like her own, made up by energy of will; but neither of them could bear the strain long; and when the final clearing away of the dinner-dishes gave her a breathing- time, she resolved to dress herself, and put her thimble in her pocket, and go over to Miss Finn's quilting. Miss Lucy might not be like Miss Anastasia; and if she were, anything that had hands and feet to move instead of her own, would be welcome.
Hugh went with her to the door, and was to come for her at sunset.
CHAPTER XX.
"With superfluity of breeding
First makes you sick, and then with feeding."
JENYNS.