That same evening, Seth Plumfield came into the kitchen, while
Fleda was there.
"Here is something belongs to you, I believe," said he, with a covert smile, bringing out from under his cloak the mate to Fleda's fowl "mother said somethin' had run away with t'other one, and she didn't know what to do with this one alone. Your uncle at home?"
The next news that Fleda heard was, that Seth had taken a lease of the saw-mill for two years.
Mr. Didenhover did not disappoint Fleda's expectations. Very little could be got from him, or the farm under him, beyond the immediate supply wanted for the use of the family; and that in kind, not in cash. Mrs. Rossitur was comforted by knowing, that some portion of rent had also gone to Dr. Gregory how large or how small a portion, she could not find out. But this left the family in increasing straits, which narrowed and narrowed during the whole first summer and winter of Didenhover's administration. Very straitened they would have been, but for the means of relief adopted by the two children, as they were always called. Hugh, as soon as the spring opened, had a quiet hint through Fleda, that if he had a mind to take the working of the saw-mill he might, for a consideration merely nominal. This offer was immediately and gratefully closed with; and Hugh's earnings were thenceforward very important at home. Fleda had her own ways and means. Mr. Rossitur, more low-spirited and gloomy than ever, seemed to have no heart to anything. He would have worked, perhaps, if he could have done it alone; but to join Didenhover and his men, or any other gang of workmen, was too much for his magnanimity. He helped nobody but Fleda. For her he would do anything, at any time; and in the garden, and among her flowers in the flowery courtyard, he might often be seen at work with her. But nowhere else.
CHAPTER XXII.
"Some bring a capon, some a rurall cake,
Some nuts, some apples; some that thinke they make
The better cheeses, bring 'hem; or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands; and whose baskets beare
An embleme of themselves in plum or pears."
BEN JOHNSON.
So the time walked away for this family was not now of those "whom time runneth withal" to the second summer of Mr. Didenhover's term.
One morning Mrs. Rossitur was seated in the breakfast-room at her usual employment, mending and patching no sinecure now. Fleda opened the kitchen door and came in, folding up a calico apron she had just taken off.
"You are tired, dear," said Mrs. Rossitur, sorrowfully; you look pale."
"Do I?" said Fleda, sitting down. "I am a little tired!"