"Yes, indeed," said Fleda, "a good large one I am going to run down to the house for it as soon as we get to the turning- off place, if you'll be so good as to sit down and wait for me, Sir, I wont be long after it."
"No," said he; "I will walk with you and leave my gun in safe quarters. You had better not travel so fast, or I am afraid you will never reach the hickory-trees."
Fleda smiled, and said there was no danger, but she slackened her pace, and they proceeded at a more reasonable rate till they reached the house.
Mr. Carleton would not go in, placing his gun in an outer shelter. Fleda dashed into the kitchen, and after a few minutes' delay came out again with a huge basket, which Mr. Carleton took from her without suffering his inward amusement to reach his face, and a little tin pail which she kept under her own guardianship. In vain Mr. Carleton offered to take it with the basket, or even to put it in the basket, where he showed her it would go very well; it must go nowhere but in Fleda's own hand.
Fleda was in restless haste till they had passed over the already twice-trodden ground and entered upon the mountain road. It was hardly a road; in some places a beaten track was visible, in others Mr. Carleton wondered how his little companion found her way, where nothing but fresh-fallen leaves and scattered rocks and stones could be seen, covering the whole surface. But her foot never faltered, her eye read way- marks where he saw none; she went on, he did not doubt unerringly, over the leaf-strewn and rock-strewn way, over ridge and hollow, with a steady light swiftness that he could not help admiring. Once they came to a little brawling stream of spring water, hardly three inches deep anywhere, but making quite a wide bed for itself in its bright way to the lowlands. Mr. Carleton was considering how he should contrive to get his little guide over it in safety, when quick, over the little round stones which lifted their heads above the surface of the water, on the tips of her toes, Fleda tripped across before he had done thinking about it. He told her he had no doubt now that she was a fairy, and had powers of walking that did not belong to other people. Fleda laughed, and on her little demure figure went picking out the way, always with that little tin pail hanging at her side, like Mr. Carleton busied himself in finding out similes for her. It wasn't very easy.
For a long distance their way was through a thick woodland, clear of underbrush and very pleasant walking, but permitting no look at the distant country. They wound about, now up hill and now down, till at last they began to ascend in good earnest; the road became better marked, and Mr. Carleton came up with his guide again. Both were obliged to walk more slowly. He had overcome a good deal of Fleda's reserve, and she talked to him now quite freely, without however losing the grace of a most exquisite modesty in everything she said or did.
"What do you suppose I have been amusing myself with all this while, Miss Fleda?" said he, after walking for some time alongside of her in silence. "I have been trying to fancy what you looked like as you travelled on before me with that mysterious tin pail."
"Well, what did I look like?" said Fleda, laughing.
"Little Red Riding-Hood, the first thing, carrying her grandmother the pot of butter."
"Ah, but I haven't got any butter in this, as it happens," said Fleda; "and I hope you are not anything like the wolf, Mr. Carleton?"