"But now that he is at home, Mr. Douglass, I certainly cannot decide without speaking to him."
"Very good," said Earl, uneasily " 'taint no affair of nine as you like to have it, so you'll have it just as you please! But now, Fleda, there's another thing I want to speak to you about I want you to let me take hold of that 'ere piece of swamp land and bring it in. I knew a man that fixed a piece of land like that, and cleared nigh a thousand dollars off it the first year."
"Which piece?" said Fleda.
"Why, you know which 'tis just the other side of the trees over there between them two little hills. There's six or seven acres of it nothin' in the world but mud and briers will you let me take hold of it. I'll do the hull job if you'll give me half the profits for one year. Come over and look at it, and I'll tell you come! the walk wont hurt you, and it aint fur."
All Fleda's inclinations said no, but she thought it was not best to indulge them. She put on her hood and went off with him; and was treated to a long and most implicated detail of ways and means, from which she at length disentangled the rationale of the matter, and gave Mr. Douglass the consent he asked for, promising to gain that of her uncle.
The day was fair and mild, and in spite of weariness of body, a certain weariness of mind prompted Fleda, when she had got rid of Earl Douglass, to go and see her aunt Miriam. She went, questioning with herself all the way, for her want of goodwill to these matters. True, they were not pleasant mind-work; but she tried to school herself into taking them patiently as good life-work. She had had too much pleasant company, and enjoyed too much conversation she said. It had unfitted her for home duties.
Mrs. Plumfield, she knew, was no better. But her eye found no change for the worse. The old lady was very glad to see her, and very cheerful and kind as usual.
"Well, are you glad to be home again?" said aunt Miriam, after a pause in the conversation.
"Everybody asks me that question," said Fleda, smiling.
"Perhaps for the same reason I did because they thought you didn't look very glad."