"You'll see it is just as I have described it. No; not pleasant, exactly; the landscape wants the sun to light it up just now it is cold and wilderness-looking. I think I'll take the morning in future. Whither are you bound?"
"I must go over to Queechy Run for a minute, on business I'll be home before supper I should have been back by this time, but Philetus has gone to bed with a headache, and I had to take care of the cows."
"Three times and out," said Barby. "I wont try again. [ didn't know as anything would be too powerful for his head; but I find, as sure as he has apple dumplin' for dinner, he goes to bed for his supper, and leaves the cows without none. And then Hugh has to take it. It has saved so many Elephants that's one thing."
Hugh went out by one door, and Fleda by another entered the breakfast-room, the one generally used in winter for all purposes. Mrs. Rossitur sat there alone in an easy-chair; and Fleda no sooner caught the outline of her figure than her heart sank at once to an unknown depth unknown before and unfathomable now. She was cowering over the fire her head sunk in her hands, so crouching, that the line of neck and shoulders instantly conveyed to Fleda the idea of fancied or felt degradation there was no escaping it how, whence, what, was all wild confusion. But the language of mere attitude was so unmistakable the expression of crushing pain was so strong, that, after Fleda had fearfully made her way up beside her, she could do no more. She stood there tongue-tied, spell-bound, present to nothing but a nameless chill of fear and heart-sinking. She was afraid to speak afraid to touch her aunt, and abode motionless in the grasp of that dread for minutes. But Mrs. Rossitur did not stir a hair, and the terror of that stillness grew to be less endurable than any other.
Fleda spoke to her it did not win the shadow of a reply again and again. She laid her hand then upon Mrs. Rossitur's shoulder, but the very significant answer to that, was a shrinking gesture of the shoulder and neck away from the hand. Fleda, growing desperate, then implored an answer in words prayed for an explanation with an intensity of distress in voice and manner, that no one whose ears were not stopped with a stronger feeling could have been deaf to; but Mrs. Rossitur would not raise her head, nor slacken in the least the clasp of the fingers that supported it; that of themselves in their relentless tension spoke what no words could. Fleda's trembling prayers were in vain in vain. Poor nature at last sought a woman's relief in tears but they were heart- breaking, not heart-relieving tears racking both mind and body more than they ought to bear, but bringing no cure. Mrs. Rossitur seemed as unconscious of her niece's mute agony as she had been of her agony of words; and it was from Fleda's own self-recollection alone that she fought off pain, and roused herself above weakness to do what the time called for.
"Aunt Lucy," she said, laying her hand upon her shoulder, and this time the voice was steady, and the hand would not be shaken off "Aunt Lucy, Hugh will be in presently hadn't you better rouse yourself and go up stairs for awhile? till you are better? and not let him see you so?"
How the voice was broken and quivering before it got through?
The answer this time was a low long-drawn moan, so exceeding plaintive and full of pain that it made Fleda shake like an aspen. But after a moment she spoke again, bearing more heavily with her hand to mark her words.
"I am afraid he will be in presently he ought not to see you now. Aunt Lucy, I am afraid it might do him an injury he might not get over"
She spoke with the strength of desperation; her nerves were unstrung by fear, and every joint weakened, so that she could hardly support herself. She had not, however, spoken in vain; one or two convulsive shudders passed over her aunt, and then Mrs. Rossitur suddenly rose, turning her face from Fleda; neither would she permit her to follow her. But Fleda thought she had seen that one or two unfolded letters or papers of some kind they looked like letters were in her lap when she raised her head.