The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet, that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."
The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs, and pattering along the entry to her room, and, with little ceremony, in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.
"You horrid little creature!" said Constance, "why didn't you come straight to our house? Just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to! to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."
Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.
"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.
"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance went on. "We were sitting last night, in peaceful unconsciousness of there being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr. Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror! We said you had gone out early in the afternoon, and had not returned."
"You didn't say that!" said Fleda, colouring.
"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition whom their friends ought not to lose sight of."
"But what brought you to town again, Fleda " said the elder sister.
"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.