"Yes."
A very sorrowful and uncertain "yes," with an "if" in the speaker's mind, which she did not bring out.
"Can you sing your old song yet?" said Mr. Carleton, softly
"Yet one thing secures us,
Whatever betide?"
But Fleda burst into tears.
"Forgive me," he whispered, earnestly, "for reminding you of that you did not need it, and I have only troubled you."
"No, Sir, you have not," said Fleda "it did not trouble me, and Hugh knows it better than I do. I cannot bear anything to- night I believe"
"So you have remembered that, Mr. Carleton?" she said, a minute after.
"Do you remember that?" said he, putting her old little Bible into her hand.
Fleda seized it, but she could hardly bear the throng of images that started up around it. The smooth worn cover brought so back the childish happy days when it had been her constant companion the shadows of the Queechy of old, and Cynthia and her grandfather, and the very atmosphere of those times when she had led a light-hearted strange wild life all alone with them, reading the Encyclopaedia, and hunting out the wood-springs. She opened the book and slowly turned over the leaves where her father's hand had drawn those lines of remark and affection round many a passage the very look of them she knew; but she could not see it now, for her eyes were dim, and tears were dropping fast into her lap she hoped Mr. Carleton did not see them, but she could not help it; she could only keep the book out of the way of being blotted. And there were other and later associations she had with it too how dear! how tender! how grateful!