The rousing of the great-coats, and the growing gray light, roused her before her uneasy sleep had lasted an hour. The lamps were out, the car was again spotted with two long rows of window-panes, through which the light as yet came but dimly. The morning had dawned at last, and seemed to have brought with it a fresh accession of cold, for everybody was on the stir. Fleda put up her window to get a breath of fresh air, and see how the day looked.
A change of weather had come with the dawn. It was not fine yet. The snowing had ceased, but the clouds hung overhead still, though not with the leaden uniformity of yesterday; they were higher, and broken into many a soft, gray fold, that promised to roll away from the sky by and by. The snow was deep on the ground; every visible thing lapped in a thick white covering; a still, very grave, very pretty winter landscape, but somewhat dreary in its aspect, to a trainful of people fixed in the midst of it, out of sight of human habitation. Fleda felt that; but only in the abstract to her it did not seem dreary; she enjoyed the wild, solitary beauty of the scene very much, with many a grateful thought of what might have been. As it was, she left difficulties entirely to others.
As soon as it was light, the various inmates of the strange dormitory gathered themselves up, and set out on foot for Quarrenton. By one of them Mr. Carleton sent an order for a sleigh, which in as short a time as possible arrived, and transported him and Fleda, and Mrs. Renney, and one other ill- bestead woman, safely to the little town of Quarrenton.
CHAPTER XXI.
"Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!" LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.
It had been a wild night, and the morning looked scared. Perhaps it was only the particular locality, for if ever a place showed bleak and winter-stricken, the little town of Quarrenton was in that condition that morning. The snow overlaid and enveloped everything, except where the wind had been at work; and the wind and the gray clouds seemed the only agencies abroad. Not a ray of sunlight to relieve the uniform sober tints, the universal gray and white, only varied where a black house-roof, partially cleared, or a blacker bare- branched tree, gave it a sharp interruption. There was not a solitary thing that bore an indication of comfortable life, unless the curls of smoke that went up from the chimneys; and Fleda was in no condition to study their physiognomy.
A little square hotel, perched alone on a rising ground, looked the especial bleak and unpromising spot of the place. It bore, however, the imposing title of the Pocahontas; and there the sleigh set them down.
They were ushered upstairs into a little parlour, furnished in the usual style, with one or two articles a great deal too showy for the place, and a general dearth as to the rest. A lumbering mahogany sofa, that showed as much wood and as little promise as possible, a marble-topped centre-table, chairs in the minority, and curtains minus, and the hearth-rug providently turned bottom upwards. On the centre-table lay a pile of Penny Magazines, a volume of' selections of poetry from various good authors, and a sufficient complement of newspapers. The room was rather cold, but of that the waiter gave a reasonable explanation in the fact that the fire had not been burning long.
Furs, however, might be dispensed with, or Fleda thought so; and taking off her bonnet, she endeavoured to rest her weary head against the sharp-cut top of the sofa-back, which seemed contrived expressly to punish and forbid all attempts at ease- seeking. The mere change of position was still comparative ease. But the black fox had not done duty yet. Its ample folds were laid over the sofa, cushion, back, and all, so as at once to serve for pillow and mattress; and Fleda being gently placed upon it, laid her face down again upon the soft fur, which gave a very kindly welcome not more to the body than to the mind. Fleda almost smiled as she felt that. The furs were something more than a pillow for her cheek they were the soft image of somewhat for her mind to rest on. But entirely exhausted, too much for smiles or tears, though both were near, she resigned herself as helplessly as an infant to the feeling of rest; and, in five minutes, was in a state of dreamy unconsciousness.
Mrs. Renney, who had slept a great part of the night, courted sleep anew in the rocking-chair, till breakfast should be ready; the other woman had found quarters in the lower part of the house; and Mr. Carleton stood still, with folded arms, to read at his leisure the fair face that rested so confidingly upon the black fur of his cloak, looking so very fair in the contrast. It was the same face he had known in time past the same, with only an alteration that had added new graces, but had taken away none of the old. Not one of the soft outlines had grown hard under Time's discipline: not a curve had lost its grace, or its sweet mobility; and yet the hand of Time had been there; for on brow and lip, and cheek and eyelid, there was that nameless, grave composure, which said touchingly, that hope had long ago clasped hands with submission. And, perhaps, that if hope's anchor had not been well placed, ay, even where it could not be moved, the storms of life might have beaten even hope from her ground, and made a clean sweep of desolation over all she had left. Not the storms of the last few weeks. Mr. Carleton saw and understood their work in the perfectly colourless and thin cheek. But these other finer drawn characters had taken longer to write. He did not know the instrument, but he read the handwriting, and came to his own resolutions therefrom.