"Poverty need not always make people poor," said Fleda, talking breath and his arm together. "You and I are rich, Hugh."
"And our riches cannot take to themselves wings and fly away," said Hugh.
"No, but besides those riches, there are the pleasures of the eye and the mind, that one may enjoy everywhere everywhere in the country at least unless poverty bear one down very hard; and they are some of the purest and most satisfying of any. Oh, the blessing of a good education! how it makes one independent of circumstances!"
"And circumstances are education, too," said Hugh, smiling. "I dare say we should not appreciate our mountains and woods so well, if we had had our old plenty of everything else."
"I always loved them," said Fleda. "But what good company they have been to us for years past, Hugh! to me especially; I have more reason to love them."
They walked on quietly and soberly to the brow of the table- land, where they parted; Hugh being obliged to go home, and Fleda wishing to pay a visit to her aunt Miriam.
She turned off alone to take the way to the high road, and went softly on, no longer, certainly, in the momentary spirits with which she had shaken hands with the wind, and skipped down the mountain; but feeling, and thankful that she felt, a cheerful patience to tread the dusty highway of life.
The old lady had been rather ailing, and from one or two expressions she had let fall, Fleda could not help thinking that she looked upon her ailments with a much more serious eye than anybody else thought was called for. It did not, however, appear to-day. She was not worse, and Fleda's slight anxious feeling could find nothing to justify it, if it were not the very calm and quietly happy face and manner of the old lady; and that, if it had something to alarm, did much more to soothe. Fleda had sat with her a long time, patience and cheerfulness all the while unconsciously growing in her company; when, catching up her bonnet with a sudden haste very unlike her usual collectedness of manner, Fleda kissed her aunt and was rushing away.
"But stop! where are you going, Fleda?"
"Home, aunt Miriam; I must, don't keep me."