Several people were there; Fleda could hardly tell how many; and when Lord Peterborough was presented to her, she did not find out that he was her morning's acquaintance. Her eye only took in besides that there were one or two ladies, and a clergyman in the dress of the Church of England; she could not distinguish. Yet she stood beside Mr. Carleton with all her usual quiet dignity, though her eye did not leave the ground, and her words were in no higher key than was necessary, and though she could hardly bear the unchanged easy tone of his. The birds were in a perfect ecstasy all about them; the soft breeze came through the trees, gently waving the branches and stirring the spray wreaths of the roses, the very fluttering of summer's drapery; some roses looked in at the lattice, and those which could not be there sent in their congratulations on the breath of the wind, while the words were spoken that bound them together.
Mr. Carleton then dismissing his guests to the house, went with Fleda again the other way. He had felt the extreme trembling of the hand which he took, and would not go in till it was quieted. He led her back to the very rose-bush where he had found her, and in his own way presently brought her spirit home from its trembling and made it rest; and then suffered her to stand a few minutes quite silent, looking out again over the fair rich spread of country that lay between them and the sea.
"Now tell me, Elfie," said he, softly, drawing back, with the same old caressing and tranquillizing touch, the hair that hung over her brow, "what you were thinking about when I found you here in the very luxury of seclusion behind a rose- bush."
Fleda looked a quick look, smiled, and hesitated, and then said it was rather a confusion of thoughts.
"It will be a confusion no longer when you have disentangled them for me."
"I don't know" said Fleda. And she was silent, but so was he, quietly waiting for her to go on.
"Perhaps you will wonder at me, Mr. Carleton," she said, hesitating and colouring.
"Perhaps," he said, smiling; "but if I do, I will not keep you in ignorance, Elfie."
"I was almost bewildered, in the first place, with beauty and then "
"Do you like the rose garden?"