Fleda was silent, flushed, and disturbed; and Mrs. Plumfield was silent and meditating; when Hugh came in. He came to fetch Fleda home. Dr. Gregory had arrived. In haste again, Fleda sought her bonnet, and exchanging a more than usually wistful and affectionate kiss and embrace with her aunt, set off with Hugh down the hill.
Hugh had a great deal to say to her all the way home, of which Fleda's ears alone took the benefit, for her understanding received none of it; and when she at last came into the breakfast-room where the doctor was sitting, the fact of his being there was the only one which had entered her mind.
"Here she is, I declare!" said the doctor, holding her back to look at her after the first greetings had passed. "I'll be hanged if you aint handsome. Now, what's the use of pinking your cheeks any more at that, as if you didn't know it before? eh?"
"I will always do my best to deserve your good opinion, Sir," said Fleda, laughing.
"Well, sit down now," said he, shaking his head, "and pour me out a cup of tea your mother can't make it right."
And sipping his tea for some time, the old doctor sat listening to Mrs. Rossitur, and eating bread and butter, saying little, but casting a very frequent glance at the figure opposite him, behind the tea-board.
"I am afraid," said he, after a while, "that your care for my good opinion wont outlast an occasion. Is that the way you look for every day?"
The colour came with the smile; but the old doctor looked at her in a way that made the tears come too. He turned his eyes to Mrs. Rossitur for an explanation.
"She is well," said Mrs. Rossitur, fondly "she has been very well except her old headaches now and then; I think she has grown rather thin, lately."
"Thin!" said the old doctor "etherealized to a mere abstract of herself; only that is a very bad figure, for an abstract should have all the bone and muscle of the subject; and I should say you had little left but pure spirit. You are the best proof I ever saw of the principle of the homeopaths I see now, that though a little corn may fatten a man, a great deal may be the death of him."