He brought Fleda to her own door and there was leaving her.
"Stop!--O Mr. Carleton," cried Fleda, "come in just for one minute--I want to shew you something."
He made no resistance to that. She led him to the saloon, where it happened that nobody was, and repeating "One minute!"--rushed out of the room. In less than that time she came running back with a beautiful half-blown bud of a monthly rose in her hand, and in her face such a bloom of pleasure and eagerness as more than rivalled it. The rose was fairly eclipsed. She put the bud quietly but with a most satisfied air of affection into Mr. Carleton's hand. It had come from a little tree which he had given her on one of their first visits to the Quai aux Fleurs. She had had the choice of what she liked best, and had characteristically taken a flourishing little rose-bush that as yet shewed nothing but leaves and green buds; partly because she would have the pleasure of seeing its beauties come forward, and partly because she thought having no flowers it would not cost much. The former reason however was all that she had given to Mr. Carleton's remonstrances.
"What is all this, Elfie?" said he. "Have you been robbing your rose tree?"
"No," said Elfie;--"there are plenty more buds! Isn't it lovely? This is the first one. They've been a great while coming out."
His eye went from the rose to her; he thought the one was a mere emblem of the other. Fleda was usually very quiet in her demonstrations; it was as if a little green bud had suddenly burst into a flush of loveliness; and he saw, it was as plain as possible, that good-will to him had been the moving power. He was so much struck and moved that his thanks, though as usual perfect in their kind, were far shorter and graver than he would have given if he had felt less. He turned away from the house, his mind full of the bright unsullied purity and single-hearted good-will that had looked out of that beaming little face; he seemed to see them again in the flower held in his hand, and he saw nothing else as he went.
Mr. Carleton preached to himself all the way home, and his text was a rose.
Laugh who will. To many it may seem ridiculous, and to most minds it would have been impossible, but to a nature very finely wrought and highly trained, many a voice that grosser senses cannot hear comes with an utterance as clear as it is sweet-spoken; many a touch that coarser nerves cannot heed reaches the springs of the deeper life; many a truth that duller eyes have no skill to see shews its fair features, hid away among the petals of a rose, or peering out between the wings of a butterfly, or reflected in a bright drop of dew. The material is but a veil for the spiritual; but then eyes must be quickened, or the veil becomes an impassable cloud.
That particular rose was to Mr. Carleton's eye a most perfect emblem and representative of its little giver. He traced out the points of resemblance as he went along. The delicacy and character of refinement for which that kind of rose is remarkable above many of its more superb kindred; a refinement essential and unalterable by decay or otherwise, as true a characteristic of the child as of the flower; a delicacy that called for gentle handling and tender cherishing;--the sweetness, rare indeed, but asserting itself as it were timidly, at least with equally rare modesty,--the very style of the beauty, that with all its loveliness would not startle nor even catch the eye among its more showy neighbours; and the breath of purity that seemed to own no kindred with earth, nor liability to infection.
As he went on with his musing, and drawing out this fair character from the type before him, the feeling of contrast, that he had known before, pressed upon Mr. Carleton's mind, the feeling of self-reproach, and the bitter wish that he could be again what he once had been, something like this. How changed now he seemed to himself--not a point of likeness left. How much less honourable, how much less worth, how much less dignified, than that fair innocent child. How much better a part she was acting in life--what an influence she was exerting,--as pure, as sweet-breathed, and as unobtrusive, as the very rose in his hand. And he--doing no good to an earthly creature and losing himself by inches.