"I am sure she is very kind," said Fleda. "She wants to have me go out there and live with her very much. She says I shall have everything I like and do just as I please, and she will make a pet of me and give me all sorts of pleasant things. She says she will take as good care of me as ever I took of the kittens. And there's a long piece to you about it, that I'll give you to read as soon as we have a light. It is very good of her, isn't it, grandpa? I love aunt Lucy very much."
"Well," said Mr. Ringgan after a pause, "how does she propose to get you there?"
"Why," said Fleda,--"isn't it curious?--she says there is a Mrs. Carleton here who is a friend of hers, and she is going to Paris in a little while, and aunt Lucy asked her if she wouldn't bring me, if you would let me go, and she said she would with great pleasure, and aunt Lucy wants me to come out with her."
"Carleton!--Hum--" said Mr. Ringgan; "that must be this young man's mother?"
"Yes, aunt Lucy says she is here with her son,--at least she says they were coming." "A very gentlemanly young man, indeed," said Mr. Ringgan.
There was a grave silence. The old gentleman sat looking on the floor; Fleda sat looking into the fire, with all her might.
"Well," said Mr. Ringgan after a little, "how would you like it, Fleda?"
"What, grandpa?"
"To go out to Paris to your aunt, with this Mrs. Carleton?"
"I shouldn't like it at all," said Fleda smiling, and letting her eyes go back to the fire. But looking after the pause of a minute or two again to her grandfather's face, she was struck with its expression of stern anxiety. She rose instantly, and coming to him and laying one hand gently on his knee, said in tones that fell as light on the ear as the touch of a moonbeam on the water, "You do not want me to go, do you, grandpa?"