"We have had a genial day!" said the doctor, quitting the Finns.
"I don't know," said Fleda, permitting a little of her inward merriment to work off,--"I think it has been rather too hot."
"Yes," said the doctor, "the sun has been ardent; but I referred rather to the--a--to the warming of affections, and the pleasant exchange of intercourse on all sides which has taken place. How do you like our--a--the stranger?"
"Who, sir?"
"The new-comer,--this young Mr. Ummin?"
Fleda answered, but she hardly knew what, for she was musing whether the doctor would go away or come in. They reached the door, and Fleda invited him, with terrible effort after her voice; the doctor having just blandly offered an opinion upon the decided polish of Mr. Olmney's manners!
Chapter XXIII.
Labour is light, where lore (quoth I) doth pay;
(Saith he) light burthens heavy, if far borne.
Drayton.
Fleda pushed open the parlour door and preceded her convoy, in a kind of tip-toe state of spirits. The first thing that met her eyes was her aunt in one of the few handsome silks which were almost her sole relic of past wardrobe prosperity, and with a face uncommonly happy and pretty; and the next instant she saw the explanation of this appearance in her cousin Charlton, a little palish, but looking better than she had ever seen him, and another gentleman of whom her eye took in only the general outlines of fashion and comfortable circumstances; now too strange to it to go unnoted. In Fleda's usual mood her next movement would have been made with a demureness that would have looked like bashfulness. But the amusement and pleasure of the day just passed had for the moment set her spirits free from the burden that generally bound them down; and they were as elastic as her step as she came forward and presented to her aunt "Dr. Quackenboss,--and then turned to shake her cousin's hand."