"How lovely it is, Hugh!"
"It is twice as bright since you have come home," said Hugh.
"The snow is too beautiful to-day. O I was right! one may grow morbid over books--but I defy anybody in the company of those chick-a-dees. I should think it would be hard to keep quite sound in the city."
"You are glad to be here again, aren't you?" said Hugh.
"Very! O Hugh!--it is better to be poor and have one's feet on these hills, than to be rich and shut up to brick walls!"
"It is best as it is," said Hugh quietly.
"Once," Fleda went on,--"one fair day when I was out driving in New York, it did come over me with a kind of pang how pleasant it would be to have plenty of money again and be at ease; and then, as I was looking off over that pretty North river to the other shore, I bethought me, 'A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.'"
Hugh did not answer, for the face she turned to him in its half tearful, half bright submission took away his speech.
"Why you cannot have enjoyed yourself as much as we thought, Fleda, if you dislike the city so much?"