"Yes--sometimes," Fleda said with a sigh.
"But I shall tell mamma you are growing thin, and the first minute we get home I shall send for you to come to us. Mrs. Thorn will be amazingly glad to see you."
"Has she got back from Europe?" said Fleda.
"Ages!--and she's been entertaining the world as hard as she could ever since. I have no doubt Lewis has confided to the maternal bosom all his distresses; and there never was anything like the rush that I expect will be made to our greenhouse next winter. O Fleda, you should see Mr. Carleton's greenhouses!"
"Should I?" said Fleda.
"Dear me! I hope mamma will come!" said Constance with a comical fidgety shake of herself;--"when I think of those greenhouses I lose my self-command. And the park!--Fleda, it's the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life; and it's all that delightful man's doing; only he won't have a geometric flower-garden, as I did everything I could think of to persuade him. I pity the woman that will be his wife,--she won't have her own way in a single thing; but then he will fascinate her into thinking that his way is the best, so it will do just as well I suppose. Do you know I can't conceive what he has come over here for? He has been here before, you know, and he don't seem to me to know exactly what he means to do; at least I can't find out, and I have tried."
"How long has he been here?"
"O a month or two--since the beginning of April, I believe. He came over with some friends of his--a Sir George Egerton and his family;--he is going to Canada, to be established in some post there, I forget what; and they are spending part of the summer here before they fix themselves at the North. It is easy to see what they are here for,--they are strangers and amusing themselves; but Mr. Carleton is at home, and not amusing himself, at least he don't seem to be. He goes about with the Egertons, but that is just for his friendship for them; and he puzzles me. He don't snow whether he is going to Niagara,--he has been once already--and 'perhaps' he may go to Canada,--and 'possibly' he will make a journey to the West,--and I can't find out that he wants anything in particular."
"Perhaps he don't mean that you shall," said Fleda.
"Perhaps he don't; but you see that aggravates my state of mind to a distressing degree. And then I'm afraid he will go somewhere where I can't keep watch of him!--"