Fleda could not help laughing.
"Perhaps he was tired of home and came for mere weariness."
"Weariness! it's my opinion he has no idea there is such a word in the language,--I am certain if he heard it he would call for a dictionary the next minute. Why at Carleton it seems to me he was half the time on horseback, flying about from one end of the country to the other; and when he is in the house he is always at work at something; it's a piece of condescension to get him to attend to you at all; only when he does, my dear Fleda!--he is so enchanting that you live in a state of delight till next time. And yet I never could get him to pay me a compliment to this minute,--I tried two or three times, and he rewarded me with some very rude speeches."
"Rude!" said Fleda.
"Yes,--that is, they were the most graceful and fascinating things possible, but they would have been rudeness in anybody else. Where is mamma!" said Constance with another comic counterfeit of distress "My dear Fleda, it's the most captivating thing to breakfast at Carleton!--"
"I have no idea the bread and butter is sweeter there than in some other parts of the world," said Fleda.
"I don't know about the bread and butter," said Constance, "but those exquisite little sugar dishes! My dear Fleda, every one has his own sugar-dish and cream-ewer--the loveliest little things!--"
"I have heard of such things before," said Fleda.
"I don't care about the bread and butter," said Constance; "eating is immaterial, with those perfect little things right opposite to me. They weren't like any you ever saw, Fleda--the sugar-bowl was just a little plain oval box, with the lid on a hinge, and not a bit of chasing, only the arms on the cover; like nothing I ever saw but an old-fashioned silver tea-caddy; and the cream-jug a little straight up and down thing to match. Mamma said they were clumsy, but they bewitched me!--"
"I think everything bewitched you," said Fleda smiling. "Can't your head stand a sugar-dish and milk-cup?"