"They say next week, sir."
"I shall be glad of it!" said the doctor.
"Glad of it?" said Fleda smiling. "Do you want to get rid of me, uncle Orrin?"
"Yes!" said he. "This isn't the right place for you. You are too much alone."
"No indeed, sir. I have been reading voraciously, and enjoying myself as much as possible. I would quite as lieve be here as there, putting you out of the question."
"I wouldn't as lieve have you," said he shaking his head. "What were you musing about before tea? your face gave me the heart-ache."
"My face!" said Fleda, smiling, while an instant flush of the eyes answered him,--"what was the matter with my face?"
"That is the very thing I want to know."
"Before tea?--I was only thinking,--" said Fleda, her look going back to the fire from association,--"thinking of different things--not disagreeably--taking a kind of bird's-eye view of things, as one does sometimes."
"I don't believe you ever take other than a bird's-eye view of anything," said her uncle. "But what were you viewing just then, my little Saxon?"