"I don't know how much it has been her fault either, but one thing is certain--I never could have had it at her house.--How very glad I am!--How very glad I am!--that I have seen him and heard all this from his own lips.--But how very funny that he will be here to tea--"
"Well!" said the doctor when she came down,--"you do look freshened up, I declare. Here is this girl, sir, was coming to me a little while ago, complaining that she wanted something fresh, and begging me to take her back to Queechy, forsooth, to find it, with two feet of snow on the ground. Who wants to see you at Queechy?" he said, facing round upon her with a look half fierce, half quizzical.
Fleda laughed, but was vexed to feel that she could not help colouring and colouring exceedingly; partly from the consciousness of his meaning, and partly from a vague notion that somebody else was conscious of it too. Dr. Gregory, however, dashed right off into the thick of conversation with his guest, and kept him busily engaged till tea-time. Fleda sat still on the sofa, looking and listening with simple pleasure; memory served her up a rich entertainment enough. Yet she thought her uncle was the most heartily interested of the two in the conversation; there was a shade more upon Mr. Carleton, not than he often wore, but than he had worn a little while ago. Dr. Gregory was a great bibliopole, and in the course of the hour hauled out and made his guest overhaul no less than several musty old folios; and Fleda could not help fancying that he did it with an access of gravity greater even than the occasion called for. The grace of his manner, however, was unaltered; and at tea she did not know whether she had been right or not. Demurely as she sat there behind the tea-urn, for Dr. Gregory still engrossed all the attention of his guest as far as talking was concerned, Fleda was again inwardly smiling to herself at the oddity and the pleasantness of the chance that had brought those three together in such a quiet way, after all the weeks she had been seeing Mr. Carleton at a distance. And she enjoyed the conversation too; for though Dr. Gregory was a little fond of his hobby it was still conversation worthy the name.
"I have been so unfortunate in the matter of the drives," Mr. Carleton said, when he was about to take leave and standing before Fleda,--"that I am half afraid to mention it again."
"I could not help it, both those time, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda earnestly.
"Both the last?--or both the first?" said he smiling.
"The last?--" said Fleda.
"I have had the honour of making such an attempt twice within the last ten days----to my disappointment."
"It was not by my fault then either, sir," Fleda said quietly.
But he knew very well from the expression of her face a moment before where to put the emphasis her tongue would not make.