But as she rose and threw back her veil the doctor looked startled.
"My dear Miss Ringgan!--are you faint?"
"No sir."
"You are not well, indeed!--I am very sorry--the ride has been--Take my arm!--Ma'am," said the doctor touching a black satin cloak which filled the passage-way,--"will you have the goodness to give this lady a passport?"
But the black satin cloak preferred a straightforward manner of doing this, so their egress was somewhat delayed. Happily faintness was not the matter.
"My dear Miss Ringgan!" said the doctor as they reached the ground and the outer air,--"what was it?--the stove too powerful? You are looking--you are of a dreadfully delicate appearance!"
"I had a headache yesterday," said Fleda; "it always leaves me with a disagreeable reminder the next day. I am not ill."
But he looked frightened, and hurried her, as fast as he dared, to the steamboat; and there proposed half a dozen restoratives; the simplest of which Fleda took, and then sought delicious rest from him and from herself on the cushions of a settee. Delicious!--though she was alone, in the cabin of a steamboat, with strange forms and noisy tongues around her, the closed eyelids shut it out all; and she had time but for one resting thought of "patient continuance in well-doing," and one happy heart-look up to him who has said that he cares for his children, a look that laid her anxieties down there,--when past misery and future difficulty faded away before a sleep that lasted till the vessel reached her moorings and was made fast.
She was too weary and faint even to think during the long drive up to Bleecker-st. She was fain to let it all go--the work she had to do and the way she must set about it, and rest in the assurance that nothing could be done that night. She did not so much as hear Dr. Quackenboss's observations, though she answered a few of them, till, at the door, she was conscious of his promising to see her to-morrow and of her instant conclusion to take measures to see nobody.
How strange everything seemed. She walked through the familiar hall, feeling as if her acquaintance with every old thing was broken. There was no light in the back parlour, but a comfortable fire.