Bowles.
Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any longer.
"Miss Fleda," said she with a look of very serious remonstrance,--"I don't know what you're thinking of, but I know you're fixing to kill yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself you wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days running, now this minute."
"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda smiling; "you are very careful of me; but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."
The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't, dear Miss Fleda!"--with an energy of entreaty which brought the tears into Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage; and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing however that she shouldn't wonder if she wasn't able to go after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt; and morning settled the question. She was not able even to rise from her bed.
The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling,--the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."
The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs and pattering along the entry to her room; and with little ceremony in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.
"You horrid little creature!" said Constance,--"why didn't you come straight to our house? just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to!--to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."
Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.
"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.