"Where is your uncle?"
"He will be at home to-day I expect; and so should I have been--I meant to be there as soon as he was,--but I found this morning that I was not well enough,--to my sorrow."
"You were not going alone!"
"O no--a friend of ours was going to-day."
"I never saw anybody with so many friends!" said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"
"O by to-morrow," said Fleda smiling;--"but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here--I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."
"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance. "I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits, and if we were to leave you here in an empty house to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"
What would he think!--Oh world! Is this it?
But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in; nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was nevertheless extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.
Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her indeed what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "Business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her furthermore what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious sweet smile which was the utmost reply Fleda's wits at the moment could frame. "Well, get well," said he kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I won't quarrel with you about it."