"I have no immediate intention of running away, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda, her pale cheeks turning rose as she saw him looking curiously up and down the edges of the black fox. His eye came back to hers with a good-humoured intelligence that she could hardly stand.
"It's time you was back," said he. "Your uncle's to hum,--but he don't do me much good, whatever he does to other folks--nor himself nother, as far as the farm goes; there's that corn"--
"Very well, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda,--"I shall be at home now and I'll see about it."
"Very good!" said Earl as he stepped back,--"Queechy can't get along without you, that's no mistake."
They drove on a few minutes in silence.
"Aren't you thinking, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, "that my countrymen are a strange mixture?"
"I was not thinking of them at all at this moment. I believe such a notion has crossed my mind."
"It has crossed mine very often," said Fleda.
"How do you read them? what is the basis of it?"
