"The rights of the weak as such--yes, my lord."
The gentlemen smiled; the ladies looked rather puzzled.
"I have no more to say, Mr. Carleton," said his lordship, "but that we must make an Englishwoman of her!"
"I am afraid she will never be a perfect cure," said Mr. Carleton smiling.
"I conceive it might require peculiar qualities in the physician,--but I do not despair. I was telling her of some of your doings this morning, and happy to see that they met with her entire disapproval."
Mr. Carleton did not even glance towards Fleda and made no answer, but carelessly gave the conversation another turn; for which she thanked him unspeakably.
There was no other interruption of any consequence to the well-bred flow of talk and kindliness of manner on the part of all the company, that put Fleda as much as possible at her ease. Still she did not realize anything, and yet she did realize it so strongly that her woman's heart could not rest till it bad eased itself in tears. The superbly appointed table at which she sat,--her own, though Mrs. Carleton this morning presided,--the like of which she had not seen since she was at Carleton before; the beautiful room with its arrangements, bringing back a troop of recollections of that old time; all the magnificence about her, instead of elevating sobered her spirits to the last degree. It pressed home upon her that feeling of responsibility, of the change that come over her; and though beneath it all very happy, Fleda hardly knew it, she longed so to be alone and to cry. One person's eyes, however little seemingly observant of her, read sufficiently well the unusual shaded air of her brow and her smile. But a sudden errand of business called him abroad immediately after breakfast.
The ladies seized the opportunity to carry Fleda up and introduce her to her dressing-room and take account of Lady Peterborough's commission, and ladies and ladies' maids soon formed a busy committee of dress and decorations. It did not enliven Fleda, it wearied her, though she forgave them the annoyance in gratitude for the pleasure they took in looking at her. Even the delight her eye had from the first minute she saw it, in the beautiful room, and her quick sense of the carefulness with which it had been arranged for her, added to the feeling with which she was oppressed; she was very passive in the hands of her friends.
In the midst of all this the housekeeper was called in and formally presented, and received by Fleda with a mixture of frankness and bashfulness that caused Mrs. Fothergill afterwards to pronounce her "a lady of a very sweet dignity indeed."
"She is just such a lady as you might know my master would have fancied," said Mr. Spenser.