They jogged, side by side, for a mile before either spoke again. The bitterest cup Experience had ever held to poor Flea's lips was pressed to them now, and the draught was the very wine of astonishment to her soul. Five months with Aunt Jean and in a Philadelphia school had not cured her of ambitious dreams. Miss Emily had still stood with her as the loveliest, daintiest, and gentlest of women. She had described her to her schoolmates as her "patron saint" and her "guardian angel." She had not doubted what would be the outcome of the plain talk she had sought with her angel. Miss Emily would be shocked at first, perhaps incredulous, but in the end she would fall weeping upon her neck, and sob in her ear, "My benefactress! from what an abyss of misery you have saved me!"
Her dream had crashed into dust and ashes about her head. Something was gone forever out of her past, present, and future. There was no Miss Emily in all time for her, and, worst of all, there never had been. The shrill coarseness of the angry woman's speech, her inflamed face and threatening eyes, haunted Flea like a nightmare.
Her father aroused himself at length. "I am a dull companion for you, lassie," he said, threading her horse's mane with his fingers. "But something has gone wrong—'agley,' as we Scotchmen say—at Greenfield that's set me to thinking about other wrong-doings that took place months ago. The dairy was robbed last night of a matter of fifty pounds of butter. The dogs made no noise, so the thieves were not strangers. The Major and Mr. Robert Duncombe searched the plantation this morning, and found nothing. The thieves, most likely, had a boat on the shore, and made off with the butter up to Richmond. You noticed, didn't you, as we rode by to-day that the haunted house had been pulled down?"
"No, sir," answered Flea, in a dull tone. She had not seemed to listen until he asked the question.
"You used to sing a song about it when you had the fever," resumed the father, in a would-be sprightly manner.
"It began,
"'It stands beside the weedy way,'
"and was really tolerable poetry as far as it went. It was queer it should run in your head just then when the Major and I had just found that the cabin was used as a hiding-place for stolen goods. It was a sort of robbers' cave, and we suspected the Fogg family to be the robbers. Mr Tayloe's watch and chain, that he had lost the day before in the school-house, were there in a bag packed to be carried off. You recollect that Mrs. Fogg was at the school-house that day!"
Flea gave no sign of interest or surprise. She only said, in sullen bitterness, "I am sorry he ever found it."