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Queechy

<h1> Chapter XXVI. </h1> <blockquote> 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood,   So blithe Lady Alice is singing; On the beech's pride, and the oak's brown side,   Lord Richard's axe is ringing. </blockquote> <blockquote> Lady of the Lake. </blockquote> Philetus came, and was inducted into office and the little room immediately; and Fleda felt herself eased of a burden. Barby reported him stout and willing, and he proved it by what seemed a perverted inclination for bearing the most enormous logs of wood he could find into the kitchen. "He will hurt himself!" said Fleda. "I'll protect him!--against anything but buckwheat batter," said Barby with a grave shake of her head. "Lazy folks takes the most pains, I tell him. But it would be good to have some more ground, Fleda, for Philetus says he don't care for no dinner when he has griddles to breakfast, and there ain't anything much cheaper than that." "Aunt Lucy, have you any change in the house?" said Fleda that same day. "There isn't but three and sixpence," said Mrs. Rossitur with a pained conscious look. "What is wanting, dear?" "Only candles--Barby has suddenly found we are out, and she won't have any more made before to-morrow. Never mind!" "There is only that," repeated Mrs. Rossitur. "Hugh has a little money due to him from last summer, but he hasn't been able to get it yet. You may take that, dear." "No," said Fleda,--"we mustn't. We might want it more." "We can sit in the dark for once," said Hugh, "and try to make an uncommon display of what Dr. Quackenboss calls 'sociality.'" "No," said Fleda, who had stood busily thinking,--"I am going to send Philetus down to the post-office for the paper, and when it comes I am not to be balked of reading it--I've made up my mind! We'll go right off into the woods and get some pine knots, Hugh--come! They make a lovely light. You get us a couple of baskets and the hatchet--I wish we had two--and I'll be ready in no time. That'll do!" It is to be noticed that Charlton had provided against any future deficiency of news in his family. Fleda skipped away and in five minutes returned arrayed for the expedition, in her usual out-of-door working trim, namely,--an old dark merino cloak, almost black, the effect of which was continued by the edge of an old dark mousseline below, and rendered decidedly striking by the contrast of a large whitish yarn shawl worn over it; the whole crowned with a little close-fitting hood made of some old silver-grey silk, shaped tight to the head, without any bow or furbelow to break the outline. But such a face within side of it! She came almost dancing into the room. "This is Miss Ringgan!--as she appeared when she was going to see the pine trees. Hugh, don't you wish you had a picture of me?" "I have got a tolerable picture of you, somewhere," said Hugh. "This is somebody very different from the Miss Ringgan that went to see Mrs. Evelyn, I can tell you," Fleda went on gayly. "Do you know, aunt Lucy, I have made up my mind that my visit to New York was a dream, and the dream is nicely folded away with my silk dresses. Now I must go tell that precious Philetus about the post-office--I am so comforted, aunt Lucy, whenever I see that fellow staggering into the house under a great log of wood! I have not heard anything in a long time so pleasant as the ringing strokes of his axe in the yard. Isn't life made up of little things!" "Why don't you put a better pair of shoes on?" "Can't afford it, Mrs. Rossitur! You are extravagant!" "Go and put on my India-rubbers." "No ma'am!--the rocks would cut them to pieces. I have brought my mind down to--my shoes." "It isn't safe, Fleda; you might see somebody." "Well ma'am!--But I tell you I am not going to see anybody but the chick-a-dees and the snow-birds, and there is great simplicity of manners prevailing among them." The shoes were changed, and Hugh and Fleda set forth, lingering awhile however to give a new edge to their hatchet, Fleda turning the grindstone. They mounted then the apple-orchard hill and went a little distance along the edge of the table-land before striking off into the woods. They had stood still a minute to look over the little white valley to the snow-dressed woodland beyond. "This is better than New York, Hugh," said Fleda. "I am very glad to hear you say that," said another voice. Fleda turned and started a little to see Mr. Olmney at her side, and congratulated herself instantly on her shoes. "Mrs. Rossitur told me where you had gone and gave me permission to follow you, but I hardly hoped to overtake you so soon." "We stopped to sharpen our tools," said Fleda. "We are out on a foraging expedition." "Will you let me help you?" "Certainly!--if you understand the business. Do you know a pine knot when you see it?" He laughed and shook his head, but avowed a wish to learn. "Well, it would be a charity to teach you anything wholesome," said Fleda, "for I heard one of Mr. Olmney's friends lately saying that he looked like a person who was in danger of committing suicide." "Suicide!--One of my friends!"--he exclaimed in the utmost astonishment. "Yes," said Fleda laughing;--"and there is nothing like the open air for clearing away vapours." "You cannot have known that by experience," said he looking at her. Fleda shook her head and advising him to take nothing for granted, set off into the woods. They were in a beautiful state. A light snow but an inch or two deep had fallen the night before; the air had been perfectly still during the day; and though the sun was out, bright and mild, it had done little but glitter on the earth's white capping. The light dry flakes of snow had not stirred from their first resting-place. The long branches of the large pines were just tipped with snow at the ends; on the smaller evergreens every leaf and tuft had its separate crest. Stones and rocks were smoothly rounded over, little shrubs and sprays that lay along the ground were all doubled in white; and the hemlock branches, bending with their feathery burthen, stooped to the foreheads of the party and gave them the freshest of salutations as they brushed by. The whole wood-scene was particularly fair and graceful. A light veil of purity, no more, thrown over the wilderness of stones and stumps and bare ground,--like the blessing of charity, covering all roughnesses and unsightlinesses--like the innocent unsullied nature that places its light shield between the eye and whatever is unequal, unkindly, and unlovely in the world. "What do you think of this for a misanthropical man, Mr. Olmney? there's a better tonic to be found in the woods than in any remedies of man's devising." "Better than books?" said he. "Certainly!--No comparison." "I have to learn that yet." "So I suppose," said Fleda. "The very danger to be apprehended, as I hear, sir, is from your running a tilt into some of those thick folios of yours, head foremost.--There's no pitch there, Hugh--you may leave it alone. We must go on--there are more yellow pines higher up." "But who could give such a strange character of me to you?" said Mr. Olmney. "I am sure your wisdom would not advise me to tell you that, sir. You will find nothing there, Mr. Olmney." They went gayly on, careering about in all directions and bearing down upon every promising stump or dead pine tree they saw in the distance. Hugh and Mr. Olmney took turns in the labour of hewing out the fat pine knots and splitting down the old stumps to get at the pitchy heart of the wood; and the baskets began to grow heavy. The whole party were in excellent spirits, and as happy as the birds that filled the woods and whose cheery "chick-a-dee-dee-dee," was heard whenever they paused to rest and let the hatchet be still. "How one sees everything in the colour of one's own spectacles," said Fleda. "May I ask what colour yours are to-day?" said Mr. Olmney. "Rose, I think," said Hugh. "No," said Fleda, "they are better than that--they are no worse colour than the snow's own--they shew me everything just as it is. It could not be lovelier." "Then we may conclude, may we not," said Mr. Olmney, "that you are not sorry to find yourself in Queechy again?" "I am not sorry to find myself in the woods again. That is not pitch, Mr. Olmney." "It has the same colour,--and weight." "No, it is only wet--see this and smell of it--do you see the difference? Isn't it pleasant?" "Everything is pleasant to-day," said he smiling. "I shall report you a cure. Come, I want to go a little higher and shew you a view. Leave that, Hugh, we have got enough--" But Hugh chose to finish an obstinate stump, and his companions went on without him. It was not very far up the mountain and they came to a fine look-out point; the same where Fleda and Mr. Carleton had paused long before on their quest after nuts. The wide spread of country was a white waste now; the delicate beauties of the snow were lost in the far view; and the distant Catskill shewed wintrily against the fair blue sky. The air was gentle enough to invite them to stand still, after the exercise they had taken, and as they both looked in silence Mr. Olmney observed that his companion's face settled into a gravity rather at variance with the expression it had worn. "I should hardly think," said he softly, "that you were looking through white spectacles, if you had not told us so." "O--a shade may come over what one is looking at you know," said Fleda. But seeing that he still watched her inquiringly she added, "I do not think a very wide landscape is ever gay in its effect upon the mind--do you?" "Perhaps--I do not know," said he, his eyes turning to it again as if to try what the effect was. "My thoughts had gone back," said Fleda, "to a time a good while ago, when I was a child and stood here in summer weather--and I was thinking that the change in the landscape is something like that which years make in the mind." "But you have not, for a long time at least, known any very acute sorrow?" "No--" said Fleda, "but that is not necessary. There is a gentle kind of discipline which does its work I think more surely." "Thank God for gentle discipline!" said Mr. Olmney; "if you do not know what those griefs are that break down mind and body together." "I am not unthankful, I hope, for anything," said Fleda gently; "but I have been apt to think that after a crushing sorrow the mind may rise up again, but that a long-continued though much lesser pressure in time breaks the spring." He looked at her again with a mixture of incredulous and tender interest, but her face did not belie her words, strange as they sounded from so young and in general so bright-seeming a creature. "'There shall no evil happen to the just,'" he said presently and with great sympathy. Fleda flashed a look of gratitude at him--it was no more, for she felt her eyes watering and turned them away. "You have not, I trust, heard any bad news?" "No sir--not at all!" "I beg pardon for asking, but Mrs. Rossitur seemed to be in less good spirits than usual." He had some reason to say so, having found her in a violent fit of weeping. "You do not need to be told," he went on, "of the need there is that a cloud should now and then come over this lower scene--the danger that if it did not our eyes would look nowhere else?" There is something very touching in hearing a kind voice say what one has often struggled to say to oneself. "I know it, sir," said Fleda, her words a little choked,--"and one may not wish the cloud away,--but it does not the less cast a shade upon the face. I guess Hugh has worked his way into the middle of that stump by this time, Mr. Olmney." They rejoined him; and the baskets being now sufficiently heavy and arms pretty well tired they left the further riches of the pine woods unexplored and walked sagely homewards. At the brow of the table-land Mr. Olmney left them to take a shorter cut to the high-road, having a visit to make which the shortening day warned him not to defer. "Put down your basket and rest a minute, Hugh," said Fleda. "I had a world of things to talk to you about, and this blessed man has driven them all out of my head." "But you are not sorry he came along with us?" "O no. We had a very good time. How lovely it is, Hugh! Look at the snow down there--without a track; and the woods have been dressed by the fairies. O look how the sun is glinting on the west side of that hillock!" <ANTIMG src="images/illus16.jpg" height-obs="250" alt="'How lovely it is, Hugh!'" title="'How lovely it is, Hugh!'" /> "How lovely it is, Hugh!" "It is twice as bright since you have come home," said Hugh. "The snow is too beautiful to-day. O I was right! one may grow morbid over books--but I defy anybody in the company of those chick-a-dees. I should think it would be hard to keep quite sound in the city." "You are glad to be here again, aren't you?" said Hugh. "Very! O Hugh!--it is better to be poor and have one's feet on these hills, than to be rich and shut up to brick walls!" "It is best as it is," said Hugh quietly. "Once," Fleda went on,--"one fair day when I was out driving in New York, it did come over me with a kind of pang how pleasant it would be to have plenty of money again and be at ease; and then, as I was looking off over that pretty North river to the other shore, I bethought me, 'A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.'" Hugh did not answer, for the face she turned to him in its half tearful, half bright submission took away his speech. "Why you cannot have enjoyed yourself as much as we thought, Fleda, if you dislike the city so much?" "Yes I did. O I enjoyed a great many things. I enjoyed being with the Evelyns. You don't know how much they made of me,--every one of them,--father and mother and all the three daughters--and uncle Orrin. I have been well petted, I can tell you, since I have been gone." "I am glad they shewed so much discrimination," said Hugh; "they would be puzzled to make too much of you." "I must have been in a remarkably discriminating society," said Fleda, "for everybody was very kind!" "How do you like the Evelyns on a nearer view?" "Very much indeed; and I believe they really love me. Nothing could possibly be kinder, in all ways of shewing kindness. I shall never forget it." "Who were you driving with that day?" said Hugh. "Mr. Thorn." "Did you see much of him?" "Quite as much as I wished. Hugh--I took your advice." "About what?" said Hugh. "I carried down some of my scribblings and sent them to a Magazine." "Did you!" said Hugh looking delighted. "And will they publish them?" "I don't know," said Fleda, "that's another matter. I sent them, or uncle Orrin did, when I first went down; and I have heard nothing of them yet." "You shewed them to uncle Orrin?" "Couldn't help it, you know. I had to." "And what did he say to them?" "Come!--I'm not going to be cross-questioned," said Fleda laughing. "He did not prevent my sending them." "And if they take them, do you expect they will give anything for them?--the Magazine people?" "I am sure if they don't they shall have no more--that is my only possible inducement to let them be printed. For my own pleasure, I would far rather not." "Did you sign with your own name?" "My own name!--Yes, and desired it to be printed in large capitals. What are you thinking of? No--I hope you'll forgive me, but I signed myself what our friend the doctor calls 'Yugh.'" "I'll forgive you if you'll do one thing for me." "What?" "Shew me all you have in your portfolio--Do, Fleda--to-night, by the light of the pitch-pine knots. Why shouldn't you give me that pleasure? And besides, you know Molière had an old woman?" "Well," said Fleda with a face that to Hugh was extremely satisfactory,--"we'll see--I suppose you might as well read my productions in manuscript as in print. But they are in a terribly scratchy condition--they go sometimes for weeks in my head before I find time to put them down--you may guess polishing is pretty well out of the question. Suppose we try to get home with these baskets." Which they did. "Has Philetus got home?" was Fleda's first question. "No," said Mrs. Rossitur, "but Dr. Quackenboss has been here and brought the paper--he was at the post-office this morning, he says. Did you see Mr. Olmney?" "Yes ma'am, and I feel he has saved me from a lame arm--those pine knots are so heavy." "He is a lovely young man!" said Mrs. Rossitur with uncommon emphasis. "I should have been blind to the fact, aunt Lucy, if you had not made me change my shoes. At present, no disparagement to him, I feel as if a cup of tea would be rather more lovely than anything else." "He sat with me some time," said Mrs. Rossitur; "I was afraid he would not overtake you." Tea was ready, and only waiting for Mrs. Rossitur to come down stairs, when Fleda, whose eye was carelessly running along the columns of the paper, uttered a sudden shout and covered her face with it. Hugh looked up in astonishment, but Fleda was beyond anything but exclamations, laughing and flushing to the very roots of her hair. "What is the matter, Fleda?" "Why," said Fleda,--"how comical!--I was just looking over the list of articles in the January number of the 'Excelsior'"-- "The 'Excelsior'?" said Hugh. "Yes--the Magazine I sent my things to--I was running over their advertisement here, where they give a special puff of the publication in general and of several things in particular, and I saw--here they speak of 'A tale of thrilling interest by Mrs. Eliza Lothbury, unsurpassed,' and so forth and so forth; 'another valuable communication from Mr. Charleston, whose first acute and discriminating paper all our readers will remember; the beginning of a new tale from the infallibly graceful pen of Miss Delia Lawriston, we are sure it will be so and so; '"The wind's voices," by our new correspondent "Hugh," has a delicate sweetness that would do no discredit to some of our most honoured names!'--What do you think of that?" What Hugh thought he did not say, but he looked delighted; and came to read the grateful words for himself. "I did not know but they had declined it utterly," said Fleda,--"it was so long since I had sent it and they had taken no notice of it; but it seems they kept it for the beginning of a new volume." "'Would do no discredit to some of our most honoured names'!" said Hugh. "Dear Fleda, I am very glad! But it is no more than I expected." "Expected!" said Fleda. "When you had not seen a line! Hush--My dear Hugh, aren't you hungry?" The tea, with this spice to their appetites, was wonderfully relished; and Hugh and Fleda kept making despatches of secret pleasure and sympathy to each other's eyes; though Fleda's face after the first flush had faded was perhaps rather quieter than usual. Hugh's was illuminated. "Mr. Skillcorn is a smart man!" said Barby coming in with a package,--"he has made out to go two miles in two hours and get back again safe!" "More from the post-office!" exclaimed Fleda pouncing upon it,--"oh yes, there has been another mail. A letter for you, aunt Lucy! from uncle Rolf!--We'll forgive him, Barby--And here's a letter for me, from uncle Orrin, and--yes--the 'Excelsior.' Hugh, uncle Orrin said he would send it. Now for those blessed pine knots! Aunt Lucy, you shall be honoured with the one whole candle the house contains." The table soon cleared away, the basket of fat fuel was brought in; and one or two splinters being delicately insinuated between the sticks on the fire a very brilliant illumination sprang out. Fleda sent a congratulatory look over to Hugh on the other side of the fireplace as she cosily established herself on her little bench at one corner with her letter; he had the Magazine. Mrs. Rossitur between them at the table with her one candle was already insensible to all outward things. And soon the other two were as delightfully absorbed. The bright light of the fire shone upon three motionless and rapt figures, and getting no greeting from them went off and danced on the old cupboard doors and paper hangings, in a kindly hearty joviality that would have put any number of stately wax candles out of countenance. There was no poverty in the room that night. But the people were too busy to know how cosy they were; till Fleda was ready to look up from her note and Hugh had gone twice carefully over the new poem,--when there was a sudden giving out of the pine splinters. New ones were supplied in eager haste and silence, and Hugh was beginning "The wind's voices" for the third time when a soft-whispered "Hugh!" across the fire made him look over to Fleda's corner. She was holding up with both hands a five-dollar bank note and just shewing him her eyes over it. "What's that?" said Hugh in an energetic whisper. "I don't know!" said Fleda, shaking her head comically;--"I am told 'The wind's voices' have blown it here, but privately I am afraid it is a windfall of another kind." "What?" said Hugh laughing. "Uncle Orrin says it is the first fruits of what I sent to the 'Excelsior,' and that more will come; but I do not feel at all sure that it is entirely the growth of that soil." "I dare say it is," said Hugh; "I am sure it is worth more than that. Dear Fleda, I like it so much!" Fleda gave him such a smile of grateful affection!--not at all as if she deserved his praise but as if it was very pleasant to have. "What put it into your head? anything in particular?" "No--nothing--I was looking out of the window one day and seeing the willow tree blow; and that looked over my shoulder; as you know Hans Andersen says his stories did." "It is just like you!--exactly as it can be." "Things put themselves in my head," said Fleda, tucking another splinter into the fire. "Isn't this better than a chandelier?" "Ten times!" "And so much pleasanter for having got it ourselves. What a nice time we had, Hugh?" "Very. Now for the portfolio, Fleda--come!--mother is fast; she won't see or hear anything. What does father say, mother?" In answer to this they had the letter read, which indeed contained nothing remarkable beyond its strong expressions of affection to each one of the little family; a cordial which Mrs. Rossitur drank and grew strong upon in the very act of reading. It is pity the medicine of kind words is not more used in the world--it has so much power. Then, having folded up her treasure and talked a little while about it, Mrs. Rossitur caught up the Magazine like a person who had been famished in that kind; and soon she and it and her tallow candle formed a trio apart from all the world again. Fleda and Hugh were safe to pass most mysterious-looking little papers from hand to hand right before her, though they had the care to read them behind newspapers, and exchanges of thought and feeling went on more swiftly still, and softly, across the fire. Looks, and smiles, and whispers, and tears too, under cover of a Tribune and an Express. And the blaze would die down just when Hugh had got to the last verse of something, and then while impatiently waiting for the new pine splinters to catch he would tell Fleda how much he liked it, or how beautiful he thought it, and whisper enquiries and critical questions; till the fire reached the fat vein and leaped up in defiant emulation of gas-lights unknown, and then he would fall to again with renewed gusto. And Fleda hunted out in her portfolio what bits to give him first, and bade him as she gave them remember this and understand that, which was necessary to be borne in mind in the reading. And through all the brightening and fading blaze, and all the whispering, congratulating, explaining, and rejoicing going on at her side, Mrs. Rossitur and her tallow candle were devoted to each other, happily and engrossingly. At last, however, she flung the Magazine from her and turning from the table sat looking into the fire with a rather uncommonly careful and unsatisfied brow. "What did you think of the second piece of poetry there, mother?" said Hugh;--"that ballad?--'The wind's voices' it is called." "'The wind's voices'?--I don't know--I didn't read it, I believe." "Why mother! I liked it very much. Do read it--read it aloud." Mrs. Rossitur took up the Magazine again abstractedly, and read-- <blockquote> "'Mamma, what makes your face so sad? The sound of the wind makes me feel glad; But whenever it blows, as grave you look, As if you were reading a sorrowful book.' </blockquote> <blockquote> "'A sorrowful book I am reading, dear,-- A book of weeping and pain and fear,-- A book deep printed on my heart, Which I cannot read but the tears will start. </blockquote> <blockquote> "'That breeze to my ear was soft and mild, Just so, when I was a little child; But now I hear in its freshening breath The voices of those that sleep in death.' </blockquote> <blockquote> "'Mamma,' said the child with shaded brow, 'What is this book you are reading now? And why do you read what makes you cry?' 'My child, it comes up before my eye. </blockquote> <blockquote> "'Tis the memory, love, of a far-off day When my life's best friend was taken away;-- Of the weeks and months that my eyes were dim Watching for tidings--watching for him. </blockquote> <blockquote> "'Many a year has come and past Since a ship sailed over the ocean fast, Bound for a port on England's shore,-- She sailed--but was never heard of more.' </blockquote> <blockquote> "'Mamma'--and she closer pressed her side,-- 'Was that the time when my father died?-- Is it his ship you think you see?-- Dearest mamma--won't you speak to me?' </blockquote> <blockquote> "The lady paused, but then calmly said, 'Yes, Lucy--the sea was his dying bed, And now whenever I hear the blast I think again of that storm long past. </blockquote> <blockquote> "'The winds' fierce bowlings hurt not me, But I think how they beat on the pathless sea,-- Of the breaking mast--of the parting rope,-- Of the anxious strife and the failing hope.' </blockquote> <blockquote> "'Mamma,' said the child with streaming eyes, 'My father has gone above the skies; And you tell me this world is mean and base Compared with heaven--that blessed place.' </blockquote> <blockquote> "'My daughter, I know--I believe it all,-- I would not his spirit to earth recall. The blest one he--his storm was brief,-- Mine, a long tempest of tears and grief. </blockquote> <blockquote> "'I have you, my darling--I should not sigh. I have one star more in my cloudy sky,-- The hope that we both shall join him there, In that perfect rest from weeping and care.'" </blockquote> "Well, mother,--how do you like it?" said Hugh whose eyes gave tender witness to his liking for it. "It is pretty--" said Mrs. Rossitur. Hugh exclaimed, and Fleda laughing took it out of her hand. "Why mother!" said Hugh,--"it is Fleda's." "Fleda's!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur, snatching the Magazine again. "My dear child, I was not thinking in the least of what I was reading. Fleda's!--" She read it over anew, with swimming eyes this time, and then clasped Fleda in her arms and gave her, not words, but the better reward of kisses and tears. They remained so a long time, even till Hugh left them; and then Fleda released from her aunt's embrace still crouched by her side with one arm in her lap. They both sat thoughtfully looking into the fire till it had burnt itself out and nothing but a glowing bed of coals remained. "That is an excellent young man!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "Who?" "Mr. Olmney. He sat with me some time after you had gone." "So you said before," said Fleda, wondering at the troubled expression of her aunt's face. "He made me wish," said Mrs. Rossitur hesitating,--"that I could be something different from what I am--I believe I should be a great deal happier"-- The last word was hardly spoken. Fleda rose to her knees and putting both arms about her aunt pressed face to face, with a clinging sympathy that told how very near her spirit was; while tears from the eyes of both fell without measure. "Dear aunt Lucy--dear aunt Lucy--I wish you would!--I am sure you would be a great deal happier--" But the mixture of feelings was too much for Fleda; her head sank lower on her aunt's bosom and she wept aloud. "But I don't know anything about it!" said Mrs. Rossitur, as well as she could speak,--"I am as ignorant as a child!--" "Dear aunty! that is nothing--God will teach you if you ask him; he has promised. Oh ask him, aunt Lucy! I know you would be happier!--I know it is better--a million times!--to be a child of God than to have everything in the world--If they only brought us that, I would be very glad of all our troubles!--indeed I would!" "But I don't think I ever did anything right in my life!" said poor Mrs. Rossitur. "Dear aunt Lucy!" said Fleda, straining her closer and with her very heart gushing out at these words,--"dear aunty--Christ came for just such sinners!--for just such as you and I." "You,"--said Mrs. Rossitur, but speech failed utterly, and with a muttered prayer that Fleda would help her, she sunk her head upon her shoulder and sobbed herself into quietness, or into exhaustion. The glow of the firelight faded away till only a faint sparkle was left in the chimney. There was not another word spoken, but when they rose up, with such kisses as gave and took unuttered affection, counsel and sympathy, they bade each other good-night. Fleda went to her window, for the moon rode high and her childish habit had never been forgotten. But surely the face that looked out that night was as the face of an angel. In all the pouring moonbeams that filled the air, she could see nothing but the flood of God's goodness on a dark world. And her heart that night had nothing but an unbounded and unqualified thanksgiving for all the "gentle discipline" they had felt; for every sorrow and weariness and disappointment;--except besides the prayer, almost too deep to be put into words, that its due and hoped-for fruit might be brought forth unto perfection. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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