to cry-for a moment's passionate indulgence in weeping while no one could see. But a moment was all. There was work to do and she must not disable herself. She slowly got up, feeling thankful that her headache did not announce itself with the dawn, and that she would be able to attend to the morning affairs and the breakfast, which was something more of a circumstance now with the new additions to the family. More than that she knew from sure signs she would not be able to accomplish.

It was all done, and done well, though with what secret flagging of mind and body nobody knew or suspected. The business of the day was arranged, Barby's course made clear, Hugh visited and smiled upon; and then Fleda set herself down in the breakfast-room to wear out the rest of the day in patient suffering. Her little spaniel, who seemed to understand her languid step and faint tones and know what was coming, crept into her lap and looked up at her with a face of equal truth and affection; and after a few gentle acknowledging touches from the loved hand, laid his head on her knees, and silently avowed his determination of abiding her fortunes for the remainder of the day. They had been there for some hours. Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter were gathered in Hugh's room; whither Rolf also, after 'sundry expressions of sympathy for Fleda's headache, finding it a dull companion, had departed. Pain of body rising above pain of mind had obliged as far as possible, even thought to be still; when a loud rap at the front door brought the blood in a sudden flush of pain to Fleda's face. She knew instinctively what it meant. She heard Barby's distinct accents saying that somebody was not well." The other voice was more smothered. But in a moment the door of the breakfast-room opened and Mr. Thorn walked in. The intensity of the pain she was suffering effectually precluded Fleda from discovering emotion of any kind. She could not move. Only King lifted up his head and looked at the intruder, who seemed shocked, and well he might. Fleda was in her old headache position; bolt upright on the sofa, her feet on the rung of a chair, while her hands supported her by their grasp upon the back of it. The flush had passed away leaving the deadly paleness of pain, which the dark ring under her eyes showed to be

well seated.

66

"Miss Ringgan!” said the gentleman, coming up softly as to something that frightened him, "my dear Miss Fleda!-I am distressed! You are very ill-can nothing be done to relieve you?"

"Fleda's lips rather than her voice said-" Nothing."

"I would not have come in on any account to disturb you if I had known -I did not understand you were more than a trifle ill."-Fleda wished he would mend his mistake, as his understanding certainly by this time was mended. But that did not seem to be his conclusion of the best thing to do. -"Since I am here, can you bear to hear me say three words? without too much pain? I do not ask you to speak

A faint whispered "yes" gave him leave to go on.

She had never

looked at him. She sat like a statue; to answer by a motion of her head was more than could be risked.

He drew up a chair and sat down, while King looked at him with eyes of suspicious indignation.—“I am not surprised,” he said gently, “to find you suffering. I knew how your sensibilities must feel the shock of yesterday→ I would fain have spared it you—I will spare you all further pain on the same score if possible. Dear Miss Ringgan, since I am here and time is precious, may I say one word before I cease troubling you-I take it for granted that you were made acquainted with the contents of my letter to Mrs. Rossitur with all the contents?-were you?"-Again Fleda's lips almost voicelessly gave the answer.

"Will you give me what I ventured to ask for?" said he gently, "the permission to work for you? Do not trouble those precious lips to speak→→ the answer of these fingers will be as sure a warrant to me as all words that could be spoken that you do not deny my request."

He had taken one of her hands in his own. But the fingers lay with unanswering coldness and lifelessness for a second in his clasp and then were drawn away and took determinate hold of the chair-back. Again the flush came to Fleda's cheeks, brought by a sharp pain,-oh, bodily and mental too!-and after a moment's pause, with a distinctness of utterance that let him know every word, she said, "A generous man would not ask it, sir.” Thorn sprang up, and several times paced the length of the room, up and down, before he said anything more. He looked at Fleda, but the flush was gone again, and nothing could seem less conscious of his presence. Pain and patience was in every line of her face, but he could read nothing more, except a calmness as unmistakably written. Thorn gave that face repeated glances as he walked, then stood still and read it at leisure. Then he came to her side again and spoke in a different voice.

"You are so unlike anybody else," he said, "that you shall make me unlike myself. I will do freely what I hoped to do with the light of your smile before me. You shall hear no more of this affair, neither you nor the world-—I have the matter perfectly in my own hands—it shall never raise a whisper again. I will move heaven and earth rather than fail-but there is no danger of my failing. I will try to prove myself worthy of your esteem even where a man is most excusable for being selfish."

He took one of her cold hands again,-Fleda could not help it without more force than she cared to use, and indeed pain would by this time almost have swallowed up other sensation if every word and touch had not sent it in a stronger throb to her very finger-ends. Thorn bent his lips to her hand, twice kissed it fervently, and then left her; much to King's satisfaction, who thereupon resigned himself to quiet slumbers. His mistress knew no such relief. Excitement had dreadfully aggravated her disorder,

at a time when it was needful to banish even thought as far as possible. Pain effectually banished it now, and Barby coming in a little after Mr. Thorn had gone found her quite unable to speak and scarce able to breathe, from agony. Barby's energies and fainting remedies were again put into use; but pain reigned triumphant for hours, and when its hard rule was at last abated Fleda was able to do nothing but sleep like a child for hours more. Towards a late tea-time she was at last awake, and carrying on a very onesided conversation with Rolf, her own lips being called upon for little more than a smile now and then. King, not able to be in her lap, had curled himself up upon his mistress's dress and as close within the circle of her arms as possible, where Fleda's hand and his head were on terms of mutual satisfaction. "I thought you wouldn't permit a dog to lie in your lap,” said Marion. "Do you remember that ?" said Fleda with a smile. "Ah I have grown tender-hearted, Marion, since I have known what it is to want comfort myself. I have come to the conclusion that it is best to let everything have all the enjoyment it can in the circumstances. King crawled into my lap one day when I had not spirits enough to turn him out, and he has kept the place ever since. Little King."

In answer to which word of intelligence King looked in her face and wagged his tail and then earnestly endeavoured to lick all her fingers. Which however was a piece of comfort she would not give him.

"Fleda," said Barby putting her head in, "I wish you'd just step out here and tell me which cheese you'd like to have cut."

"Let her cut them all if she likes.

"What a fool !" said Marion. "She is no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness however a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa and went into the kitchen. "Well you do look as if you wa'n't good for nothing but to be taken care of !" said Barby. "I wouldn't have riz you up if it hadn't been just tea-time, and I knowed you couldn't stay quiet much longer;" and with a look which explained her tactics she put into Fleda's hand a letter directed to her aunt.

"Philetus give it to me," she said, without a glance at Fleda's face, "he said it was give to him by a spry little shaver who wa'n't a mind to tell nothin' about himself.”

"Thank you, Barby!" was Fleda's most grateful return; and summoning her aunt upstairs she took her into her own room and locked the door before she gave her the letter which Barby's shrewdness and delicacy had taken such care should not reach its owner in a wrong way. Fleda watched her as her eye ran over the paper and caught it as it fell from her fingers.

"MY DEAR WIFE,-That villain Thorn has got a handle of me which he will not fail to use, you know it all I suppose by this time. It is true hat in an evil hour, long ago, when greatly pressed, I did what I thought I should surely undo in a few days. The time never came. I don't know why he has let it lie so long, but he has taken it up now, and he will push it to

the extreme. There is but one thing left for me. I shall not see you again. The rascal would never let me rest, I know, in any spot that calls its American ground. You will do better without me than with me. R. R. Fleda mused over the letter for several minutes, and then touched her aunt, who had fallen on a chair with her head sunk in her hands.

"What does he mean?" said Mrs. Rossitur, looking up with a perfectly colourless face." To leave the country.'

"Are you sure? is that it ?" said Mrs Rossitur rising and looking over the words again; "he would do anything, Fleda--”

"That is what he means, aunt Lucy; don't you see he says he could not be safe anywhere in America."

Mrs. Rossitur stood eyeing with intense eagerness for a minute of two the note in her niece's hand. "Then he is gone! now that it is all settled! And we don't know where-and we can't get word to him."

Her cheek which had a little brightened became perfectly white again. "He isn't gone yet, he can't be; he cannot have left Queechy till to-day; he will be in New York for several days yet probably."

"I will do

"New York! it may be Boston ? ”—“ No, he would be more likely to go to New York; I am sure he would; he is accustomed to it." "We might write to both places," said poor Mrs. Rossitur. it and send them off at once."-"But he might not get the letters," said Fleda thoughtfully, "he might not dare to ask at the post-office." His wife looked at that possibility, and then wrung her hands. " didn't he give us a clue!"

Oh why

Fleda put an arm round her affectionately, and stood thinking; stood trembling might as well be said, for she was too weak to be standing at all. "What can we do, dear Fleda!" said Mrs. Rossitur in great distress. "Once out of New York and we can get nothing to him! If he only knew that there is no need, and that it is all over!"

"We must do everything, aunt Lucy," said Fleda thoughtfully, "and I hope we shall succeed yet. We will write, but I think the most hopeful other thing we could do would be to put advertisements in the newspapers; he would be very likely to see them."

"Advertisements! But you couldn't; what would you put in?""Something that would catch his eye and nobody's else—that is easy, aunt Lucy."

"But there is nobody to put them in, Fleda; you said uncle Orrin was going to Boston.”—“ He wasn't going there till next week, but he was to be in Philadelphia a few days before that; the letter might miss him.”

"Mr. Plumfield! Couldn't he?"-But Fleda shook her head.

"Wouldn't do, aunt Lucy; he would do all he could, but he don't know New York nor the papers, he wouldn't know how to manage it, he don't know uncle Rolf; I shouldn't like to trust it to him."

"Who then? there isn't a creature we could ask."

Fleda laid her cheek to her poor aunt's, and said, “I'll do it.”

But you must be in New York to do it, dear Fleda, you can't do it here.""I will go to New York."

"When?"—"To-morrow morning."

"But dear Fleda, you can't go alone? I can't let you, and you're not fit to go at all, my poor child!" and between conflicting feelings Mrs. Rossitur sat down and wept without measure.

"Listen, aunt Lucy," said Fleda pressing her hand on her shoulder, "listen, and don't cry so! I'll go and make all right, if efforts can do it. I am not going alone, I'll get Seth to go with me; and I can sleep in the cars and rest nicely in the steamboat-I shall feel happy and well when I know that I am leaving you easier and doing all that can be done to bring uncle Rolf home. Leave me to manage, and don't say anything to Marion, it is one blessed thing that she need not know anything about all this. I shall feel better than if I were at home and had trusted this business to any other hands."—" You are the blessing of my life," said Mrs. Rossitur.

"Cheer up, and come down and let us have some tea," said Fleda kissing her; "I feel as if that would make me up a little; and then I'll write the letters. I sha'n't want but very little baggage; there'll be nothing to pack up." Philetus was sent up the hill with a note to Seth Plumfield, and brought home a favourable answer. Fleda thought as she went to rest that it was well the mind's strength could sometimes act independently of its servant the body, hers felt so very shattered and unsubstantial.

CHAPTER XLI.

I thank you for your company; but good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone, -As You Like It.

THE

'HE first thing next morning Seth Plumfield came down to say that he had seen Dr. Quackenboss the night before and had chanced to find out that he was going to New York too, this very day; and knowing that the doctor would be just as safe an escort as himself Seth, had made over the charge of his cousin to him; calculating," he said, "that it would make no difference to Fleda and that he had better stay at home with his mother." Fleda said nothing and looked as little as possible of her disappointment, and her cousin went away wholly unsuspecting of it.

66

"Seth Plumfield haʼn't done a smarter thing than that in a good while," Barby remarked satirically as he was shutting the door. "I should think he'd ha' hurt himself."

"I dare say the doctor will take good care of me," said Fleda; "as good as he knows how."