CHAPTER XLII.

"How well appaid she was her bird to find!"

SIDNEY.

FLEDA counted the minutes till it wanted an hour of sundown, and then, avoiding Mrs. Pritchard, made her escape out of the house. A long walk was before her, and the latter part of it through a region which she wished to pass while the light was good. And she was utterly unable to travel at any but a very gentle rate; so she gave herself plenty of time.

It was a very bright afternoon, and all the world was astir. Fleda shielded herself with a thick veil, and went up one of the narrow streets, not daring to venture into Broadway, and passing Waverley Place, which was almost as bright, turned down Eighth Street. A few blocks now, and she would be out of all danger of meeting any one that knew her. She drew her veil close, and hurried on. But the proverb saith, "A miss is as good as a mile," and with reason; for if fate wills, the chances make nothing. As Fleda set her foot down to cross Fifth Avenue, she saw Mr. Carleton on the other side coming up from Waverley Place. She went as slowly as she dared, hoping that he would pass without looking her way, or be unable to recognise her through her thick wrapper. In vainshe soon saw that she was known-he was waiting for her, and she must put up her veil and speak to him.

"Why, I thought you had left New York," said he—“I was told so."

"I had left it-I have left it, sir," said Fleda-“I have only come back for a day or two."

66 Have you been ill?" he said, with a sudden change of tone, the light in his eye, and smile, giving place to a very marked gravity.

Fleda would have answered with a half smile, but such a sickness of heart came over her, that speech failed, and she was very near bursting into tears. Mr. Carleton looked at her earnestly a moment, and then put the hand which Fleda had forgotten he still held upon his arm, and began to walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which this was done, reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been a child under his care; and, somehow, her thoughts went off on a tangent back to the further days of her mother, and father, and grandfather, the other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection,

which now there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem more winning fair than just thenwhen their place was left most especially empty. Her uncle she had never looked up to in the same way, and whatever stay he had been was cut down. Her aunt leaned upon her; and Hugh had always been more of a younger than an elder brother. The quick contrast of those old happy childish days was too strong; the glance back at what she had had, made her feel the want. Fleda blamed herself, reasoned and fought with herself; but she was weak in mind and body, her nerves were unsteady yet, her spirits unprepared for any encounter or reminder of pleasure; and though vexed and ashamed, she could not hold her head up, and she could not prevent tear after tear from falling as they went along; she could only hope that nobody saw them.

Nobody spoke of them. But then nobody said anything; and the silence at last frightened her into rousing herself. She checked her tears and raised her head; she ventured no more; she dared not turn her face towards her companion; He looked at her once or twice, as if in doubt whether to speak or not.

66 Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length, gently.

Fleda said, "No," although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general had been packed up for exportation; neither eye nor memory could light upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone showing that he knew what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.

"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney!"

he said.

It was said with a tone so carelessly easy, that Fleda's heart jumped for one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing peculiar about her.

"I know it," she said, eagerly-"I have often thought of itespecially here in the city

"Why is it? what is it ?"`

Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he remembered from years ago, before she spoke.

Isn't it contrast ?—or at least I think that helps the effect here."

"What do you make the contrast ?" he said, quietly.

"Isn't it," said Fleda, with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is

below it? I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country, smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."

To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he, smiling.

"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton; perhaps I deserve it."

"You do not think that," said he, with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"

"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr. Carleton ?"

"To some people, yes! But the expression is so subtle, that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore, to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."

That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense, I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton; I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far-too far to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges the field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."

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So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's--where did yours go?" said he, suddenly turning round upon her.

Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had, perhaps, more than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so intelligent and sympathetic, that she was abashed.

"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life!" Mr. Carleton said, after a while.

Fleda's heart throbbed an answer-she did not speak.

"Both in its direct and indirect action. The mind is set free from influences that narrowed its range and dimmed its vision, and refined to a keener sensibility, a juster perception, a higher power of appreciation, by far, than it had before. And then, to say nothing of religion's own peculiar sphere of enjoyment, technically religious-what a field of pleasure it opens to its possessor in the world of moral beauty, most partially known to any other and the fine but exquisite analogies of things material with things spiritual-those harmonies of Nature, to which, talk as they will, all other ears are deaf."

"You know," said Fleda, with full eyes that she dared not show, "how Henry Martyn said that he found he enjoyed painting and music so much more after he became a Christian."

"I remember. It is the substituting a just medium for a false one—it is putting nature within and nature without in tune with each other, so that the chords are perfect now which were jarring before."

"And yet how far people would be from believing you, Mr. Carleton."

"Yes, they are possessed with the contrary notion. But in all the creation nothing has a one-sided usefulness. What a reflection it would be upon the wisdom of its Author, if godliness alone were the exception—if it were not 'profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come!'"

They make that work the other way, don't they?" said Fleda; "not being able to see how thorough religion should be for anybody's happiness, they make use of your argument to conclude that it is not what the Bible requires. How I have heard that urged-that God intended his creatures to be happy as a reason why they should disobey Him! They lay hold of the wrong end of the argument, and work backwards." "Precisely.

"God intended His creatures to be happy.

"Strict obedience would make them unhappy. "Therefore, He does not intend them to obey.'

"They never put it before them quite so clearly," said Fleda. 66 They would startle at it a little. But so they would at the right stating of the case.”

"And how would that be, Mr. Carleton ?”

"It might be somewhat after this fashion

"God requires nothing that is not for the happiness of His people.

"He requires perfect obedience.

"Therefore, perfect obedience is for their happiness.'

"But unbelief will not understand that. Did it ever strike you how much there is in those words, 'Come and see'? All that argument can do, after all, is but to persuade to that. Only faith will submit to terms, and enter the narrow gate; and only obedience knows what the prospect is on the other side."

"But isn't it true, Mr. Carleton, that the world have some cause for their opinion-judging as they do by the outside? The peculiar pleasures of religion, as you say, are out of sight, and they do not always find in religious people that enlargement and refinement of which you were speaking."

"Because they make unequal comparisons. Recollect that, as God has declared, the ranks of religion are not for the most part filled from the wise and the great. In making your estimate, you must measure things equal in other respects.

Compare the same man with himself before he was a Christian, or with his unchristianized fellows, and you will find invariably the refining, dignifying, ennobling, influence of true religionthe enlarged intelligence, and the greater power of enjoyment."

"And besides those causes of pleasure-giving that you mentioned," said Fleda, “there is a mind at ease; and how much that is, alone! If I may judge others by myself, the mere fact of being unpoised, unresting, disables the mind from a thousand things that are joyfully relished by one entirely at ease."

Yes," said he; "do you remember that word,-' The stones of the field shall be at peace with thee'?”

"I am afraid people would understand you as little as they would me, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, laughing.

He smiled, rather a prolonged smile, the expression of which Fleda could not make out; she felt that she did not quite understand him.

"I have thought," said he, after a pause, "that much of the beauty we find in many things is owing to a hidden analogy— the harmony they make with some unknown string of the mind's harp which they have set a-vibrating. But the music of that is so low and soft, that one must listen very closely to find out what it is."

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Why, that is the very theory of which I gave you a smoky illustration a little while ago," said Fleda. "I thought I was on safe ground after what you said about the character of flowers, for that was a little

"Fanciful?" said he, smiling.

"What you please," said Fleda, colouring a little—“I am sure it is true. The theory, I mean. it, though I never put in words.

I have many a time felt I shall think of that."

"Did you ever happen to see the very early dawn of a winter's morning?" said he.

But he laughed the next instant at the comical expression of Fleda's face as it was turned to him.

"Forgive me for supposing you as ignorant as myself. I have seen it once."

"Appreciated it, I hope, that time?" said Fleda. I shall never forget it."

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And it never wrought in you a desire to see it again?”

"I might see many a dawn," said he, smiling, "without what I saw then. It was very early, and a cloudy morning, so that night had still almost undisturbed possession of earth and sky; but in the south-eastern quarter, between two clouds, there was a space of fair white promise, hardly making any impression