left no doubt of the meaning of his words; and in unbounded confusion she turned her own and her attention, ostensibly, to the book in her hand, though sight and sense were almost equally out of her power. For a few minutes poor Fleda felt as if all sensation had retreated to her finger-ends. She turned the leaves over and over, as if willing to cheat herself or her companion into the belief that she had something to think of there, while associations and images of the past were gone with a vengeance, swallowed up in a tremendous reality of the present; and the book, which a minute ago was her father's Bible, was now-what wasit?—something of Mr. Carleton's which she must give back to him. But still she held it and looked at it-conscious of no one distinct idea but that, and a faint one besides that he might like to be repossessed of his property in some reasonable time— time like everything else was in a whirl; the only steady thing in creation seemed to be that perfectly still and moveless figure by her side-till her trembling fingers admonished her they would not be able to hold anything much longer; and gently and slowly, without looking, her hand put the book back towards Mr. Carleton. That both were detained together she knew but hardly felt; the thing was that she had given it!

There was no other answer; and there was no further need that Mr. Carleton should make any efforts for diverting her from the scene and the circumstances where they were. Probably he knew that, for he made none. He was perfectly silent for a long time, and Fleda was deaf to any other voice that could be raised near or far. She could not even think.

Mrs. Renney was happily snoring, and most of the other people had descended into their coat collars, or figuratively speaking had lowered their blinds, by tilting over their hats in some uncomfortable position that signified sleep; and comparative quiet had blessed the place for some time; as little noticed indeed by Fleda as noise would have been. The sole thing that she clearly recognised in connection with the exterior world was that clasp in which one of her hands lay. She did not know that the car had grown quiet, and that only an occasional grunt of ill-humour, or waking-up colloquy, testified that it was the unwonted domicile of a number of human beings who were harbouring there in a disturbed state of mind. But this state of things could not last. The time came that had been threatened, when their last supply of extrinsic warmth was at an end. Despite shut windows, the darkening of the stove was presently followed by a very sensible and fast-increasing change of temperature; and this addition to their causes of discomfort roused every one of the company from his temporary lethargy. The growl of dissatisfied voices awoke again, more gruff than before; the spirit of jesting had long languished and now died outright, and in its stead came some low and deep and bitter-spoken curses. Poor Mrs. Renney shook off her somnolency and shook her shoulders, a little business shake, admonitory to herself to keep cool; and Fleda came

to the consciousness that some very disagreeable chills were making their way over her.

"Are you warm enough ?" said Mr. Careleton suddenly, turning to her. "Not quite," said Fleda hesitating, "I feel the cold a little. Please don't, Mr. Carleton!" she added earnestly as she saw him preparing to throw off his cloak, the identical black fox which Constance had described with so much vivacity; "pray do not! I am not very cold; I can bear a little; I am not so tender as you think me; I do not need it, and you would feel the want very much after wearing it. I won't put it on."

But he smilingly bade her "stand up," stooping down and taking one of her hands to enforce his words, and giving her at the same time the benefit of one of those looks of good-humoured wilfulness to which his mother always yielded, and to which Fleda yielded instantly, though with a colour considerably heightened at the slight touch of peremptoriness in the tone.

"You are not offended with me, Elfie?" he said in another manner, when she had sat down again and he was arranging the heavy folds of the cloak.

Offended! A glance answered.

"You shall have everything your own way," he whispered gently, as he stooped down to bring the cloak under her feet, "except yourself."

What good care should be taken of that exception was said in the dark eye at which Fleda hardly ventured half a glance. She had much ado to command herself.

She was shielded again from all the sights and sounds within reach. She was in a maze. The comfort of the fur cloak was curiously mixed with the feeling of something else, of which that was an emblem-a surrounding of care and strength which would effectually be exerted for her protectionsomewhat that Fleda had not known for many a long day-the making up of the old want. Fleda had it in her heart to cry like a baby. Such a dash of sunlight had fallen at her feet that she hardly dared look at it for fear of being dazzled; but she could not look anywhere that she did not see the reflection.

In the meantime the car-ful of people settled again into sullen quietude. The cold was not found propitious to quarrelling. Those who could, subsided anew into lethargy; those who could not, gathered in their outposts to to make the best defence they might of the citadel. Most happily it was not an extreme night; cold enough to be very disagreeable, and even (without a fur cloak) dangerous; but not enough to put even noses and ears in immediate jeopardy. Mr. Carleton had contrived to procure a comfortable wrapper for Mrs. Renney, from a Yankee who for the sake of being a warm man" as to his pockets, was willing to be cold otherwise for a time. The rest of the great coats and cloaks which were so alert and erect a little while ago were doubled up on every side in all sorts of despondent attitudes. A dull quiet

66

brooded over the assembly; and Mr. Carleton walked up and down the vacant space. Once he caught an anxious glance from Fleda, and came immediately to her side.

"You need not be troubled about me," he said with a most genial smile; "I am not suffering-never was further from it in my life."-Fleda could neither answer nor look.

“There are not many hours of the night to wear out,” he said. you follow your neighbour's example ?"-She shook her head.

"Can't

“This watching is too hard for you. You will have another headache to-morrow."-" No; perhaps not," she said with a grateful look up.

"You do not feel the cold now, Elfie ?"-" Not at all—not in the least -I am perfectly comfortable—I am doing very well."

He stood still, and the changing lights and shades on Fleda's cheek grew deeper.

"Do you know where we are, Mr. Carleton ?"-" Somewhere between a town the name of which I have forgotten and a place called Quarrenton, I think; and Quarrenton they tell me is but a few miles from Greenfield. Our difficulties will vanish, I hope, with the darkness."

He walked again, and Fleda mused and wondered at herself in the black fox. She did not venture another look, though her eye took in nothing very distinctly but the outlines of that figure passing up and down through the car. He walked perseveringly; and weariness at last prevailed over everything else with Fleda; she lost herself with her head leaning against the bit of wood between the windows. The rousing of the great coats, and the growing grey light roused her before her uneasy sleep had lasted an hour. The lamps were out, the car was again spotted with two long rows of windowpanes, through which the light as yet came but dimly. The morning had dawned at last, and seemed to have brought with it a fresh accession of cold, for everybody was on the stir. Fleda.put up her window to get a breath of fresh air and see how the day looked.

A change of weather had come with the dawn. It was not fine yet. The snowing had ceased, but the clouds hung overhead still, though not with the leaden uniformity of yesterday; they were higher and broken into many a soft grey fold, that promised to roll away from the sky by and by. The snow was deep on the ground; every visible thing lapped in a thick white covering; a still, very grave, very pretty winter landscape, but somewhat dreary in its aspect to a train-ful of people fixed in the midst of it out of sight of human habitation. Fleda felt that, but only in the abstract; to her it did not seem dreary; she enjoyed the wild solitary beauty of the scene very much, with many a grateful thought of what might have been. As it was, she left difficulties entirely to others.

As soon as it was light the various inmates of the strange dormitory gathered themselves up and set on foot for Quarrenton. By one of them

Mr. Carleton sent an order for a sleigh, which in as short a time as possible arrived, and transported him and Fleda and Mrs. Renney, and one other ill-bestead woman, safely to the little town of Quarrenton.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then sit thee down, sorrow -Love's Labour Lost

I

T had been a wild night, and the morning looked scared. Perhaps it was only the particular locality, for if ever a place showed bleak and winter-stricken the little town of Quarrenton was in that condition that morning. The snow overlaid and enveloped everything, except where the wind had been at work; and the wind and the grey clouds seemed the only agencies abroad. Nor a ray of sunlight to relieve the uniform sober tints, the universal grey and white, only varied where a black house-roof, partially cleared, or a blacker bare-branched tree, gave it a sharp interruption. There was not a solitary thing that bore an indication of comfortable life, unless the curls of smoke that went up from the chimneys; and Fleda was in no condition to study their physiognomy. A little square hotel, perched alone on a rising ground, looked the especial bleak and unpromising spot of the place. It bore however the imposing title of the Pocahontas; and there the sleigh set them down. They were ushered upstairs into a little parlour furnished in the usual style, with one or two articles a great deal too showy for the place and a general dearth as to the rest. A lumbering mahogany sofa, that showed as much wood and as little promise as possible; a marble-topped centre table; chairs in the minority and curtains minus; and the hearth-rug providently turned bottom upwards. On the centre-table lay a pile of Penny Magazines, a volume of selections of poetry from various good authors, and a sufficient complement of newspapers. The room was rather cold, but of that the waiter gave a reasonable explanation in the fact that the fire had not been burning long.

Furs however might be dispensed with, or Fleda thought so; and taking off her bonnet she endeavoured to rest her weary head against the sharpcut top of the sofa-back, which seemed contrived expressly to punish and forbid all attempts at ease-seeking. The mere change of position was still comparative ease. But the black fox had not done duty yet. Its ample folds were laid over the sofa, cushion, back, and all, so as at once to serve for pillow and mattress, and Fleda being gently placed upon it laid her face down again upon the sofa fur, which gave a very kindly welcome not more to the body than to the mind. Fleda almost smiled as she felt that. The furs were something more than a pillow for her cheek-they were the soft image of somewhat for her mind to rest on.

But entirely exhausted, too much for smiles or tears, though both were near, she resigned herself as helplessly as an infant to the feeling of rest; and in five minutes was in a state of dreamy unconsciousness.

It

Mrs. Renney who had slept a great part of the night, courted sleep anew in the rocking-chair, till breakfast should be ready; the other woman had found quarters in the lower part of the house; and Mr. Carleton stood still with folded arms to read at his leisure the fair face that rested so confidingly upon the black fur of his cloak, looking so very fair in the contrast. was the same face he had known in time past,-the same, with only an alteration that had added new graces but had taken away none of the old. Not one of the soft outlines had grown hard under Time's discipline; not a curve had lost its grace or its sweet mobility; and yet the hand of Time had been there; for on brow and lip and cheek and eyelid, there was that nameless grave composure which said touchingly that hope had long ago clasped hands with submission. And perhaps, that if hope's anchor had not been well placed, ay, even where it could not be moved, the storms of life might have beaten even hope from her ground, and made a clean sweep of desolation over all she had left. Not the storms of the last few weeks Mr. Carleton saw and understood their work in the perfectly colourless and thin cheek. But these other finer drawn characters had taken longer to write. He did not know the instrument, but he read the handwriting, and came to his own resolutions therefrom.

Yet if not untroubled she had remained unspotted by the world; that was as clear as the other. The slight eyebrow sat with its wonted calm purity of outline just where it used; the eyelid fell as quietly; the forehead above it was as unruffled; and if the mouth had a subdued gravity that it had taken years to teach, it had neither lost any of the sweetness nor any of the simplicity of childhood. It was a strange picture that Mr. Carleton was looking at,-strange for its rareness. In this very matter of simplicity, that

the world will never leave those who belong to it. Half sitting and half reclining, she had given herself to rest with the abandonment and self-forgetfulness of a child; her attitude had the very grace of a child's unconsciousness; and her face showed that even in placing herself there she had lost all thought of any other presence or any other eyes than her own; even of what her hand and cheek lay upon, and what it betokened. It meant something to Mr. Carleton too; and if Fleda could have opened her eyes she would have seen in those that were fixed upon her a happy promise for her future life. She was beyond making any such observations; and Mrs. Renney gave no interruption to his till the breakfast-bell rang.

Mr. Carleton had desired the meal to be served in a private room. But he was met with a speech in which such a confusion of arguments endeavoured to persuade him to be of another mind, that he had at last given way. It was asserted that the ladies would have their breakfast a great