carrots right — in the field or the wood-yard, consulting and
arranging, or maybe debating, with Earl Douglass, who acquired
by degrees an unwonted and concentrated respect for womankind
in her proper person; breakfast waiting for her often before
she came in; — in the house, her old housewifery concerns, her
share in Barby's cares or difficulties, her sweet
countenancing and cheering of her aunt, her dinner, her work;
— then when evening came, budding her roses, or tying her
carnations, or weeding, or raking the ground between them
(where Philetus could do nothing), or training her multiflora
and sweet-brier branches; and then often, after all, walking
up to the mill to give Hugh a little earlier a home smile, and
make his way down pleasant. No wonder if the energies which
owed much of their strength to love's nerving, should at last
give out, and Fleda's evening be passed in wearied slumbers.
No wonder if many a day was given up to the forced quietude of
a headache, the more grievous to Fleda, because she knew that
her aunt and Hugh always found the day dark that was not
lightened by her sun-beam. How brightly it shone out the
moment the cloud of pain was removed, winning the shadow from
their faces and a smile to their lips, though solitude always
saw her own settle into a gravity as fixed as it was soft.

"You have been doing too much, Fleda," said Mrs. Rossitur, one
morning when she came in from the garden.

"I didn't know it would take me so long," said Fleda, drawing
a long breath: "but I couldn't help it. I had those celery
plants to prick out — and then I was helping Philetus to plant
another patch of corn."