"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn laughing,--"what do you say to that, sir?"
Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.
"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier," pursued Mr. Stackpole;--"only serves to give them uppish and dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."
"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all are contented because none can get on, and in a republic none are contented because all can get on.'"
"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.
"That might do very well if the world were in a state of perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent and getting on. And the uppishness I am afraid is a national fault, sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.'"
"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan has followed the example of her friends the farmers' daughters?--or led them in it?--"
"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda colouring.
"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn, who was leisurely pruning the prickles from the stem of a rose.
"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me afterwards gravely that he was afraid I was studying too many things at once!--when I was innocent of all ornithology but what my eyes and ears had picked up in the woods; except some childish reminiscences of Audubon."