"Too vague," said Mr. Carleton smiling. "Trust me with a little more of your mind, Elfie."
Fleda glanced up at him, half smiling, and yet with filling eyes, and then as usual, yielded to the winning power of the look that met her.
"I was thinking," she said, keeping her head carefully down,--"of some of the things you and aunt Miriam were saying just now,--and--how good for nothing I am."
"In what respect?" said Mr. Carleton with praiseworthy gravity.
Fleda hesitated, and he pressed the matter no further; but more unwilling to displease him than herself she presently went on, with some difficulty; wording what she had to say with as much care as she could.
"I was thinking--how gratitude--or not gratitude alone--but how one can be full of the desire to please another,--a fellow-creature,--and find it constantly easy to do or bear anything for that purpose; and how slowly and coldly duty has to move alone in the direction where it should be the swiftest and warmest."
She knew he would take her words as simply as she said them; she was not disappointed. He was silent a minute and then said gravely,--
"Is this a late discovery, Elfie?"
"No--only I was realizing it strongly just now."
"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."