Her sparkling face told him with even greater emphasis than her words,
"I am so much obliged to you, sir."
"How you go over fences!" said he,--"like a sprite, as you are."
"O I have climbed a great many," said Fleda, accepting however, again with
that infallible instinct, the help which she did not need--"I shall be so
glad to get some nuts, for I thought I wasn't going to have any this year;
and it is so pleasant to have them to crack in the long winter evenings."
"You must find them long evenings indeed, I should think."
"O no we don't," said Fleda. "I didn't mean they were long in _that_ way.
Grandpa cracks the nuts, and I pick them out, and he tells me stories; and
then you know he likes to go to bed early. The evenings never seem long."
"But you are not always cracking nuts."
"O no, to be sure not; but there are plenty of other pleasant things to
do. I dare say grandpa would have bought some nuts, but I had a great deal
rather have those we get ourselves, and then the fun of getting them,
besides, is the best part."
Fleda was tramping over the ground at a furious rate.
"How many do you count upon securing to-day?" said Mr. Carleton gravely.
"I don't know," said Fleda with a business face,--"there are a good
many trees, and fine large ones, and I don't believe anybody has found
them out--they are so far out of the way; there ought to be a good
parcel of nuts.
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