He felt it so; and to leave his ordinary scenes and occupations
and lose a morning with little Fleda was a freshening of his better
nature; it was like breathing pure air after the fever heat of a sick
room; it was like hearing the birds sing after the meaningless jabber of
Bedlam. Mr. Carleton indeed did not put the matter quite so strongly to
himself. He called Fleda his good angel. He did not exactly know that the
office this good angel performed was simply to hold a candle to his
conscience. For conscience was not by any means dead in him; it only
wanted light to see by. When he turned from the gay and corrupt world in
which he lived, where the changes were rung incessantly upon
self-interest, falsehood, pride, and the various more or less refined
forms of sensuality, and when he looked upon that pure bright little face,
so free from selfishness, those clear eyes so innocent of evil, the
peaceful brow under which a thought of double-dealing had never hid, Mr.
Carleton felt himself in a healthier region. Here as elsewhere, he
honoured and loved the image of truth; in the broad sense of truth;--that
which suits the perfect standard of right. But his pleasure in this case
was invariably mixed with a slight feeling of self-reproach; and it was
this hardly recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his
mental eye-sight under the light of a bright example, that made him call
the little torch-bearer his good angel.
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