Say and Seal, Volume II

"Where is your 'real gold'?" said the doctor.

"Do you expect me to tell you?" said Mr. Linden laughing. "I have found a good deal in the course of my life, and the interest is regularly paid in."

"Are you talking seriously?"

"Ay truly. So may you."

"From any other man, I should throw away your words as the veriest Magician's coin; but if they are true metal—why I'll ask you to take me to see the Mint some day!"

"Let me remind you," said Mr. Linden, "that there are many things inShakspeare. What do you think of this, for a set-off?—

'Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"

"There's an error proved upon me," said the doctor, biting his lips as he looked at Faith who had listened delightedly. "Come on! I'll stop no more. The thing is, Linden, that I am less happy than you—I never found any real gold in my life!"

"Ah you expect gold to come set with diamonds,—and that cannot always be. I don't doubt you have gold enough to start a large fortune, if you would only rub it up and make it productive."

The doctor made no answer to that, and the reading went on; Faith becoming exceedingly engrossed with the progress of the drama. She listened with an eagerness which both the readers amusedly took heed of, as the successive princes of Morocco and Arragon made their trial: the doctor avowing by the way, that he thought he should have "assumed desert" as the latter prince did, and received the fool's head for his pains. Then they came to the beautiful "casket scene." The doctor had somehow from the beginning left Portia in Mr. Linden's hands; and now gave with great truth and gracefulness the very graceful words of her successful suitor. He could put truth into these, and did, and accordingly read beautifully; well heard, for the play of Faith's varying face shewed she went along thoroughly with all the fine turns of thought and feeling; here and elsewhere. But how well and how delicately Mr. Linden gave Portia! That Dr. Harrison could not have done; the parts had fallen out happily, whether by chance or design. Her ladylike and coy play with words—her transparent veil of delicate shifting turns of expression—contriving to say all and yet as if she would say nothing—were rendered by the reader with a grace of tone every way fit to them. Faith's eye ceased to look at anybody, and her colour flitted, as this scene went on; and when Portia's address to her fortunate wooer was reached—that very noble and dignified declaration of her woman's mind, when she certainly pulled off her gloves, wherever else she might wear them;—Faith turned her face quite away from the readers and with the cheek she could not hide sheltered by her hand—as well as her hand could—she let nobody but the fire and Mrs. Derrick see what a flush covered the other. Very incautious in Faith, but it was the best she could do. And the varied interests that immediately followed, of Antonio's danger and deliverance, gradually brought her head round again and accounted sufficiently for the colour with which her cheeks still burned. The Merchant of Venice was not the only play enacting that evening; and the temptation to break in upon the one, made the doctor, as often as he could, break off the other; though the interest of the plot for a while gave him little chance.

"So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

"Do you suppose, Miss Derrick," said Dr. Harrison with his look of amused pleasure,—"that is because the world is so dark?—or because the effects of the good deed reach to such a distance?"

"Both," said Faith immediately.

"You think the world is so bad?"

"I don't know much of the world," said Faith,—"but I suppose the shining good deeds aren't so very many."

"What makes a good deed shining?" said the doctor.

Faith glanced at Mr. Linden. But he did not take it up, and she was thrown back upon her own resources. She thought a bit.

"I suppose,"—she said,—"its coming from the very spirit of light."

"You must explain," said the doctor good-humouredly but smiling,—"for that puts me in absolute darkness."

"I don't know very well how to tell what I mean," said Faith colouring and looking thoughtful;—"I think I know. Things that are done for the pure love of God and truth, I think, shine; if they are ever so little things, because really there is a great light in them. I think they shine more than some of the greater things that people call very brilliant, but that are done from a lower motive."

"I should like"—said the doctor—"Can you remember an instance or two? of both kinds?"

Well Faith remembered an instance or two of one kind, which she could not instance. She sought in her memory.

"When Daniel kneeled upon his knees three times a day to pray, with his windows open, after the king's law had for bidden any one to do it on pain of death,—" said Faith.—"I think that was a shining good deed!"

"But that was a very notable instance," said the doctor.

"It was a very little thing he did," said Faith. "Only kneeled down to pray in his own room. And it has shined all the way down to us."

"And in later times," said Mr. Linden,—"when the exploring shallop of the Mayflower sought a place of settlement, and after beating about in winter storms came to anchor Friday night at Plymouth Rock;—all Saturday was lost in refitting and preparing, and yet on Sunday they would not land. Those two dozen men, with no human eye to see, with every possible need for haste!"

"That hasn't shined quite so far," said the doctor, "for it never reached me. And it don't enlighten me now! I should have landed."

"Do you know nothing of the spirit of Say and Seal, as well as the province?" said Mr. Linden.

"As how, against landing?"

"They rested that day 'according to the commandment.' Having promised to obey God in all things, the seal of their obedience was unbroken."

"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor—"Now for a counter example."

"I know so little of what has been done," said Faith. "Don't you remember some such things yourself, Dr. Harrison?—Mr. Linden?"—The voice changed and fell a little as it passed from one to the other.

"General Putnam went into the wolf's den, and pulled him out"—said the doctor humorously,—"that's all I can think of just now, and it is not very much in point. I don't know that there was anything very bright about it except the wolf's eyes!—But here we are keeping Portia out of doors, and Miss Derrick waiting! Linden—fall to." And with comical life and dramatic zeal on the doctor's part, in a few minutes more, the play was finished.

"Mrs. Derrick," said the doctor gravely as he rose and stood before her,—"I hope you approve of plays."

Mrs. Derrick expressed her amusement and satisfaction.

"Miss Faith," he said extending his hand,—"I have to thank you for the most perfect enjoyment I have ever had of Shakspeare. I only wish to-morrow evening would roll off on such swift wheels—but it would be too much. Look where this one has rolled to!" And he shewed his watch and hurried off; that is, if Dr. Harrison could be said to do such a thing.

The rest of the party also were stirred from their quiet. Mrs Derrick went out; and Mr. Linden, coming behind Faith as she stood by the fire, gently raised her face till he could have a full view of it, and asked her how she liked being in Venice?

"Very much," she said, smiling and blushing at him,—"very much!"

"You are not the magician's coin!" he said, kissing her. "You are not even a witch. Do you know how I found that out?"

"No"—she said softly, the colour spreading over her face and her eyes falling, but raised again immediately to ask the question of him.

"A witch's charms are always dispelled whenever she tries to cross running water!"—

She laughed; an amused, bright, happy little laugh, that it was pleasant to hear.

"But what did Dr. Harrison mean,—by what he said when he thanked me?What did he thank me for?"

"He said—for a new enjoyment of Shakspeare."

"What did he mean?"

"Do you understand how the sweet fragrance of mignonette can give new enjoyment to a summer's day?"

She blushed exceedingly. "But, Mr. Linden, please don't talk so! And I don't want to give Dr. Harrison enjoyment in that way."