Say and Seal, Volume I

"I am very sorry you found it so!" said the doctor.

"You needn't be—" said Mrs. Derrick, rocking complacently and making her knitting needles play in a style that certainly might be called work,—"I've got over it now. To be sure I was tired to death, but I like to be, once in a while."

The doctor laughed, as if, in a way, he had found his match.

"And how is Miss Derrick?" he asked. "If she was tired too, it was my fault."

"I guess that 'll never be one of your faults, Dr. Harrison," said Mrs. Derrick,—"it would take any amount of folks to tire her out. She's just like a bird always. O she's well, of course, or I shouldn't be sitting here."

"And so like a bird that she lives in a region above mortal view, and only descends now and then?"

"Yes, she does stay upstairs a good deal," said Mrs. Derrick, knitting away. "Whenever she's got nothing to do down here. She's been down all the morning."

"I can't shoot flying at this kind of game," said the doctor;—"I'll endeavour to come when the bird is perched, next time. But in the meanwhile, Miss Derrick seemed pleased the other night with these Chinese illuminations—and Sophy took it into her head to make me the bearer of one, that has never yet illuminated anything, hoping that it will do that office for her heart with Miss Derrick. The heart will bear inspection, I believe, with or without the help of the lantern."

And the doctor laid a little parcel on the table. Mrs. Derrick looked at the parcel, and at the doctor, and knit a round or two.

"I'm sure she'll be very much obliged to Miss Harrison," she said. "But I know I sha'n't remember all the message. I suppose that won't matter."

"Not the least," said the doctor. "The lantern is expected to throw light upon some things. May I venture to give Mrs. Derrick another word to remember, which must depend upon her kindness alone for its presentation and delivery?"

Mrs. Derrick stopped knitting and looked all attention.

"It isn't much to remember," said the doctor laughing gently. "Sophy wishes very much to have Miss Derrick go with her to-morrow afternoon. She is going to drive to Deep River, and wished me to do my best to procure Miss Derrick's goodwill, and yours, for this pleasure of her company. Shall I hope that her wish is granted?"

Now Mrs. Derrick, though not quick like some other people, had yet her own womanly instincts; and that more than one of them was at work now, was plain enough. But either they confused or thwarted each other, for laying down her work she said,

"I know she won't go—but I'll let her come and give her own answer;" and left the room. For another of her woman's wits made her never send Cindy to call Faith from her studies. Therefore she went up, and softly opening the door of the study room, walked in and shut it after her.

"Pretty child," she said, stroking Faith's hair, "are you very busy?"

"Very, mother!"—said Faith looking up with a burning cheek and happy face, and pen pausing in her hand. "What then?"—

"Wasn't it the queerest thing what I said that day at Neanticut!" saidMrs. Derrick, quite forgetting Dr. Harrison in the picture before her.

"What, dear mother?"

"Why when I asked why you didn't get Mr. Linden to help you. How you do write, child!"—which remark was meant admiringly.

"Mother!"—said Faith. "But it can be done"—she added with quiet resolution.

"I'm sure it never could by me, in that style," said Mrs. Derrick,—"my fingers always think they are ironing or making piecrust. But child, here's Dr. Harrison—come for nobody knows what, except that Sophy took it into her head to send her heart by him—as near as I can make out. And he wants you to go to Deep River to-morrow. I said you wouldn't—and then I thought maybe you'd better speak yourself. But if you don't like to, you sha'n't. I can deal with him."

"I don't want to see Dr. Harrison, mother!—To-morrow?" said Faith."Yes—I will see him."

She rose up, laid her pen delicately out of her fingers, went down stairs and into the sitting-room, where she confronted the doctor.

Faith was dressed as she had been at the party, with the single exception of the blue ribband instead of the red oak leaves; and the excitement of what she had been about was stirring both cheek and eye. Perhaps some other stir was there too, for the flush was a little deeper than it had been upstairs, but she met the doctor very quietly. He thought to himself the lanterns had lent nothing with their illumination the other night.

"No, sir," she said as he offered her a chair,—"I have something to do;—but mother said—"

"Will the bird perch for no longer than this?" said the doctor, turning with humourous appeal to Mrs. Derrick who had followed her.

"My birds do pretty much as they like, Dr. Harrison," said Mrs. Derrick"They always did, even when I had 'em in cages."

"Then this bird is free now?"

"I guess you'd better talk to her—" said Mrs. Derrick, taking her seat and her knitting again.

"Miss Derrick!" said the doctor obeying this direction with an obeisance,—"you are free to command, and I can but obey. Will you go with Sophy to-morrow to Deep River? I am not altogether uninterested, as I hope to have the honour of driving you; but she sends her most, earnest wish."

"To-morrow is Sunday, Dr. Harrison."

"Well—isn't Sunday a good day?"

"It isn't mine," said Faith gently.

"Not yours?" said the doctor. "You have promised it away, and we are so unfortunate?"

Her colour rose a little, but it was with an eye as steady as it was soft that she answered him.

"The day belongs to God, Dr. Harrison—and I have promised it, and myself, away to him."

The doctor looked astonished for a minute. And he gazed at her.

"But, my dear Miss Derrick, do you think there is anything contrary to the offices of religion in taking a pleasant drive, in a pleasant country, in pleasant weather? that is all."

Faith smiled a little, gravely; it was very sweet and very grave.

"There are all the other days for that," she said. "God has given us his work to be done on his day, Dr. Harrison; and there is so much of it to do that I never find the day long enough."

"You are right!" he said—"You are quite right. You are a great deal better than I am. I am sorry I asked you,—and yet I am glad.—Then Miss Derrick, will you forgive me? and will you some other day shew that you forgive me and be so good as to go with us?"

But Faith's interest in the subject was gone.

"I am very busy, sir," she said. "I have work to do that I do not wish to put off."

"Cannot you go with us at all? We will wait and make it any day?"

"Do not wait," said Faith. "I could go, but I could not go with pleasure, Dr. Harrison. I have not the time to spare, for that, nor for more now. Please excuse me."

And she went.

"Mrs. Derrick," said the doctor musingly, "this is a winged creature, I believe—but it is not a bird!"

At which Mrs. Derrick looked at him with a mingled satisfaction that he had got his answer, and curiosity to know what he thought of it. For the further she felt herself from her child's high stand, the more presuming did she think it in any one to try to bring her down from it.

"If I thought, as I came here, that I walked on a higher level than the generality of mankind, as perhaps in the vanity of my heart I did,—I feel well put down on the ground now," pursued the doctor. "But Mrs Derrick, when may I hope to see this winged thing of yours again?"