Say and Seal, Volume I

"But you take time to go out?"

"Not much."

"I will not ask much. A little will do; and so much you owe to skyey influences. You will not refuse me that?"

"I will go, Dr. Harrison," Faith answered after an instant a little soberly. He rose up then; proposed to attend upon Mr. Linden, and they went up stairs together.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Faith was half ready to wish the next day might be rainy; but it rose fair and bright. She must go to walk, probably; and visiters might come. The only thing to be done was to despatch her ordinary duties as quick as possible, prepare her French exercise, and go to her teacher early. Which she did.

She came in with a face as bright as the day, although a little less ready to look in everybody's eyes. There were enough things ready for her. Lessons were pressed rather more steadily than usual, perhaps because they had been neglected a little for the last two days—or hindered; and it was not till one book and another had done its work, till the exercise was copied and various figure puzzles disposed of, that Mr. Linden told her he thought a talking exercise ought to come next,—if she had one ready he should like to have the benefit of it.

"You are tired, Mr. Linden!" said Faith quickly.

"You may begin by giving me the grounds of that conclusion."

"I don't know," she said half laughing,—"I don't see it; but that don't make me know. I was afraid you were tired with this work."

"Very unsafe, Miss Faith, to build up such a superstructure upon grounds that you neither see nor know. I was immediately beginning to question the style of my own explanations this morning."

"Why, sir?"

"If I seem tired, said explanations may have seemed—tiresome."

She looked silently, with a smile, as if questioning the possibility of his thinking so; and her answer did not go to that point.

"You didn't seem tired, Mr. Linden—I had no reason for thinking so, I suppose. I was only afraid. I was going to ask you what Dr. Harrison meant last night by the angel riding upon a sunbeam? I saw you knew what he meant."

Mr. Linden got up and went for a book—then came back to his couch again.

"Precisely what Dr. Harrison meant, Miss Faith, I should not like to say. What he referred to, was a part of Paradise Lost, where the angels set to guard the earth have a messenger.

'Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even   On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star.'"

"Who is Uriel? an angel?"

"Yes. He is called,

'The archangel Uriel, one of the seven
Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at his command, and are his eyes.
That run through all the heavens, or down to the earth,
Bear his swift errands over moist and dry,
O'er sea and land.'"

Faith listened, evidently with a pleased ear.

"But I suppose the angel could come as well without the sunbeam as with it?"

"I suppose so!" he said smiling. "In my belief, angels go where the sunbeams do not. But Milton chose to name Uriel as the special regent of the sun, and so passing to and fro on its rays."

"What do you mean by 'regent,' Mr. Linden?"

"A regent is one appointed to rule in place of the king."

"But that don't seem to me true, Mr. Linden," said Faith after a little meditation.

"What, and why?"

Faith blushed at finding herself 'in for it,' but went on.

"I don't suppose the sun wants anybody to rule it or to take care of it, under its Maker?"

"Yet it may please him to have guardian spirits there as well as here,—about that we know not. In the Revelation, you know, an angel is spoken of as 'standing in the sun,' and from that Milton took his idea. Part of the description is very beautiful, at least;—

'So spake the false dissembler unperceived;
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By his permissive will, through heaven and earth.
And oft though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems: which now for once beguiled
Uriel, though regent of the sun, and held
The sharpest sighted spirit of all in heaven.'"

"Who is the person spoken of in the first line, Mr. Linden?"

"Satan—applying to Uriel for guidance to the new created earth and its inhabitants, on the same plea that Herod presented to the wise men."

"But that's a story?" said Faith.

"Yes. The Bible only tells the work done by him after he got here."

"Mr. Linden, will you read that over once more for me."

She listened with a face of absorbed intentness while it was read; then looked away from the book with an unconscious but very audible sigh.

"Well?" Mr. Linden said, smiling as he looked at her.

"I like it very much!" was Faith's answer.

"Is that what made you sigh?"

"Sigh!" she said starting a little and colouring. "No,—I didn't mean to sigh."