Say and Seal, Volume I

"I thought, perhaps, when I came away from Pequot to-day, that I might go back again after Monday. I am afraid aunt Dilly will want me."

"How much must people want you, to gain a hearing?"

"There are different kinds of wanting," Faith said gravely. "Aunt Dilly may miss me too much."

"And the abstract 'too much,' is different from the comparative. What about that other 'if'?"

"The other 'if'?—I don't know that there is anything about it, Mr.Linden," Faith said laughing.

"Whence did it come?—before it 'trickeled,' as Bunyan says, to your tongue?"

"I don't know, sir!"—

"Miss Faith!—I did not think you would so forget me in three weeks. Do you want to hear the story of a very cold, icy little brook?" he said, with a sort of amused demureness that gave her the benefit of all his adjectives. She looked up at him with earnest eyes not at all amused, but that verged on being hurt; and it was with a sort of fear of what the real answer might be, that she asked what he meant.

"Miss Faith, I mean nothing very bad," he said with a full smile at her then. "When I really think you are building yourself an ice palace, I shall spend my efforts upon thawing, not talking. What have you been doing all these weeks?"

With a little bit of answering smile she said, in a deliberate kind of way,—"I have been running about house—and learning how to cook French cookery, Mr. Linden—and most of all, I've been reading the Bible. I haven't had time to do much else."

"Do you know," Mr. Linden said as he watched her, "that is just what I thought?—And so you have been going step by step 'up the mountain'! Do you see how the road improves?—do you find the 'richer pastures' and the purer air?"

"O sir," said Faith looking up at him,—"I was reading to aunt Dilly."

"I know,—I understood that. Are not my words true still?"

Gravity and shyness, all except the gravity that belonged to her and to the subject, broke away from Faith. She rose up and stood beside Mr. Linden, moved, happy, and glad with the gladness of full sympathy.

"It has been a pleasant two weeks, Mr. Linden!—though I would have liked to be at home. Aunt Dilly has wanted the Bible, morning, noon, and night;—and it was wonderful to read it to her! It has been my business, all these days."

"My dear child! I am very glad!" he said, taking her hand."Wonderful?—yes, it is wonderful to read, to one who wants it."

"She wanted it so much,"—Faith said, catching her breath a little. "And understood it, Mr. Linden. Very soon it was all—or mostly—clear to her. I read to her sometimes till twelve o'clock at night—and sometimes began at four in the morning."

Mr. Linden looked at her with a mingling of expressions.

"I am afraid that was not good for you,—if one dare say it of any work done in that service. Do you know how much the Bible is like that pillar of fire which guided the Israelites, but to those who were not of Israel became a pillar of cloud,—from which 'the Lord looked out' but 'to trouble them'?"

Faith's eye watched him as he spoke, and caught the power and beauty of the illustration; but she did not speak. Until after thinking and musing a while she said softly, "It don't trouble aunt Dilly."

Mr. Linden drew up a chair for her near his own, but made no other comment upon her or her musings at first,—then abruptly—"And you think she will want you again?"

"There is nobody else to do this for her," said Faith; and again was silent. "How do you suppose it all began with aunt Dilly, Mr. Linden?"

"As to means?—I cannot tell."

"It began from a few words, which I dare say you have forgotten, but which she and I remember,—words that you said one evening when she was here last summer, about everybody's being precious in one sense.—You repeated that passage—'They shall be mine, saith the Lord,'—you know."

Faith did not know what a soft illumination was in her eyes, or she would probably not have turned the light of it so full upon Mr. Linden as at one or two points of her speech she did. It was a grave, sweet look that answered her; but then his eyes went off to the fire without further reply.

Faith did not again interrupt the silence; a silence that to judge by the faces of both was pleasant to both. Till Mrs. Derrick came in, who indeed could not be very long absent. Then Faith left her place, sat down on a low seat by her mother and caressingly took possession of her hands and arms. She made no more startling propositions that night of going back to Pequot again; and the minutes of the evening flowed on—as such minutes do.

The Sunday which followed was one as quietly happy as is often known in this world. And the next day was Christmas.

END OF VOL. I