Then they drove on in silence, for a while; and then the minister, pleasantly and easily, brought on a conversation of everyday matters; and so they came to Cross Corners, just as Mrs. Gartney was gazing a little anxiously out of the window, down the road.
Mrs. Gartney urged the minister to come in and join them at the tea table; but "it was late in the week--he had writing to finish at home that evening--he would very gladly come another time."
"Mother!" cried Faith, presently, moving out of a dream in which she had been sitting before the fire, "I wonder whether it has been two hours, or two weeks, or two years, since we set off from the kitchen door! I have seen so much, and I have heard so much. I told Mr. Armstrong, after we met him, that I had been through the Alhambra and the Vatican, and into fairyland, and over the Alps. And after that, mother," she added, low, "I think he almost took me into heaven!"
CHAPTER XIX.
A "LEADING."
"The least flower, with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup, may stand And share its dewdrop with another near."
MRS. BROWNING.
Glory McWhirk was waiting upstairs, in Faith"s pretty, white, dimity-hung chamber.
These two girls, of such utterly different birth and training, were drawing daily toward each other across the gulf of social circ.u.mstance that separated them.
Twice a week, now, Glory came over, and found her seat and her books ready in Miss Faith"s pleasant room, and Faith herself waiting to impart to her, or to put her in the way of gathering, those bits of week-day knowledge she had ignorantly hungered for so long.
Glory made quick progress. A good, plain foundation had been laid during the earlier period of her stay with Miss Henderson, by a regular attendance, half daily, at the district school. Aunt Faith said "n.o.body"s time belonged to anybody that knew better themselves, until they could read, and write, and figure, and tell which side of the globe they lived on." Then, too, the girl"s indiscriminate gleaning from such books as had come in her way, through all these years, a.s.sorted itself gradually, now, about new facts.
Glory"s "good times" had, verily, begun at last.
On this day that she sat waiting, Faith had been called down by her mother to receive some village ladies who had walked over to Cross Corners to pay a visit. Glory had time for two or three chapters of "Ivanhoe," and to tell Hendie, who strayed in, and begged for it, Bridget Foye"s old story of the little red hen, while the regular course of topics was gone through below, of the weather--the new minister--the last meeting of the Dorcas Society--the everlasting wants and helplessness of Mrs. Sheffley and her seven children, and whether the society had better do anything more for them--the trouble in the west district school, and the question "where the Dorcas bag was to go next time."
At last, the voices and footsteps retreated, through the entry, the door closed somewhat promptly as the last "good afternoon" was said, and Faith sprang up the narrow staircase.
There was a lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for this was Sat.u.r.day.
Before Glory went it had come to be Faith"s practice always to read to her some bit of poetry--a gem from Tennyson or Mrs. Browning, or a stray poem from a magazine or paper which she had laid by as worthy.
"Glory," said she, to-day, "I"m going to let you share a little treasure of mine--something Mr. Armstrong gave me."
Glory"s eyes deepened and glowed.
"It is thoughts," said Faith. "Thoughts in verse. I shall read it to you, because I think it will just answer you, as it did me. Don"t you feel, sometimes, like a little brook in a deep wood?"
Glory"s gaze never moved from Faith"s face. Her poetical instinct seized the image, and the thought of her life applied it.
"All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I _did_, Miss Faith. But I think it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am getting----"
"Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don"t steal the verses before I read them!
You"re such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything."
And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was uplifted to hers.
""Up in the wild, where no one comes to look, There lives and sings, a little lonely brook; Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines.
""Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought; And down dim hollows, where it winds along, Bears its life-burden of unlistened song.
""I catch the murmur of its undertone That sigheth, ceaselessly,--alone! alone!
And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously Shout on their paths toward the shining sea!
""The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun; And wearing names of honor, every one; Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand To pour great gifts along the asking land.
""Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines!
Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines!
Sing on among the stones, and secretly Feel how the floods are all akin to thee!
""Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth; Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth; For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky, Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!""
Faith"s voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory"s cheeks.
"Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself.
"Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain"t sure whether I was meant to tell; but do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she won"t; I"m afraid not; it would be _too_ good a time! but he wants her to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!"
Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation till the deliberations had become conclusions.
"Why, you don"t seem glad!"
"I _am_ glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr.
Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still.
It was quite true that Mr. Armstrong had this wish. Hitherto, he had been at the house of the elder minister, Mr. Holland. A unanimous invitation had been given to Mr. Armstrong by the people to remain among them as their settled pastor. This he had not yet consented to do. But he had entered upon another engagement of six months, to preach for them. Now he needed a permanent home, which he could not conveniently have at Mr. Holland"s.
There was great putting of heads together at the "Dorcas," about it.
Mrs. Gimp "would offer; but then--there was Serena, and folks would talk."
Other families had similar holdbacks--that is the word, for they were not absolute insuperabilities--wary mothers were waiting until it should appear positively necessary that _somebody_ should waive objection, and take the homeless pastor in; and each watched keenly for the critical moment when it should be just late enough, and not too late, for her to yield.
Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong quietly left all this seething, and walked off out of the village, one day, to Cross Corners, and asked Miss Henderson if he might have one of her quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned rooms.
Miss Henderson was deliberating.
This very afternoon, she sat in the southwest tea parlor, with her knitting forgotten in her lap, and her eyes searching the bright western sky, as if for a gleam that should light her to decision.
"It ain"t that I mind the trouble. And it ain"t that there isn"t house room. And it ain"t that I don"t like the minister," soliloquized she.
"It"s whether it would be respectable common sense. I ain"t going to take the field with the Gimps and the Leatherbees, nor to have them think it, either. She"s over here almost every blessed day of her life.
I might as well try to keep the sunshine out of the old house, as to keep her; and I should be about as likely to want to do one as the other. But just let me take in Mr. Armstrong, and there"d be all the eyes in the village watching. There couldn"t so much as a cat walk in or out, but they"d know it, somehow. And they"d be sure to say she was running after the minister."
Miss Henderson"s p.r.o.nouns were not precise in their reference. It isn"t necessary for soliloquy to be exact. She understood herself, and that sufficed.
"It would be a disgrace to the parish, anyhow," she resumed, "to let those Gimps and Leatherbees get him into their net; and they"ll do it if Providence or somebody don"t interpose. I wish I was sure whether it was a leading or not!"