Mrs Derrick went to Pequot the next day, and found Miss Danforth as Faith had left her; or rather, somewhat more failing in everything but mind-strength. Mrs. Derrick was greatly welcomed by both ladies; but she had not been there three hours when Miss Dilly spoke out what was on her heart.
"Isn"t Faith coming back to me again?"
For Faith"s sake her mother hesitated, and yet it was for Faith"s sake that she answered,--"Yes, if you want her."
"It won"t be for long I shall want her,"--said Miss Dilly with a quietness very unlike her old self:--"but I would like to have her dear face and music about me once more--if she can let me."
Mrs. Derrick came back with Mr. Stoutenburgh to Pattaqua.s.set that same evening; and Faith put up her books and made immediate preparations for going to Pequot in her stead.
"I must let you go, child," said her mother,--"I couldn"t refuse."
"And I am so glad to-morrow is Wednesday, for I can take you over,"
said Mr. Linden.
Wednesday afternoon was very fair, and after dinner Faith and all her needful baggage were bestowed in the little sleigh, and the journey began. Not very much of a journey indeed, unless compared with the length of day-light; but as fair and bright and pleasant as a journey could be. Full of talk of all sorts,--gliding on through the fading day and the falling night, until
----"the floor of heaven Was thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
Very bright the stars were, very dark the sky, when Jerry"s bells began to mingle with a crowd of others in the streets of Pequot. Faith had insisted that Mr. Linden should come in and have a cup of tea or coffee before he went back again; and this being a not unreasonable request, besides a pleasant one, she had her way.
Miss Danforth was in her room and could not see Mr. Linden. Faith with a kiss and a word established the little Frenchwoman to talk to him, obtaining leave to do what she pleased; though Madame Danforth managed to have her share in the hospitality; got out cups and saucers for Faith and Mr. Linden both on a little table by the fire,--her rolls and her b.u.t.ter; talking all the while to him; and took a minute to run down into the kitchen and see that Faith and the coffee-pot were getting on properly. And it may be said in pa.s.sing that the result did credit to both. The coffee served to Mr. Linden was faultless. Madame Danforth however had hardly presented him his cup, when she was called off and her guests were left alone.
"Faith," said Mr. Linden, "you must not forget that you have something to do for me as well as for other people while you are here."
"I don"t forget it. But what do you mean, Endecott?"
"To put it in the most effective way--I mean that you must take care of me!" he said smiling.
"I will. As good care as you would take of yourself."
"That is a little ambiguous! But will you send me word very often of your success?"
Faith looked up and looked at him, a little startled.
"Do you mean--"
"I mean that there is a postoffice in Pattaqua.s.set--and another in Pequot."
She coloured, and somewhat hastily busied herself with refilling Mr.
Linden"s cup. Then she folded her hands and sat looking into the fire with a face on which there was a touching expression of humbleness.
"My little Mignonette," he said, "what are you thinking of?"
"I am thinking of that,"--she said with a smile which did not change the expression. "Of what you want me to do--and about it."
"What about it? Are you inditing a letter to me on the spot?"
"No."
"What then?"
Faith would have liked to have her face out of sight, but she couldn"t, conveniently.
"I am thinking, how I shall do it--and how you will not like it."
"_You_ don"t know"--said Mr. Linden. "Let me tell you how I shall like it. I shall read it, and love it, and answer it--will that satisfy you?
or do you want me to hang it round my neck by a blue ribband?--because if you do, I will."
The laughing flash of Faith"s eye contained nevertheless a protest.
"No, you will not like it, because it will not be fit for you to like; but you will have patience with it,"--she said with a smile which did in its loveliness bid good-bye to shadows.
Mr. Linden left the table, and standing before her as she had risen too, took her face softly in both hands and raised it up for his inspection.
"Do you know what a naughty child you are?"
A most quaint little "yes."
"Then why don"t you behave better?" he said, enforcing his question but not releasing her.
"I suppose you will teach me, in time"--she said, blushing and sparkling under his hands. He seemed to like to study her face--or was thinking that he should not see it again for some time,--the expression on his own belonged to more than one thing.
"You must not make me wait for that letter, Faith," he said--"and I must not let you keep me any longer here! But if you want anything, of any sort, you must send to me."
"Yes!--to you or to mother."
"To me--if it is anything I can do," he said as he bade her good-bye.
"And take care of yourself, dear child, for me." And releasing her at last, none too willingly, Mr. Linden went out alone into the starlight.
He did not see--nor guess--how Faith stood before the fire where he had left her, looking down into it,--motionless and grave until Madame Danforth came back. Then all that part of her life was shut up within her, and Faith was again to other eyes what she had been before at Pequot. Yet not so entirely the same, nor was all that part of her life so entirely shut up to herself, that both her aunt and Madame Danforth did not have a thought and exchange a word on the subject.
"The sun has found the blossom!" said the little Frenchwoman knowingly one day; "they do not open so without that!"
"Nonsense!" said Miss Danforth. "I will ask her." But she never did.
And for a little while again Faith filled her old office. Miss Dilly had no troubles or darkness to clear away now; the Bible was plain sailing to her; but she could never spread her sails too soon or too full for that navigation. Early and late, as before, Faith read to her, with a joy and gladness all brightened from the contrast of that Sunday night"s reading, and coming with a fuller spring since that one little word of her mother the same night. Indeed the last few days had seemed to make the Bible even greatly more precious to Faith than ever before.
She clung more fast, she searched more eagerly, among its treasures of riches, to its pillars of strength; valuing them all, as it seemed to her, with a new value, with a fresh knowledge of what might be found and won there for others and herself. So with the very eagerness of love Faith read the Bible to Miss Dilly; and so as she had done before, many a time, early and late, in childlike simpleness prayed at her bedside and by her chair. And as before when she was at Pequot she won Madame Danforth"s heart, she intrenched herself there now. She was all over the house, carrying a sunbeam with her; but Faith never thought it was her own. She was a most efficient maid of all work, for nursing and too much care had worn poor Madame Danforth not a little. Faith was upper servant and cook by turns; and sometimes went to market; made every meal pleasant with her gentle happy ways; and comforted the two old ladies to the very top of comfort.
Whether she wanted to be at home or not, Faith did not stop to ask herself. But those letters--those letters--they were written, and they were carried to the postoffice--and others were found at the postoffice in reply to them. And what had been such trial in the proposition, became, even in the first instance, the joy of Faith"s life. She wrote hers how she could; generally at night, when she could be quite uninterrupted and alone. It was often very late at night, but it was always a time of rare pleasure and liberty of heart; for if the body were tired, the spirit was free. And Faith"s was particularly free, for the manacles and fetters of pride which weigh so bitter heavy on many a mind and life, her gentle and true spirit had let fall. She knew--n.o.body better--that her letters were not like those letters of Mr. Linden"s sister, Pet:--those exquisite letters, where every grace and every talent of a finely gifted and fully cultivated mind seemed playing together with all the rich stores of the past and realities of the present. She knew, that in very style and formalities of execution, her own letters were imperfect and unformed. But she was equally sure that in time what was wrong in this kind would be made right; and she was not afraid to be found wrong, at all, for her own sake. It was because of somebody else, that she had flinched from this writing proposal; because she felt that what was wrong in _her_ touched him now. But there again, Faith wrote, trusting with an absolute trust in the heart and hand to which she sent her letters; willing to be found wrong if need be; sure to be set right truly and gently. And so, Faith wrote her own heart and life out, from day to day, giving Mr. Linden precisely what he wanted, and with a child"s fearlessness. It was a great thing to go to the postoffice those days! Faith left it to n.o.body else to do for her. And how strange--how weird, almost, the signature of those letters and her own name on the outside looked to her, in the same free, graceful handwriting which she had read on that little card so long ago! And the letters themselves?--enough to say, that they made Faith think of the way she had been sheltered from the wind, and carried upstairs when her strength failed, and read to and talked to and instructed,--that they made her long to be home and yet content to be there; giving her all sorts of details, of things in Pattaqua.s.set and things elsewhere--just as the writer would have talked them to her; with sometimes a word of counsel, or of caution, or of suggestion,--or some old German hymn which she might find of use in her ministrations, written out in full. It may be mentioned in pa.s.sing, that the fair little face he had been looking at, or her evident fear of writing to him, made Mr. Linden write to her that very night; a little sugarplum of a letter, which Faith had for her dinner next day.
And Faith read these letters at all sorts of times, and thought of them at other times; and made them next to her Bible--as she should.
CHAPTER X.