PAUL.
"Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!"
LONGFELLOW.
Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in
making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect
in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice,
old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty
times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and
Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of
fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a
hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the
counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once
more, and to wonder how the minister would like it.
So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he
seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him,
and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself.
In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his
westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss
Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and
where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let
the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping
room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the
sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch
words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the
latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in
this world, and that even she was "in 'em!"
April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things,
also, to pass.
The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe.
Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand,
and would she not come down?
But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was
nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation--Faith's intimacy was
with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons--that she could not escape its
acceptance if she desired; and so--there was a great deal to be done in
summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity,
would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring
lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled
perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a
graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother
fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make
up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which
this year could receive little addition.
One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and
was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss
Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa.
Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along
the quiet road to the village church, together.
Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet,
and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed
like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair
unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own
newness and beauty.
"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting
had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that
you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?"
Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a
deep rosiness that overspread her face.
The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing.
Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for,
from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend.
"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on
the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously
tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave
to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she
said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are
very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's
prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these,
Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about
that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones
between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I
keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that
have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and
the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large
one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely
rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget
Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that
the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith!
It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some
trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!"
Faith had tears in her eyes.
"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct
for things that other people are educated up to."
"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into
this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom God wills to send
us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we
must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel
ever an offense cometh!"
Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not
notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she
came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul
Rushleigh came eagerly to her side.
"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran
away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good,
and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile."
Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush
of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and
her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply.
But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially,
and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and
Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond
mere words of course.
Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy
Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and
looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich
and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field
daisy beside a garden rose.
Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day
before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming
in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers
had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine,
and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful
fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old,
nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and
dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his
cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared
afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his
father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet."
Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners.
Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so
very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly
conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother
might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have
them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries
had not come yet?
When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the
fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes
fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She
grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who
has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing?
Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before?
On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire
about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it,
for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong
usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the
minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she
had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see
Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no
consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting.
To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he
was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him
within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her
slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition,
to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city
visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to
church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she
might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as
abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside
the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it
was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing
it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair
tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment.
The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might
fear--he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that--but
what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who
met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so
much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power--even the
consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face.
What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew
the shame was at having blushed at all.
Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it,
almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt
himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so
dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that
no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his
solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was
there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the
quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that
rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger
and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not
dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also
watch.