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 Pattaquasset 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 butter; 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 passing 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 Pattaquasset--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--nobody 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 nobody
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 Pattaquasset
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 passing, 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.