Faith had no chance to think that night. She went to sleep
conscientiously. And a chance the next morning was out of the question.
She dared not come down as early as usual, if her own strength would
have let her. The few minutes before breakfast were busy ones; and the
few hours after breakfast. Faith went about with the consciousness of
something on her heart to be looked at; but it had to bide its time.
Her household duties done, her preparations for Mr. Linden being
already in advance, she had leisure to attend to this other thing. And
alone Faith sat down and looked at it.
It was the first real steady trial her life had known. Her father's
death had come when she was too young to feel deeply any want that her
mother could not fill. To be away from anything she much loved was a
sorrow Faith hardly knew by experience. But a two years' separation was
a very, very heavy and sharp pain to think of; and Faith had an inward
assurance that the reality would be heavier and sharper than her
thoughts beforehand could make it. Perhaps it was too great a pain to
be struggled with; for Faith did not struggle--or not long. She sat
down and looked at it,--what she had not dared to do the night
before;--measured it and weighed it; and then bowed her heart and head
to it in utter submission. With it came such a crowd of glad and good
things, things indeed that made the trial and were bound up with
it,--that Faith locked the one and the other up in her heart together.
And remembering too the sunshine of joy in which she had lately lived,
she humbly confessed that some check might be needed to remind her and
make her know that earth has not the best sunshine, and that any gain
would be loss that turned her eyes away from that best, or lessened her
sense of its brightness.
So there came no shadow over her at all, either that day or afterwards.
The clear light of her face was not clouded, and her voice rung to the
same tune. There was no shadow, nor shade of a shadow. There _was_ a
little subdued air; a little additional gravity, a trifle more of
tenderness in her looks and ways, which told of the simpleness of heart
with which she had quietly taken what God gave and was content with it.
To Mr. Linden the trial was not new, and to sorrow of various kinds he
was wonted; but it was new to him to see her tried, and to that he
found it hard to accustom himself. Yet he carried out his words,--Faith
could feel a sort of atmosphere of bright strength about her all the
time. How tenderly she was watched and watched over she could partly
see, but pain or anxiety Mr. Linden kept to himself. He set himself to
work to make her enjoy every minute. Yet he never shunned the subject
of his going away,--he let her become used to the sound of the words,
and to every little particular connected with it--they were all told
her by degrees; but told with such bright words of hope and trust, that
Faith took the pain as it were diluted.
Before all this had gone far--indeed not many days after the first
telling of his story, Faith had come down as usual one early morning to
her work. She had been down about an hour, when she heard the door open
and Mr. Linden came in. He had two seconds' view of the picture before
she rose up to meet him. There was no lamp yet burning in the room. A
fire of good hard wood threw its light over everything, reflected back
from the red curtains which fell over the windows. In the very centre
of the glow, Faith sat on a low cushion, with her book on a chair. She
was dressed exactly, for nicety, as if she might have been going to
Judge Harrison's to tea. And on the open pages, and on Faith's bright
hair, edging her ruffles, and warming up her brown dress, was the soft
red fall of the firelight. She rose up immediately with her usual glad
look, behind which lay a doubtful surmising as to his errand. It was on
her lips to ask what had brought him down so early, but she was
prudently silent. He came forward quick and quietly, according to his
wont, not at all as if she were about anything unusual, and giving her
one of those greetings which did sometimes betray the grave feeling he
kept so well in hand, he brought her back to the fire.
"Little bird," he said, "what straws are you weaving in at present?"
"I don't know. Not any--unless thoughts."
"Will it please you to state what you are doing?"
"I was reading. I had just got to the end of the story of Moses
blessing Israel. I was thinking of these words--" and she took up her
book and shewed him. "Happy art thou, O Israel, saved of the Lord, the
shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency."
"Did you ever look out any of the answering passages in other parts of
the Bible?"
"Not often. I don't know them. Once in a while I think of one. And then
they are so beautiful!"
Mr. Linden took the book from her hand, turning from place to place and
reading to her.
"'Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in
the Lord his God: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that
therein is: which keepeth truth forever.' That is what David
said,--then hear how Isaiah answers--'Behold, God is my salvation; I
will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and
my song; he also is become my salvation.'--And again--'Israel shall be
saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be
ashamed nor confounded, world without end.'"
Faith drew a little quick breath.
"Doesn't it seem," she said, "as if words were heaped on words to
prevent our being afraid?"
"I think it really is so; till we have a shield of promises as well as
protection. After Abraham had gone out of his own country, 'not knowing
whither he went', 'the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Fear not,
Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.' Then David
takes that up and expatiates upon it,--finding in it 'both things
present and things to come,' dear Faith."
"'For the Lord God is a sun and a shield: the Lord will give grace and
glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O
Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.'"
She looked down at the words, then up at him with a glad, sunshiny
light in her eyes. Her comment on the whole was heartfelt, and
comprehensive. "How good it was you came down this morning!"
"Would you like to have me come every morning?"
"Oh how much!--But that's no use, Endecott."
"Why not?"
"I mustn't get to depending upon you too much," she said with a smile.
"What had you been musing about--to make you so glad this morning?" he
said looking at her.
"Nothing!--but those passages as you read them one after the other were
so beautiful, and felt so strong.--It was a great pleasure to hear you
read them,"--she said dropping her voice a little in confession.
"It shall be as you like, darling, about my coming again. But dear
Faith, of this other morning work you must let me say a word."
"What, Endecott?"
"You are doing too much."
"No. What makes you think so?"
Significantly Mr. Linden laid his hand on the pile of study books.
"Well?"
"Well.--For the future please to let these gentry rest in peaceful
seclusion until after breakfast."
"Oh no, Endy!"
"My dear, I shall have you turning into a moonbeam. Just imagine what
it would cost me to call you 'pale Cynthia'!"
"You needn't imagine it, Endecott."
"Only so far as to prevent the reality. Do you know I have been afraid
of this for some time."
"Of what?"
"Afraid that you were disregarding the bounds I have laid down for
study and the sun for sleep."
"I didn't know you had laid down any bounds," she said gaily
again--"and I never did mind the sun."
"Well won't you mind me?" said he smiling. "I have a right to expect
that in study matters, you know."
"Don't try me--" said Faith, very winningly, much more than she knew.
He stood looking at her, with the sweet unbent expression which was her
special right.
"Faith, don't you mean to love to have me take care of you?"
That brought a change of look, and it was curious to see the
ineffectual forces gather to veil what in spite of them wreathed in her
smile and laid an additional roseleaf upon each cheek. The shy eyes
retreated from view; then they were raised again as she touched his arm
and said, with a demure softness, "What must I do, Endy?"
"Be content with the old study hours, my dear child. They are long
enough, and many enough."
"Oh Endy!--not for me."
"For thee."
Faith looked down and looked disturbed.
"Then, Endecott, I sha'n't be as wise as I want to be,--nor as you want
to have me."
"Then you will be just as wise as I want you to be," he said with a
smile. "As to the rest, pretty child,--do you mean that my wife shall
deprive me of my scholar?"
Faith turned away and said rather quickly, "Endy, how did you know?"
"From some lesson evidence. And I always hear you come down--and whiles
I see a face at breakfast which has not lately come from rest."
Faith's secret thought was that it was better than rest. But after
folding her hands with a grave face, she looked up at Mr. Linden with a
smile which yielded the whole question.
"To prove to you what a naughty child you have been," said Mr. Linden,
"I shall give you an increase of outdoor lessons, and take you off on
an expedition the first mild day. On which occasion you may study
me--if you have any of Miss Essie's curiosity."
"Don't I?" said Faith. "And I am going to do it more. What expedition
are you going on, Endecott?"
"Up to Kildeer river--I have business there. Will you trust yourself to
me in a boat--if I will let you steer?"
"I'll do anything to go," said Faith. "And I suppose if I steered
wrong, the helm would come about pretty quick!" And so ended her last
early morning studies.
It was in the afternoon of the same day that Faith put in practice what
she had been thinking of when she avowed her determination of further
studying Mr. Linden. He had come home from school, and it was the dusky
hour again; the pleasant interregnum between day and night when even
busy folk take a little time to think and rest. Mr. Linden was
indulging in both apparently; he was in one of those quiet times of
doing nothing which Faith chose for making any of her very gentle
attacks upon him. One seemed to be in meditation now. She stole up
behind him and leaned down on the back of his chair, after her wont.
"Endecott"--she said softly.
Faith's voice was in ordinary a pleasant thing to hear; but this name
from her lips was always a concretion of sweetness, flavoured
differently as the case might be. Sometimes with mere gladness,
sometimes with the spirit of fun, often enough with a little timidity,
and sometimes with a rose-drop from the very bottom of her heart's
well; with various compounds of the same. But this time it was more
than timidity; Faith's one word was spoken as from lips that were
positively afraid to follow it with others.
"That note," said Mr. Linden smiling, "seems to come from the top of a
primeval pine tree--with a hawk in sight! Little bird, will you please
come down into the lower regions of air?--where you can be
(comparatively) safe."
Faith laughed; but the hawk remained in sight--of her words.
"You said this morning I never asked you any but impossible things."
"Most sorrowfully true!--have you another one ready?"
"If I ask you something possible, what will you do?" she said, softly
touching the side of his head with her hand. It was Faith's utmost
freedom; a sort of gentle admiring touch of her fingers which the thick
locks of hair felt hardly more than a spider's feet.
"That depends so much upon the thing!" he said, half turning to give
her the look which belonged to his words. "There are such a variety of
ways in which I might deal with it--and with you."
"I am not going to ask you anything but what would be right."
"You do not doubt that my answer will be conformable?"
"Yes I do. It will be your 'right,' but it may not be my 'right,' you
know."
"If you get what is not your right, you ought to be contented," said
Mr. Linden.
"Now you have turned me and my meaning round! Endecott--you know Aunt
Dilly gave me something?--mayn't I--won't you let me lend it to you?"
Very low and doubtfully the words came out! But if Faith had any more
to say, she had little chance for a while. One quick look round at her
Mr. Linden gave, but then he sprang up and came to where she stood,
lifting her face and giving her her "right" in one sense at least.
Other answer he made none.
"Endy--have I asked a possible thing this time?" she said under breath.
"My precious child!--Do you think it possible?"
"It ought to be possible, Endecott." And if ever an humble suggestion
of a possibility was made, Faith made it then.
"I shall have to go back to my first answer," said Mr. Linden,--"I have
no words for any other. Faith, dearest--don't you know that it is not
needful? Will that content you, little sweet one?"
A soft "no."
"Why not?" he said, making good his threat. "What do you want me to
have more than I need?"
"I fear the ways you will take to make that true. I should think you
might, Endecott!"--The ellipsis was not hard to supply.
"I shall not take any unlawful means--nor any unwise ones, I hope," he
said lightly. "What are you afraid I shall do?"
"Get up early in the morning," she whispered.
"But that is so pleasant! Do you suppose I get up late now, little
bird?"
"Not late, with breakfast at seven. How early do you?"
"Philosophically early! Do you know you have not had your poem
to-day?--what shall it be? sunrise or sunset?"
"Which you please," she said gently, with the tone of a mind upon
something else. Mr. Linden looked down at her in silence for a minute.
"Dear Faith," he said, "I told you truly that there is no need. This
year's work has done quite as much as I thought it would. What are you
afraid of?"
"I am not afraid of much," she said, looking up at him now with a clear
brow. "But Endy, I have changed my mind about something. Could you
easily come down and read with me a little while every morning?--or are
you busy?"
"I am never too busy to spend time with you, my child,--that is one
piece of pleasure I shall always allow myself. At what hour shall I
come?"
"At six o'clock, can you?" said Faith. "If you gave me a quarter of an
hour then, I should still have time enough for breakfast work. This
morning I was afraid--but I was foolish. This evening I want all I can
get. And when you read me a _ladder of verses_ again," she said
smiling, "I shall mark them in my Bible, and then I shall have them by
and by--when you are gone."
"Yes, and I can send you more. It is good to go up a ladder of Bible
verses when one is afraid--or foolish," he said gently and answering
her smile. "One end of it always rests on earth, within reach of the
weakest and weariest."
"That is just it! Oh Endy," she said, clasping her hands sadly and
wishfully before her and her eyes tilling as she spoke--"I wish there
were more people to tell people the truth!"