And the timid little fingers laid the ring into his hand, to do with as he would.

What else could Paul have done?

With the strong arm that should henceforth uphold and guard her, he drew her close; and with the other hand slipped the simply jeweled round upon her finger. For all word of answer, he lifted it, so encircled, to his lips.

Faith shrank and trembled.

Hendie's voice sounded, jubilant, along the upper floor, toward the staircase.

"I will go, now, if you wish. Perhaps I ought," said Paul. "And yet, I would so gladly stay. May I come again, by and by?"

Faith uttered a half-audible assent, and as Hendie's step came nearer down the stairs, and passed the door, straight out upon the grassplot, toward the gate, and the long-tailed black horse that stood there, she escaped again to her own chamber.

Hendie had his ride. Meanwhile, his sister, down upon her knees at her bedside, struggled with the mystery and doubt of her own heart. Why could she not feel happier? Would it never be otherwise? Was this all life had for her, in its holiest gift, henceforth? But, come what might, she would have God, always!

So, without words, only with tears, she prayed, and at last, grew calm.



CHAPTER XXIV.

CONFLICT.

"O Life, O Beyond, Art thou fair!—art thou sweet?" MRS. BROWNING.

There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of pleasantness.

Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as jolly as it could be!"

Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and all they would do and have together.

And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she said, fearfully, every now and then:

"Paul—I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?"

And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and persuaded himself and her that he had no fear—that he was quite satisfied.

When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept.

She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail.

The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and something of Faith's wonted manner returned.

"It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a great deal. And such kind words from you touch me."

"My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who have so much loving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, always."

The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him the help she did most sorely need.

And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away.

Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are fairly out of the nursery.

One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news.

Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New York—matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two—he bade his son to ask.

Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their stay.

Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go back with him, they would explain to her.

So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan.

"We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying him?"

"It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose."

It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith—this free companionship with Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion—and the very thoughtful look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke.

Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more than mere maidenly shyness.

By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her.

"Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't sing unless you go, too."

Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own.

"How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it all right? Does the child care for Paul?"

"Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. "How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of doubting whether I cared for you."

It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her boy had chosen.

"Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted him? I know Faith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious."

"I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no doubt of her motive or her worth—I can't say it is really a doubt of anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain."

"I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves."

"Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her—or let her hurry herself."

"Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!"

Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand.

"We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!"

Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to her?

Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself.

The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at Cross Corners.

On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the summer parlor.

"Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do for me—do you know?"

"What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly.

"You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard."

He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it.

Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry.

"I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own.

Paul drew back—hurt, silent.

"If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!"

She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge for the future—these diamonds!

"Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice.

"I told you," said Faith, "that I would try—to be to you as you wish; but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?—I don't know why I feel so uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy."

Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith Gartney's love.

"And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is not love at all—if I frighten you, and repel you—I have no wish to make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet—oh, Faith!" he cried—the sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, and driving wild words before it—"it can't be that it is no love, after all! It would be too cruel!"

At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched.

She sobbed, silently.

"Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again."

So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound.

"And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as they do—how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this indecision?"

"They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I ask it of you—do not refuse me this—to let all rest just here; to make no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?"

"Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly.

It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more.

And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with.

"I think you do care for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted.

"I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from you!"

She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been.

Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a woman's heart?



CHAPTER XXV.

A GAME AT CHESS.

"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, I lapse into the glad release Of nature's own exceeding peace." WHITTIER.

"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the Almanac."

"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret. Still, I shall be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' Battis should be afraid."

Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to Factory Village.

"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!"

"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important relation."

"Symptoms differ, in different cases. I should say she was taking it pretty hard," said the old lady.

Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday.

Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to help; and when all was done—blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, fire out, ashes removed—stove blackened—Luther drove Mis' Battis and her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for her to the Old House.

This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'.

"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. "I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and quiet, after this busy day."

There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will had been laid asleep—earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all their incompleteness and uncertainty—and only God and Nature had been permitted to come near.

Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field.

"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!"

"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.'"

They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came up together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them.

"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our tea."

Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond.

Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister.

"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly.

"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong.

"Why don't you advise her, then?"

"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a help from me. But—I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson—spirit and heart are two. I am a man; and she is—what you know."

Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, all there was to tell.

Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game.

"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing—the moves."

"Suppose we play."

It was a very pleasant novelty—sitting down with this grave, earnest friend to a game of skill—and seeing him bring to it all the resource of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important work.

"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in danger."

"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in exchange."

"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak to claim and hold it."

"Only I make you lose yours, too."

"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better game, or one pleasanter to play?"

"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by.

Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself.

For half an hour, there was no more talking.

Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril.

"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone."

A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that might be pushed to queen and save her game.

"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!"

"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost—once missed—we may struggle on without it—we may push little chances forward to partial amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone."

As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate.

Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things she had brought from washing.

Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him into the instant's forgetfulness?

However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces over the little board and its mystic pieces.

One, pale—downcast—with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving—looking on.

"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em—or to see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!"

They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with.

Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, to-night, of those words that had startled her so—of all they suggested or might mean—of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it—relinquishing it—now.

She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had spoken those dreary syllables—"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!"



CHAPTER XXVI.

LAKESIDE.

"Look! are the southern curtains drawn? Fetch me a fan, and so begone! . . . . . Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair; And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes." O. W. HOLMES.

The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's morning.

Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods and water.

Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning.

Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window—a book upon her lap, to be sure—but her eyes away off over the lake, and a look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly.

Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter.

When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; but—was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly glad.

And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look!

"Good morning, Faithie!"

"Good morning." And the glance came back—the reverie was broken—Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again, and bade him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the early train, half an hour ago."

"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?"

"Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!"

"It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her finger."

Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? They had not surely quarreled!

Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or muffins—eggs or raspberries.

Do we not—and most strangely and incomprehensively—live two lives?

"I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day."

"I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with answering Paul?"

A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came over it, and that the lips trembled.

"I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day."

"Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting creatures!"

"Paul is very patient," said Faith—not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience—"and they go to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to Saratoga."

She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve.

When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent, from Faith—a mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was from his father.

"There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily ratify—release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should doubt. But if she is fearful—if she hesitates—be fearful, and hesitate yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!"

Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in reply. He wrote, also, to Faith—affectionately, but with something, at last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, or less, he would be home.

And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the hope of a life—the sharp doubt of days—waiting the final word!

In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much!

Wednesday had come round again.

Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly mitigated from that of midday.

They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what might be done after.

"For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have you with me."

"Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!"

"I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you go, Faith?"

"Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and things—that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming all day long in this horrible heat—as you are! I believe she expects to help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!"

"I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!"

Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke.

"Well—your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!"

Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he inquired for Miss Gartney.

Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall.

"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"—as Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room—"can't come in. Sorry I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and they lie round the other way."

"Is Aunt Faith ill?"

"Well—no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have you there."

"I'll come."

And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round to Cross Corners, after going to his mills.

"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night."

"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh.

"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly.

But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river.

Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies of vine and branch it wandered through.

Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch—turning the fresh-cut leaves of the August Mishaumok—she forgot the wheels and the spindles—the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir.

Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom.



CHAPTER XXVII.

AT THE MILLS.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,— Their wind comes in our faces,— Till our hearts turn,—our head with pulses burning,— And the walls turn in their places." MRS. BROWNING.

Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along.

"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last—"do you know how true a thing you said a little while ago?"

"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant.

"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?"

And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held, along the line of factory buildings that lay before them.

A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. She sat and suffered it under his eye—uttering not a syllable.

"I knew you did not know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"

Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.

"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my children are happy, Faith."

"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech—"one cannot expect to be utterly happy in this world."

"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given what seems to one life's first, great good—the earthly good that comes but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is seldom overwise."

"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is a fearful one."

"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.'"

"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an end.

Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about one of the side doors.

The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of her companions, slowly recovering.

"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever walk."

"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland."

But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my child?"

"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy for the poor workgirl, in her voice—"don't think of me! It's lovely out there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the walk—really."

"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take Mary Grover up to the Peak."

And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the mill.

Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, remained.

Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks.

She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from the end of the mill building.

Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which communicated, also, with the second story of the mill.

Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the angry voices of men.

"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!"

"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you."

"Let him be done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet."

"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil."

"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D——d if I don't!"

Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase.

Above—in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of the field beyond—it was so cool and pleasant—so still with continuous and softened sound—that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, to rest, to think, to be alone, a little.

She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God should show her how.

She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.

It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

LOCKED IN.

"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were anything else in the world."—HARE.

It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation upon some catastrophe or denouement that develops itself therefrom.

Last night, a man—an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory—had been kept awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter—but it has to do with our story.

Last night, also, Faith—Paul's second letter just received—had lain sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she felt—thus, or so—in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure of her feeling now?

The new wine in the old bottles—the new cloth in the old garment—these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a seething—a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and torn—wonderingly, helplessly—in the half-comprehended struggle!

So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed her into rest.

She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on—she fell asleep.

How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she awoke.

Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was here alone. That it was night—that nobody could know it—that she was locked up here, in the great dreary mill.

She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked—it was going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, solitary.

Nobody knew it—she was here alone.

She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving thing—in darkness—where so lately had been the deafening hum of rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and she forgotten on its mighty, silent course.

Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps—it would cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be morning.

The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and quiet.

So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the sofa, covering herself with that.

For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from her actual situation—became indistinct—and slumber held her again, dreamily.

There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of.

Michael Garvin, the night watchman—the same whose child had been ill the night before—when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten.

He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber.

Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above—stopped, and looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently.

He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent—long before Faith, who thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness of her strange position—he was fast asleep.

Fast asleep, here, in the third story!

So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that hour of rest might be the leaden death!

Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily.

She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to have no place to go to.

Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest—nobody to take care of me!"

Then—city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging her—chill winds piercing her—and no pathway visible downward. Still crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to help.

Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice—behind her, suddenly, a crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, molten stone heaved—huge, brazen, bubbling—spreading wider and wider, like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing ridge beneath her feet burned—trembled. She hovered between two destructions.

Instantly—in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after which one wakes—she felt a presence—she heard a call—she thought two arms were stretched out toward her—there seemed a safety and a rest near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken—folded, held; smoke, fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she was utterly secure.

So vividly she felt the presence—so warm and sure seemed that love and strength about her—that waking out of such pause of peace, before her senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name—the name of Roger Armstrong.

Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back into her dream.

The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true.

A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window.

There was fire near her!

Could it be among the buildings of the mill?

The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage and other purposes connected with the business.

Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning smell were pouring?

Or, lay the danger nearer—within these close, contiguous walls?

Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth.

She could not tell.

* * * * *

At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream.

In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric with a sympathetic life—and do not warnings and promises and cheer pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, when soul only is awake and keen?

Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, mutely, in twin dreams of night?

Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer.

By and by, he threw down his pen—pushed back his armchair before his window—stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window seat—leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair.

So it soothed him into sleep.

He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with the strange inertia of sleep. He strove—he gasped—he broke the spell and hastened on. He plunged—he climbed—he stood in a great din that bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense about him as he went; in the midst of all—beyond—she beckoned still.

"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"

These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open window.

His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field and river.

There was fire at the mills!

Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village.

* * * * *

The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation.

Once more she pulled them open and passed through.

A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent looms.

In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames!

In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more after her.

Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, for the fiery death?

Down below her, the narrow brink—the rushing river. No foothold—no chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out flame and smoke!

And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little farther—her home!

"Fire!"

She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside.

The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. How long would it be first?

Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother—thoughts of the kind friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before—thoughts of the young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, the deep places of her own soul, the thought—the feeling, rather, of that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, to her, now!

All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed an inspiration for the present moment.

The water gate! The force pump!

The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a pulley—the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only reach the spot.

Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to the floor, was always a current of fresher air.

She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a fold of it between her teeth.

And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was curling, she passed through, crouching down, and crawled along the end of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner.

The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth attracted their hungry tongues.

As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet and volume as raged beneath.

She reached the corner where hung the rope.

Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready.

She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning.

The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, upon blazing wood and heated iron.

Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last refuge, she took her stand.

How long could she fight off death? Till help came?

All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of this, her horrible peril.

The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from side to side.

At this moment, a cry, close at hand.

"Fire!"

A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window.

"Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side.

It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice came from the riverside.

A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge.

Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly.

Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge.

He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire.

A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a word.

"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!"

Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the building, met at the staircase door.

"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister.

And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, forcing lock and hinges.

Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong.

Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful crash within.

Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, everywhere.

Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear her down.

"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?"

Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her even death.

She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it:

"My dear child!"

But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before.

She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his arms—gathered to his heart—than have lived whatever life of ease and pleasantness—aye, even of use—with any other! She knew that her thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been—not father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest and mostly, his!



CHAPTER XXIX.

HOME.

"The joy that knows there is a joy— That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there! And, patient in its pure repose, Receiveth so the holier share."

Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction.

For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found its work half done.

A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the front, to tell the awful story of the night.

Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her remonstrances, upon spreading above them.

"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be gone long, nor far away."

The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to have been so long ago.

Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing tumult—exhausted, patient, waiting.

"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong has told me what you have done. You have saved me half my property here—do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?"

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want you—and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know yesterday—what I could not answer you then!"

"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home."

"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to wrap Faith.

"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's."

"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to us to care for you, I think."

"You do—you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly.

And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or heroines—had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and precaution had warded it all off.

And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct their efforts for his property.

Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger Armstrong first went out.

She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister.

The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke those words out of his restless dream:

"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"

They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them.

Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he waked.

"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to be cared for so!"

Glory—while we have so long been following Faith—had no less been living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that apprehended, that seized ideally—that was denied, so much!

As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered radiant, and enshrined them in their light.

She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself to the less.

Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul love. "To be cared for, so!"

But she would rather recognize it afar—rather have her joy in knowing the joy that might be—than shut herself from knowledge in the content of a common, sordid lot.

She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew she was denied.

Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day.

She could not marry Luther Goodell.

"A vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast";

But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright vision, grown to a keen torture then.

Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day.

"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest of my days!"

She could not marry Luther Goodell.

Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know if the seeming be true.

Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said.

This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the fire.

Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. She would hear her mistress if she stirred.

If she had known what she did not know—that Faith Gartney stood at this moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers—that were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from her forever—had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope that were coming—she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to be like Miss Faith!"

She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out into the starlight.

By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile.

One—yes—it was surely the minister! The other—a woman. Who?

Miss Faith!

Glory met them upon the doorstone.

Faith held her finger up.

"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she.

"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in frightful danger."

"At the fire! And you——"

"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul.

The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly.

Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise.

Glory shut the bedroom door.

"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said she, taking off Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What has happened to you—and how came you there, Miss Faith?"

"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here."

These sentences they spoke in whispers.

Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a biscuit.

"Take these, please," she said.

"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything."

"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!"

That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank the tea, and then lay back—so tired!

* * * * *

"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is resting beautiful!"

"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and rest, yourself."

It was reward enough.

From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the craving of another.



CHAPTER XXX.

AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY.

"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death, And who knoweth which is best?

"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,— Round our restlessness, His rest." MRS. BROWNING.

"So the dreams depart, So the fading phantoms flee, And the sharp reality Now must act its part." WESTWOOD.

It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to Cross Corners.

Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent—feeling very weak after the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through—in the large easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting for a trial yet before her.

"It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" asked Glory, at the door.

"Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith.

"I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know."

"Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad you should be with me."

"Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?"

"Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the tears would come, in answer to his cordial words.

"I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little girl to go home with me last night—this morning, rather. But she would come to you."

"She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind."

"Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat beside her.

Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day—the story of the fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell it.

Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came over her face.

"I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do with each other."

And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to her ears.

Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its expression, a smile there surprised her.

"See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire."

Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of the generous, Christian gentleman—of the coarse workman, who wore his nature, like his garb—the worse part of an everyday.

Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them.

Her own recital was soon finished.

Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had been in either mind.

At these thanks—at this praise—Faith shrank.

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled entreaty—"don't speak so! Only forgive me—if you can!"

Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly.

"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake—that it cannot be."

But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he said the words.

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back as it was, in the old days before all this!"

"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it was before."

"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it."

"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. And there has been none here, I am sure."

Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears.

"I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith—not to let you distress yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, though, even, by and by."

"Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't think I could tell her."

"You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But—Paul will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from you."

"I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry."

"And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we are only sorry. And that is all that need be said."

The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting.

"Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!"

"What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful to the Lord—He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been saved for something!"

Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in milk—"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a teaspoonful of brandy in it."

This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till she'd had a nap.

All which, strangely enough, Faith—wearied, troubled, yet relieved—obeyed.

For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids—for Faith was far from well—and with answering the incessant calls at the door of curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. It was one of her "real good times."

Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry also, just when it could be given most effectually.

It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it!

And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been—the kind and earnest friend—the ready helper—no more. He knew Faith Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity—her indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He laid his own love back, from his own sight.

So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on.

"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly, to her niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she would come over here if I should send for her?"

Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face.

"Why, aunt?" she asked.

"Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?"

"Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note."

"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till she's been here."

Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away.

Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly:

"I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room."

Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send her in to me."

Faith was astonished, and a little frightened.

What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more serious illness?

Faith could only wonder, and wait.

Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her.

The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly from Faith's mind.

Paul Rushleigh came.

Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and was thinking, at the very moment—with that sudden, breathless anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited apprehensively—of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring him home—when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop.

It was his. The moment had come.

She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled—anywhither. Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He had a right to all.

Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve.

A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of a word.

But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. To hear—to bear with firmness—what she had to tell him. And there was, in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, presently, he spoke.

If he had had his way—if all had gone prosperously with him—he would have been, still—recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his childish love—scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man.

Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first.

Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never been.

"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a mistake. I have come to hear it from you."

Then he laid in her hand his father's letter.

"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest."

Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to the last, she spoke, low.

"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, before Heaven!"

"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously.

"I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and then you may know why this has been."

"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You were bringing it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's too late, now. It can't be helped."

"Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I came so near really loving at the last. But—Paul! a woman don't want to lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle—'the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.'"

"You came near loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! It isn't all quite over?"

Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All—though the hot crimson flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her maidenly shame, before him.

There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look and the word of it, are overborne and lost.

"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall hold you, always. But, Paul!—no one else knows it, and I never knew it till I stood face to face with death—with my soul I have come to love another!"

Deep and low these last words were—given up from the very innermost, and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes.

Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all.

"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!"

With these words, he went.

Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the road.

This chapter of her life story was closed.



CHAPTER XXXI.

NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT.

"I can believe, it shall you grieve, And somewhat you distrain; But afterward, your paines hard, Within a day or twain, Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take Comfort to you again." OLD ENGLISH BALLAD.

Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as she went.

When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been told.

Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from seeking Faith just then.

There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever brooded very much.

Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, to ask a question.

It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, once more.

Faith knew that something—she could not guess what—something terrible, she feared—had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt.

It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to come in.

Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of tenderness.

Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around her?

"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an unwonted tone.

"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?"

"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd been younger. And I may die. That's all."

The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with unspoken love.

Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by.

"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, keep out! She'll do well enough, I dare say."

Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, herself, was needing comfort for!

"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?"

It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and said, in a low tone—yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there.

"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a man?"

"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!"

"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do."

"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!"

"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the first man that asks her! 'Tain't in my Decalogue!"

"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she does marry!" said Miss Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there—that's the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like mismatching anything else—gloves or stockings—and wearing the wrong ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should think it did!"

"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well."

"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said—on her. She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a discipline, nowadays, than anything else!"

It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy.

She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It bore her toward the eternal solace there.

Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a wail. There was something for each to do.

Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own actual disability.

But it was not a sick room—one felt that—this little limited bound in which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited.

Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in her symptoms." But he was one of those AEsculapian worthies who, having lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment, might have betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, predicates another, far over, out of sight.

Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there.

"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, child! I have something to say to you."

Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight.

"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring it to me."

Faith did all this, silently.

"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going to need it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes wrong—no, not that, but unexpectedly—with me."