"Mr. Simlins, the Bible says that 'the fruits of righteousness are by Jesus Christ.'—Do you know him?—are you in his service?"

"I don't know as I understand you," said he.

"I can't make you understand it, sir."

"Why can't you? who can?" said he quickly.

"It is written, Mr. Simlins,—'They shall be all taught of God.'"—She shewed him the place. "And it is written, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.'—That is it. If you are willing to walk in his paths, he will shew them to you." Faith looked eagerly at the farmer, and he looked at her. Neither heart was hid from the other.

"But supposin' I was willin'—which I be, so fur's I know—I don't know what they be no more'n a child. How am I goin' to find 'em out?"

Faith's eyes filled quick as she turned over the leaves again;—was it by sympathy alone that occasion came for the rough hand to pass once or twice hastily across those that were looking at her? Without speaking, Faith shewed him the words,—"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine."

"That is the question, dear Mr. Simlins. On that 'if' it all hangs." The farmer took the book into his own hands and sat looking steadily at the words.

"Well," said he putting it back on her lap—"supposin' the 'if' 's all right—Go ahead, Faith."

"Then the way is clear for you to do that; and it's all easy. But the first thing is here—the invitation of Jesus himself."

"'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'"

"You see," she went on very gently,—"he bids you learn of him—so he is ready to teach you. If you are only willing to take his yoke upon you,—to be his servant and own it,—he will shew you what to do, step by step, and help you in every one."

"I don't see where's the beginning of the way yet," said the farmer.

"That," said Faith. "Be the servant of Jesus Christ and own it; and then go to him for all you want. He is good for all."

There was a pause.

"I s'pose you've been goin' on in that way a good while."

"A good while—yes,"—Faith almost whispered.

"Well, when you are goin' to him sometimes, ask somethin' for me,—will you?"

He had bent over, leaning on his knees, to speak it in a lower growl than ordinary. Faith bowed her head at first, unwilling to speak; but tears somehow started, and the drops followed each other, as she sat gazing into the black fireplace,—she could not help it—till a perfect shower of weeping brought her face into her hands and stirred her not very strong frame. It stirred the farmer, robust as he was in spite of illness; he shifted his chair most uneasily, and finally laid down his head on his folded arms on the table. Faith was the first to speak.

"Mr. Simlins, who takes care of you?"

"Ugh!" (a most unintelligible grunt,) "they all do it by turns—Jenny and all of 'em."

"What have you had for dinner to-day?"

"Didn't want anything!" He sat up and brushed his cloak sleeve across his forehead.

"Mr. Simlins, I shall send you down something from home and you must eat it."

"The doctor said I was to take wine—but I haint thought of it to-day."

"Where is it?"

He nodded his head in the direction of the cupboard. Faith went rummaging, poured him out a glass and brought it.

"You see," said he after he had taken it—"I've been pretty well pulled down—I didn't know—one time—which side of the fence I was goin' over—and I didn't see the ground on the other side. I don't know why I should be ashamed to say I was afeard!"—There was a strong, stern, truth-telling about this speech that thrilled his hearer. She sat down again.

"You had best take some yourself," he said. "Do Faith!"

"No sir—I'm going. I must go," she answered rising to make ready.

It was strange how the door could have opened and she not heard it—neither she nor Mr. Simlins in fact,—perhaps because their minds were so far away. That the incoming steps were unheard was not so strange, nor new, but the first thing of which Faith was conscious was the soft touch of a hand on either side of her face—she was a prisoner. Faith's instant spring to one side brought her face to face with everybody. Mr. Simlins looked from one to the other, and his first remark was characteristically addressed to Faith.

"Why you didn't tell me that!"

"Has she told you everything but that?" said Mr. Linden smiling, and giving the farmer's hand good token of his presence.

"Where under the sun did you come from?" said the farmer returning his grasp with interest, and looking at Mr. Linden as if indeed one of the lights of the solar system had been out before his arrival. Faith sat down mutely and as quietly as possible behind Mr. Linden.

"From under the sun very literally just now—before that from under a shower. I have been down to Quapaw, then home to Mrs. Derrick's, then here. Mr. Simlins, I am sorry to see that you are nursing yourself instead of me. What is the matter?"

"I'd as lieves be doin' this, of the two," said the farmer with a stray smile. "There aint much the matter. How long have you been in this meridian?"

"Two days." And stepping from before Faith, Mr. Linden asked her "if she had come there in a dream?"

"Do you ever see such good-lookin' things in your dreams?" said the farmer. "My visual pictures are all broken down fences, or Jem or Jenny doin' somethin' they haint ought to do. How long're you goin' to stay in Pattaquasset, Dominie?"

"Some time, I hope. Not quite so long as the first time, but longer than I have been since that. Do you know, Mr. Simlins, your coat collar is a little bit turned in?—and why don't you give the sunshine a better welcome?—you two sick people together want some one to make a stir for you." Which office Mr. Linden took upon himself—lightly disengaging the collar, and then going to the window to draw up the shade and throw back the shutters, stopping on his way back to straighten the table cover, and followed by a full gush of sunlight from the window.

"It is so glorious this afternoon!" he said. And standing silent a moment in that brilliant band of light-looking out at the world all glittering and sparkling in the sun, Mr. Linden repeated,—"'Unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of Righteousness arise, with healing in his wings.'—What a promise that is!"

"Where did you get those words?"—said Mr. Simlins, after the sunlight and the silence had given them their full effect.

"From the Bible—God's book of promises. Do you want to see the place?"

Mr. Simlins turned down a corner of the leaf and laid the book, still open, on the table. Then looked at Mr. Linden with a mixture of pleasure and humour in his eyes. "Are you any nearer bein' a minister than you was a year ago?"

"Nearer in one way. But I cannot lay claim to the title you gave me for another year yet, Mr. Simlins."

"You're Say and Seal as much as ever. What more fixin' have you got to do?"

"A little finishing," said Mr. Linden with a smile.

And he got up and went for Faith's shawl and gloves which were on the table. Mr. Simlins watched the shawling and gloving with attention.

"You can tell Jem he won't be wanted again, Faith," he said. "I guess you'll see him at the gate." Mr. Linden smiled, but some other thought was on his mind,—the face that he turned to Mr. Simlins shewed concern that was both grave and kind.

"What can I do for you?" he said.

"This aint the prettiest place in Pattaquasset; but maybe you'll come and see me sometimes—till I can get out my self," Mr. Simlins said considerately.

"You may be sure I will. And will you let me pray with you now, before I go?"

The farmer hesitated—or was silent—one instant, then with a sort of subdued abruptness said,

"I'm ready!"—

They knelt there in the sunlight; but when the prayer was over Mr. Simlins felt half puzzled to know for whose sake it had been proposed. For with the telling of his doubts and hindrances and wants—things which he had told to no one, there mingled so much of the speaker's own interest,—which could not be content to leave him but in Christ's hands.

There was not a word spoken after that for a minute,—Mr. Linden stood by the low mantelpiece resting his face on his hand. The farmer, busy with the feelings which the prayer had raised, sat with downcast eyes. And Faith was motionless with a deep and manifold sense of happiness, the labyrinth of which herself could not soon have threaded out. The silence and stillness of his two companions drew the farmer's eyes up; he read first, with an eager eye that nobody saw, the sweet gravity on one half hidden face, and the deep pure joy written in all the lines of the other; and secret and strong, though half unknown to himself, the whole tide of his heart turned that way. If not before, then at least, something like Ruth's resolution came up within him;—"thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!" Mr. Linden was the first one that moved.

"Are you ready, dear child?"

The farmer's eyes were on her too, even while he wrung Mr. Linden's hand. But he only said before he let it go,—"Give a glass of wine to her when she gets home."

Out in the sweet afternoon air, and driving through the gate which opened on the highway, with Jem Waters on hand to shut it, Mr. Linden brought Faith's face round towards him and scanned it earnestly.

"My child, how tired you are! I wish I knew whether it would do you most good to go straight home, or to breathe this air a little longer."

"I hope you won't conclude to take me home," said Faith. "I have been looking for this all day."

"Do you think you deserve to have it?" said Mr. Linden, turning Jerry's head however the way that was not straight home. "Why didn't you sleep, and wait for me to bring you down here?"

"One reason was, Endy, that I half guessed Mr. Simlins wanted to talk to me and that it might be better for him to see one than two.

"I could have left you there for a while."

"No you couldn't!" she said. "And I couldn't have driven off Jerry and left you—though that would have been better."

"You could have driven me off. What was the other reason?"

"The other reason isn't really worth your hearing. Don't you think this afternoon is too pretty to spoil with bad reasons?"—she said with gentle eyes, half fun, half confession.

"Entirely. Faith—I think you would bear the ride better if you had a sort of afternoon lunch,—shall we stop at Miss Bezac's for a glass of milk?"

"Oh no!"—she said hastily. "Oh no, Endecott! I don't want anything but to ride."

"And to hide—" said Mr. Linden laughingly. "Another bad reason, Faith?"

She gave him a little blushing look, very frank and happy, that also bore homage to his penetration.

"Stop anywhere you please, Endy," she said honestly. "I was very glad you came to Mr. Simlins'."

"Would you rather get it from Mrs. Davids?" he inquired demurely.

"No, not rather. Whichever you like, Endecott," Faith said, hiding the start which the question in this real form gave her. The afternoon sun through which they were riding was very bright; the washed leaves were brilliantly green; sweet scents of trees and buds filled the air, and opening apple blossoms were scattering beauty all over the land. Nothing could spoil that afternoon. Faith had a secret consciousness besides that the very thing from which she shrank was by no means disagreeable to Mr. Linden. She did not care what he did! And he,—in the joy of being with her, of seeing her grow stronger every hour, Mr. Linden was in a 'holiday humour'—in the mood for work or play or mischief; and took the road to Miss Bezac's for more than a glass of milk.

"Mignonette," he said, "what varieties of pride do you consider lawful and becoming?"

"I know only a few innocent sorts," said Faith,—"that I keep for myself."

"Luxurious child! 'A few innocent sorts of pride that you keep for yourself'! You must divide with me."

How Faith laughed.

"You wouldn't thank me for one of them all, Endecott. And yet—" She stopped, and coloured brilliantly on the sudden.

"Explain and finish," said Mr. Linden laconically.

"If I told you what they are you would laugh at me."

"That would not hurt me. What are they, Mignonette?"

She spoke gravely, though smiling sometimes; answering to the matter of fact, as she had been asked. "I am proud, a little, of very fine rolls of butter, or a particularly good cheese. I think I am proud of my carnations, and perhaps—" she went on colouring—"of being so good a baker as I am. And perhaps—I think I am—of such things as sewing and dressmaking;—but I don't think there is much harm in all that. I know myself sometimes proud of other things, where I know it is wrong."

"How do you know but I am proud of your rolls of butter too?" said Mr. Linden looking amused. "But Mignonette, what called forth such a display of the carnations you are not proud of? What was the force of that 'And yet'?"

It brought the colour again, and Faith hesitated and looked puzzled, Then she tried a new way of escape.

"Don't you mean to let me have any of my thoughts to myself?" she said playfully.

"Don't you mean to let me have any of them for myself?"

"You?—Haven't you them almost all?"

"My dear I beg pardon!—one for every carnation,—but I did not know that I had so nearly made the tour of your mind. I was under the impression that my passports were not yet made out—and that my knowledge of your thoughts was all gained from certain predatory excursions, telescopic observations, and such like illegal practices. I am sure all my attempts to cross the frontier in the ordinary way are met by something more impassable than a file of bayonets."

Faith looked up at him as if to see how much of this was meant for true.

"But," said she naively, "I feel as if I had been under a microscope."

"My dear!" said Mr. Linden again, with an air at once resigned and deprecating. But then his gravity gave way. "Faith!—is that your feeling in my company? I wonder you can endure the sight of me."

"Why?"—said she timidly.

"If I seem to you like a microscope."

"Only your eyes, like those power-glasses.—Not for size!" said Faith, laughing now herself.

"Ah little Mignonette," he said smiling, "some things can be seen without microscopic vision. And do not you know, my child, that carnations must draw attention to the particular point round which they bloom?"

"Endy, you shall know what I was thinking of," she said. "You touched it already. It was only—that perhaps sometime you would be a little proud even of those little things in me—because—Now you can punish me for being proud in earnest!"—It was said in great confusion; it had cost Faith a struggle; the white and red both strove in her downcast face. Mr. Linden might not fathom what was not in a man's nature; but Faith had hardly ever perhaps given him such a token of the value she set upon his pleasure.

"Punish you?" he said, leaving Jerry to find the road for himself for a minute,—"how shall I do it?—so? And how much punishment do you require? I think a little is not enough. 'Because' what, love?"

"Endy!—" she said under her breath,—"you know!—don't ask me."

"Then—if I exceed your limits—you will not blame me?"

"Limits of what?"

"Limits of this species of executive justice."

"I don't think you would keep limits of anybody else's setting," said Faith with a little subdued fun. "Look, Endy!—we are coming to Miss Bezac's."

"Most true," said Mr. Linden,—"now shall you see (perhaps!) one of the innocent sorts of pride that I keep for myself. What have we come for?" he added laughing, as Jerry trotted up the side hill to the cottage,—"is it butter, or carnations, or dressmaking?—they all make a rare combination in my mind at present."

"She is at home!" said Faith,—"if she wasn't, the window-curtains would be down. Now she is going to be pleased,—and so am I, for she will give me something to eat." Faith looked as if she wanted it, as she softly opened the door of the dressmaker's little parlour, or workroom, and softly went in. The various business and talk of the afternoon had exhausted her.

Miss Bezac, having in her young days been not only rich, but also a firstrate needlewoman, now that she was older and poor plied her needle for a different purpose. Yet something of old habits clung to her still; she would not take the common work of the village; but when Mrs. Stoutenburgh wanted a gay silk dress, or Miss De Staff a delicate muslin, or Mrs. Somers an embroidered merino—then Miss Bezac was sure to have them go through her hands; and for these ladies she took the fashions and dispensed them exceeding well. Strangers too, in Pattaquasset for the summer, often came to her,—and had not Miss Bezac made the very first embroidered waistcoat that ever Squire Deacon wore, or Sam Stoutenburgh admired himself in? So her table was generally covered with pretty work, and on this particular afternoon she was choosing the patterns for a second waistcoat for the young member from Quilipeak, a mantilla for his mother, and a silk apron for Miss Essie, all at once. In deep cogitation Faith found her, and Faith's soft salutation,—

"Dear Miss Bezac, will you let strangers come in?" How gloriously Faith blushed.

"Strangers!" cried Miss Bezac, turning round. "Why Faith!—you don't mean to say it's you?—though I don't suppose you mean to say it's anybody else. Unless—I declare I don't know whether it is you or not!" said Miss Bezac, looking from her to Mr. Linden and shaking hands with both at once. "Though if it isn't I ought to have heard—only folks don't always do what they ought—at least I don't,—nor much of anything."

"It is nobody else yet," said Mr. Linden smiling. Whereat Miss Bezac laid one hand on the other, and stepping back a little surveyed the two "as a whole."

"Do you know," she said, "(you wouldn't think it) but sometimes I can't say a word!"

"You must not expect Faith to say much—she is tired," said Mr. Linden putting her in a chair. "Miss Bezac, I brought her here to get something to eat."

"Well I don't believe—I don't really believe that anybody but you would ever do such a kind thing," said Miss Bezac. "What shall I get? Faith—what will you have? And you're well enough to be out again!—and it's so well I'm not out myself!—I'll run and see if the fire ain't,—the kettle ought to be boiled, for I wanted an early cup of tea."

"No, dear Miss Bezac, don't!" said Faith. "Only give me some bread and milk."

Miss Bezac stopped short.

"Bread and milk?" she said—"is that good for you? The bread's good, I know, baked last night; and the milk always is sweet, up here with the cowslips—and most things are sweet when you're hungry. But ain't you more hungry than that?—and somebody else might be, if you ain't—and one always must think of somebody else too. But you do, I'll say that for you. And oh didn't I say long ago!—" A funny little recollective pause Miss Bezac made, her thoughts going back even to the night of the celebration. Then she ran away for the bread and milk,—then she came back and put her head in at the door.

"Faith, do you like a cup or a bowl?—I like a cup, because I always think of a cup of comfort—and I never heard of a bowl of anything. But you can have which you like."

"I like the cup too," said Faith laughing. "But even the bowl would be comfort to-day, Miss Bezac."

The cup came, and a little pitcher for replenishing, and a blue plate of very white bread and very brown bread, and one of Miss Bezac's old-fashioned silver spoons, and a little loaf of "one, two, three, four, cake", that looked as good as the bread. All of which were arranged on a round stand before Faith by Miss Bezac and Mr. Linden jointly. He brought her a footstool too, and with persuasive fingers untied and took off her bonnet—which supplementary arrangements Miss Bezac surveyed with folded hands and great admiration. Which also made the pale cheeks flush again, but that was pretty to look upon. Faith betook herself to the old-fashioned spoon and the milk, then gave Mr. Linden something to do in the shape of a piece of cake; and then resigning herself to circumstances broke brown bread into the milk and eat it with great and profitable satisfaction, leaving the conversation in the hands of the other two. The sun sank lower and lower, sending farewell beams into the valleys, and shaking out gold pieces in Miss Bezac's little brown sitting-room like the Will-o'-wisps in the "Tale of tales". Through the open door her red cow might be seen returning home by a winding and circuitous path, such as cows love, and a little sparrow hopped in and out, from the doorstep, looking for "One, two, three, four", crumbs. Faith from her seat near the fire could see it all—if her eyes chose to pass Mr. Linden,—what he saw, she found out whenever they went that way. It was not wonderful that Faith turned from the table at last with a very refreshed face.

"Miss Bezac, you have made me up," she said smiling.

"Have I?" said her little hostess,—"well that comes pretty near it. Do you know when I saw you—I mean when I saw both of you, I really thought you had come for me to make up something else? And I must say, I wish you had,—not that I haven't dresses enough, and too many—unless I had a new pair of eyes—but I always did set my heart on making that one. And I haven't set my heart upon many things for a good while, so of course I ain't used to being disappointed. You won't begin, will you, Faith?"

Faith kissed her, hastily expressing the unsentimental hope that her tea would be as good as her bread and milk; and ran out, leaving Mr. Linden to follow at his leisure. Faith was found untying Jerry.

"What do you mean?" said Mr. Linden staying her hands and lifting her in the most summary manner into the wagon. "Bread and milk is too stimulating for you, child,—we must find something less exciting. What will you see fit to do next?"

"I can untie a bridle," said Faith.

"Or slip your head through one. But you should have seen the delight with which Miss Bezac entered upon the year of patience that I prescribed to her!—and the very (innocuous) pride that lay hid in the prescription. Do you feel disposed to punish me for that, Mignonette?"

One of Faith's grave childish looks answered him; but then, dismissing Mr. Linden as impracticable, she gave herself to the enjoyment of the time. It was a fit afternoon! The sunbeams were bright on leaves and flowers, with that fairy brightness which belongs peculiarly to spring. The air was a real spring air, sweet and bracing, full of delicate spices of May. The apple blossoms, out and bursting out, dressed the land with the very bloom of joy. And through it all Mr. Linden drove her, himself in a "holiday humour." Bread and milk may be stimulating, but health and happiness are more stimulating yet; and Faith came home after a ride of some length looking not a bit the worse, and ready for supper.



CHAPTER XXXI.



A month passed away,—with apple blossoms, strawberry flowers, now with strawberries themselves. Roses coming into splendour, carnations in full force, and both re-established in the cheeks of Faith Derrick. What a month it had been!—of weather, of work, of society. Lessons after the old fashion, reading aloud, talking; going round the country at Jerry's heels, or on the back of Mrs. Stoutenburgh's pony—for there she was put, just so soon as she could bear it, passing by degrees from a gentle trot on level ground to a ladylike scamper over the hills. Faith had not been so strong for many a day as the longest day of that summer found her.

Coming home from their afternoon ride by the way of the postoffice, Mr. Linden found there a letter from Europe; the seal of which he broke as they entered, the house, just in time to give Faith a little enclosed note to herself as she went up stairs to change her dress. Its words were few. Referring Faith to Mr. Linden for particulars, it asked her to let him come to Germany without delay. The aunt with whom Miss Linden lived was at the point of death, apparently—she herself in danger of being left quite alone in a strange land. Yet with all the urgency of the case, the whole breathing of Miss Linden's note was, "Faith—can you spare him?—will you let him come?"

The question was settled before it was asked, in Faith's mind; but what a laying down of pleasure and what a taking up of pain was there! The rest of the vacation was gone at once; for Mr. Linden could not go to Europe and come back, even on the wings of steam, and have a day left before study would begin again. No more of him—except, at the best, snatches—till next year; and next year was very far off, and who could tell what might be next year? But at the best, she must see little more of him until then; and in the mean time he must put half the world between them. Nobody saw how fast the roses faded on Faith's cheek; she sat and looked at the matter all alone, and looked it through. For one few minutes; and then she rose up and began dressing slowly, looking at it still, but gathering all her forces together to deal with it. And when her dressing was done, she still stood leaning one hand and her head on the dressing table, thinking over all that was to do. She had remembered, as with a flash of remembrance, what day the next steamer would sail—from what port—she knew the hour when Mr. Linden must leave Pattaquasset. And when her mind had seen all the preparations to be made, and she thought she was strong enough, she turned to go down stairs; but then feeling very weak Faith turned again and kneeled down to pray. And in a mixed feeling of strength and weakness, she went down stairs.

First to the kitchen, where she quietly looked after the state of the clothes in the wash, and desired Cindy to have all Mr. Linden's things ready for ironing that evening. Then attended to the supply of bread and the provision for breakfast; saw that one or two things about the supper were in proper order and progress; asked Mrs. Derrick to make the tea when it was time, and finally, as quietly as if the afternoon's ride had been the only event of the afternoon, opened the door of the sitting-room and softly went in.

For a while after reading his own letter Mr. Linden had sat absolutely still,—then with a sort of impatience to see Faith, to give her what comfort he could, at least to have her with him every minute, he had paced up and down the sitting-room till she appeared. Now he took her in his arms with all sorts of tender caresses—with no words at first but, "My little Mignonette!" Faith herself was quite still and wordless; only once, and that suddenly and earnestly, she gave his cheek the salutation she had never given him before unbidden. From her it was a whole volume, and thoroughly peace-speaking, although it might intimate a little difficulty of words.

Keeping one arm round her, Mr. Linden began again his walk up and down the room; beginning to talk as well—telling her what was in his letter, how long the journey would take, and more than all, what she must do while he was away. How long the absence would be—when he should be at home again, that was little touched upon by either; the return might be very speedy—that seemed most probable, but neither he nor Faith cared to put in words all the uncertainties that hung about it. From every point he came back to her,—with injunctions about her strength, and directions about her studies, and charges to take care of herself for him—with other words of comfort and cheering, spoken cheerfully from a very sorrowful heart. One other charge he gave—

"My little Sunbeam, my dearest Faith, keep both your names unclouded!"

"I have had one lesson, Endy"—

She was a little pale, but had listened to him quietly as intently; voice and smile both ready to do their part, albeit gravely, whenever there was a part for them.

"I shall not forget—" she added now with a smile, a rare one, after a little pause.

He brought her back to the sofa then, kissing the pale cheeks as if he missed their carnations. Yet—with the stringency of the old law which saith that "Doublet and hose must shew itself courageous to petticoat"—Mr. Linden gave her bright words, although they were words of a very grave brightness—not contradicted, but qualified by his eyes.

"Mignonette," he said, "I did not think next year could gain brightness from anything—but I cannot tell you how it has looked to me within these last two hours. If I could but call in Mr. Somers, and then take you with me!"

It brought a rush of the carnations; but Faith did not think so extravagant a wish required any combating. Neither did she say what she thought of "next year."

That evening at least they had quietly together. What Faith did after they had separated for the night, Mr. Linden never knew; but the morning saw everything ready for his departure,—ready down to the little details which a man recognizes only (for the most part) by the sense of want. And if cheeks were paler than last night, they were only now and then less steady—till he was gone.



CHAPTER XXXII.



Dr. Harrison took passage in the steamship Vulcan, C. W. Cyclops, commander, for the Old World; having come to the conclusion that the southern country was not sufficiently remote, and that only a change of hemispheres would suit the precise state of his mind. Letters of combined farewell and notice-giving, reached Pattaquasset too late to cumber the doctor with a bevy of friends to see him off; but his sudden motions were too well known, and his peculiarities too long established, to excite much surprise or dismay by any new manifestations.

The Vulcan lay getting her steam up in that fair June morning, with very little regard to the amount of high pressure that her passengers might bring on board. Nothing could be more regardless of their hurry and bustle, the causes that brought them, the tears they shed, the friends they left behind, than the ship with her black sides and red smoke pipe. Tears did indeed trickle down some parts of her machinery, but they were only condensed steam—which might indeed be true of some of the tears of her passengers.

Punctual to her time she left her moorings, steaming down the beautiful bay with all the June light upon her, throwing back little foamy waves that glittered in the sun, making her farewell with a long train of blue rollers that came one after another to kiss the shore. What if tears sprinkled the dusty sidewalks of Canal St.?—what if that same light shone on white handkerchiefs and bowed heads?—The answering drops might fall in the state-rooms of the Vulcan, but on deck bustle and excitement had their way.

So went on the miles and the hours,—then the pilot left the vessel, taking with him a little handful of letters; and the passengers who had been down stairs to write were on deck, watching him off. In the city business rolled on with its closing tide,—far down on the Long Branch shore people looked northward towards a dim outline, a little waft of smoke, and said—"There goes the Vulcan." The freshening breeze, the long rolls of the Atlantic, sent some passengers below, even now,—others stood gazing back at the faint city indications,—others still walked up and down—those who had left little, or cared little for what they had left. Of these was Dr. Harrison, who paced the deck with very easy external manifestations.

Some change of mind—some freak of fancy, sent him at last to the other side of the ship—then to the prow. Here sailors were busy,—here one passenger stood alone: but if there had been twenty more, Dr. Harrison could have seen but this one. He was standing with arms folded, in a sort of immoveable position, that yet accommodated itself easily to the ship's slow courtseying; as regardless of that as of the soft play of the sea breeze; looking back—but not to the place where the Vulcan had lain a few hours before. He was rather looking forward,—looking off to some spot that lay north or northeast of them: some spot invisible, yet how clearly seen! Looking thither,—as if in all the horizon that alone had any interest. So absorbed—so far from the ship,—his lips set in such grave, sad lines; his eyes so intent, as if they could by no means look at anything else. Nay, for the time, there was nothing else to see! Dr. Harrison might come or go—the sailors might do their utmost,—far over the rolling water, conscious of that only because it was a barrier of separation, the watcher's eyes rested on Mignonette. If once or twice the eyelids fell, it was not that the vision failed.

Dr. Harrison stopped short, unseen, and not wishing at that moment to meet the consequences of being seen. Yet he stood still and looked. The first feeling being one of intense displeasure and disgust that the Vulcan carried so unwelcome a fellow-passenger; the second, of unbounded astonishment and wonder what he did there. He putting the ocean between him and Pattaquasset? he setting out for the Old World, with all his hopes just blossoming in the New? What could be the explanation? Was it possible, Dr. Harrison asked himself for one moment, that he could have been mistaken? that he could have misunderstood the issue of the conversation that morning in Faith's sick room? A moment resolved him. He recalled the steady, dauntless look of Faith's eyes after his words,—a look which he had two or three times been privileged to receive from her and never cared to meet;—he remembered how daintily her colour rose as her eyes fell, and the slow deliberate uncovering of her diamond finger from which the eyes were not raised again to look at him; he remembered it with the embittered pang of the moment. No! he had not been mistaken; he had read her right. Could it be—it crossed the doctor's mind like a flash of the intensest lightning—that his letter had done its work? its work of separation? But the cool reminder of reason came like the darkness after the lightning. Mr. Linden would not have been at Mrs. Derrick's, as the doctor had heard of his being there, if any entering wedge of division had made itself felt between his place there and him. No, though now he was here in the Vulcan. And Dr. Harrison noticed anew, keenly, that the expression of the gazer's face, though sorrowful and grave, was in nowise dark or desponding. Nothing of that! The grave brow was unbent in every line of it; the grave lips had no hard set of pain; the doctor read them well, both lips and brow! Mr. Linden was no man to stand and look towards Pattaquasset if he had nothing there. And with a twinge he now recollected the unwonted sound of that name from the pilot's mouth as he took charge of the letters and went off. Ay! and turning with the thought the doctor paced back again, as unregardful now of the contents of the Vulcan, animate or inanimate, as the man himself whom he had been watching.

What should he do? he must meet him and speak to him, though the doctor desired nothing less in the whole broad earth. But he must do it, for the maintenance of his own character and the safety of his own secret and pride that hung thereby. That little piece of simplicity up there in the country had managed to say him no without being directly asked to say anything—thanks to her truthful honesty; and perhaps, a twinge or two of another sort came to Dr. Harrison's mind as he thought of his relations with her,—yes, and of his relations with him. Not pleasant, but all the more, if possible, Dr. Harrison set his teeth and resolved to speak to Mr. Linden the first opportunity. All the more, that he was not certain Mr. Linden had received his letter,—it was likely, yet Dr. Harrison had had no note of the fact. It might have failed. And not withstanding all the conclusions to which his meditations had come, curiosity lingered yet;—a morbid curiosity, unreasonable, as he said to himself, yet uncontrollable, to see by eye and ear witness, even in actual speech and conversation, whether all was well with Mr. Linden or not. His own power of self-possession Dr. Harrison could trust; he would try that of the other. Yet he took tolerably good care that the opportunity of speaking should not be this evening. The doctor did not come in to supper till all the passengers were seated, or nearly so, and then carried himself to the end of the apartment furthest from his friend; where he so bore his part that no mortal could have supposed Dr. Harrison had suffered lately in mind, body, or estate.

Mr. Linden's part that night was a quiet one, the voluntary part of it, and strictly confined to the various little tea-table courtesies which with him might indeed be called involuntary. But it so happened that the Vulcan carried out quite a knot of his former friends—gentlemen who knew him well, and these from their various places at the table spoke either to him or of him frequently. Dr. Harrison in the pauses of his own talk could hear, "Linden"—"Endecott Linden"—"John, what have you been doing with yourself?"—in different tones of question or comment,—sometimes caught the tones of Mr. Linden's voice in reply; but as they were both on the same side of the table eyesight was not called for. The doctor sat in his place until the table was nearly cleared; then sauntered forth into the evening light. Fair, bright, glowing light, upon gay water and a gay deck-full; but Dr. Harrison gaining nothing from its brightness, stood looking out on its reflection in the waves more gloomily than he had seen another look a little time ago. Then a hand was laid lightly on his shoulder, making its claim of acquaintanceship with a very kind, friendly touch. The doctor turned and met hand and eye with as far as could be seen his old manner, only perhaps his fingers released themselves a little sooner than once they would, and the smile was a trifle more broad than it might if there had been no constraint about it.

"I am not altogether taken now by surprise," said he, "though surprise hasn't yet quit its hold of me. I heard your name a little while ago. What are you doing here, Linden?"

"Rocking in the cradle of business as well as of the deep," said Mr. Linden. "The last steamer brought word that I must sail by this, and so here I am."

"Who rocks the cradle of business?" said the doctor, with the old comical lift of the eyebrows with which he used to begin a tilt with Mr. Linden.

"Duty and Interest rock it between them,—singing of rest, and keeping one awake thereby."

"A proper pair of nurses!" said the doctor. "Why man, they would tear the infant Business to pieces between them! Unless one of them did as much for the other in time to prevent it."

"Never—unless Inclination took the place of Interest."

"Don't make any difference," said the doctor;—"Inclination always follows the lead of Interest.—Except in a few extraordinary specimens of human nature."

Mr. Linden turned towards the scattered groups of passengers, and so doing his eye caught the shining of that very star which was rising over Pattaquasset as he and Mignonette rode home two nights before. Only two nights!—For a minute everything else might have been at the antipodes—then Mr. Linden brought at least his eyes back to the deck of the Vulcan. "What sort of a motley have we here, doctor? Do you know many of them?"

"Yes," said the doctor slightly;—"the usual combinations of Interest and Inclination. I wonder if we are exceptions, Linden?"

"The usual combination is not, perhaps, just the best,—it is a nice matter for a man to judge in his own case how far the proportions are rectified."

"He can't do it. Human machinery can't do it. Can you measure the height of those waves while they dazzle your eyes with gold and purple as they do now?"

"Nay—but I can tell how much they do or do not throw me out of my right course."

"What course are you on now, Linden?" said the doctor with his old-fashioned assumption of carelessness, dismissing the subject.

"Now?" Mr. Linden repeated. "Do you mean in studies, travels, or conversation?"

"In conversation, you have as usual brought me to a point! I mean—if I mean anything,—the other two; but I mean nothing, unless you like."

"I do like. Just now, then, I am in the vacation before the last year of my Seminary life,—for the rest, I am on my way to Germany."

"Finish your course there, eh?" said the doctor. "Why man, I thought you had found the 'four azure chains' long ago."

"No, not to finish my course,—if I am kept in Germany more than a few weeks, it will not be by 'azure' chains," said Mr. Linden.

"That it will not!" said one of the young men coming up, fresh from the tea-table and his cigar. "Azure chains?—pooh!—Linden breaks them as easy as Samson did the green withs. How biblical it makes one to be in company with such a theologian! But I shouldn't wonder if he was going to Europe to join some order of friars—he'll find nothing monastic enough for him in America."

"Mistaken your man, Motley!" said the doctor; who for reasons of his own did not choose to quit the conversation. "The worst I have to say of him is, that if he spends an other year in Germany his hearers will never be able to understand him!"

"Mistaken him!" said Mr. Motley—"at this time of day,—that'll do! Where did you get acquainted with him, pray?"

"Once when I had the management of him," said the doctor coolly. "There is no way of becoming acquainted with a man, like that."

"Once when you thought you had," said Mr. Motley. "Well, where was it?—in a dark passage when you got to the door first?"

"Whenever I have had the misfortune to be in a dark passage with him, he has shewed me the door," said the doctor gravely but gracefully, in his old fashion admirably maintained.

"If one of you wasn't Endecott Linden," said Mr. Motley throwing the end of his cigar overboard, "I should think you had made acquaintance on a highway robbery."

"Instead of which, it was in the peaceful town of Pattaquasset," said Mr. Linden.

"Permit me to request the reason of Mr. Motley's extraordinary guess," said the doctor.

"So natural to say where you've met a man—if there's no reason against it," said the other coolly. "But you don't say it was in Pattaquasset, doctor? Were you ever there?"

"Depends entirely on the decision of certain questions in metaphysics,"—said the doctor. "As for instance, whether anything that is, is—and the matter of personal identity, which you know is doubtful. I know the appearance of the place, Motley."

"Are there any pretty girls there?" said Mr. Motley, carelessly, but keeping his eye rather on Mr. Linden than the doctor.

"Mr. Linden can answer better than I," said Dr. Harrison, whose eye also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of himself. "There are none there that could not answer any question about Mr. Linden."—

"By the help of a powerful imagination," said the person spoken of. Mr. Motley looked from one to the other.

"I don't know what to make of either of you," he said. "Why doctor, Endecott Linden is a—a mere—I don't like to call him hard names, and I can't call him soft ones! However—to be sure—the cat may look at the king, even if his majesty won't return the compliment. Well—you and I were never thought hard-hearted, so I'll tell you my story. Did it ever happen—or seem to happen, doctor—that you, seeming to be in Pattaquasset, went—not to church—but along the road therefrom? Preferring the exit to the entrance—as you and I too often do?"

"It has seemed to happen to me,"—said Dr. Harrison, as if mechanically.

"Well—George Alcott and I—do you know George?—no great loss—we were kept one Sunday in that respectable little town by a freshet. Whether it was one of those rains that bring down more things from the sky than water, I don't know,—George declared it was. If it wasn't, we made discoveries."

"If you and George both used your eyes, there must have been discoveries," said Mr. Linden. "Did you take notice how green the grass looked after the rain? and that when the clouds were blown away the sun shone?"

"You're not all theology yet!" said Mr. Motley. "Be quiet—can't you? I'm not talking to you. We were sauntering down this same road, doctor—after church,—falling in with the people, so that we could see them and be taken for churchgoers. But there wasn't much to see.—Then George declared that here was the place where Linden had secluded himself for nobody knows what,—then we fell naturally into lamenting the waste of such fine material, and conned over various particulars of his former life and prospects—the great promise of past years, the present melancholy mania to make money and be useful. Upon which points George and I fought as usual. Then we grew tired of the subject and of the mud—turned short about—and beheld—what do you suppose, doctor?"

"How far you had come for nothing?"

"Imagine," said Mr. Motley, taking out a fresh cigar and a match and proceeding to put them to their respective uses,—"Imagine the vision that appeared to Balaam's ass—and how the ass felt."

"Nay, that we cannot do," said Mr. Linden. "You tax us too far."

"In both requisitions—" added the doctor.

"There stood," said Mr. Motley, removing his cigar and waving it gracefully in one hand. "There stood close behind us on the mud—she could not have been in it—an immortal creature, in mortal merino! We—transfixed, mute—stepped aside right and left to let her pass,—I believe George had presence of mind enough to take off his hat; and she—'severe in youthful beauty', glorious in youthful blushes—walked on, looking full at us as she went. But such a look! and from such eyes!—fabulous eyes, doctor, upon my honour. Then we saw that the merino was only a disguise. Imagine a search warrant wrapped up in moonbeams—imagine the blending of the softest sunset reflection with a keen lightning flash,—and after all you have only words—not those eyes. Linden!—seems to me your imagination serves you better here,—your own eyes are worth looking at!"

"It has had more help from you," Mr. Linden said, controlling the involuntary unbent play of eye and lip with which he had heard the description.

"Well, George raved about them for a month," Mr. Motley went on, "and staid in Pattaquasset a whole week to see them again—which he didn't; so he made up his mind that they had escaped in the train of events—or of ears, and now seeks them through the world. Some day he will meet them in the possession of Mrs. Somebody—and then hang himself." And Mr. Motley puffed out clouds of smoke thereupon.

"According to your account, he could not do better," said the doctor cynically.

"I suppose the world would get on, if he did," said Mr. Motley with philosophical coolness. "But the queerity was," he added, removing the cigar once more, "what made her look at us so? Did she know by her supernatural vision that we had not been to church?—for I must say, Linden, she looked like one of your kind. Or were her unearthly ears charmed by the account of your unearthly perfections?—for George and I were doing the thing handsomely."

"It was probably that," said Mr. Linden. "Few people, I think, can listen to your stories unmoved."

"Hang it," said Mr. Motley, "I wish I could!—This vixenish old craft is behaving with a great deal too much suavity to suit my notions. I don't care about making a reverence to every wave I meet if they're going to tower up at this rate. But I guess you're right, Linden—the description of you can be made quite captivating—and her cheeks glowed like damask roses with some sort of inspiration. However, as George pathetically and poetically remarks,

'I only know she came and went!'—

the last part of which illustrious example I shall follow. Linden, if any story don't move you, you're no better than the North Cape."

"Can you stand it?"—asked the doctor suddenly of his remaining companion.

"Yes—I have known Motley a long time."

"Pshaw! no, I mean this wind."

"I beg your pardon! Yes—for anything I have felt of it yet."

"If you will excuse me, I will get something more on. I have come from a warmer part of the world lately."

The doctor disappeared, and found something in another part of the boat to detain him.

Dr. Harrison had stood one conversation, but he had no mind to stand a second. He did not think it necessary. If by any possibility he could have put himself on board of another steamer, or packet; or have leaped forward into France, or back into America!—he would have done it. But since he must see Mr. Linden from time to time in their present situation, he contrived that that should be all. Even that was as seldom and as little as possible; the art not to see, Dr. Harrison could practise to perfection, and did now; so far as he could without rendering it too obviously a matter of his own will. That would not have suited his plans. So he saw his one-time friend as often as he must, and then was civil invariably, civil with the respect which was Dr. Harrison's highest degree of civility and which probably in this instance was true and heartfelt; but he was cool, after his slight gay surface manner, and even when speaking kept at a distance. For the rest, it is notable, even in so small a space as the walls of a steamer shut in, how far apart people can be that have no wish to be near. Days passed that saw at the utmost only a bow exchanged between these two; many days that heard but one or two words. Mr. Linden's own plans and occupations, the arrangement of his time, helped to further the doctor's wish. There was many an hour when Dr. Harrison would not have found him if he had tried, but when they were really together the non-intercourse was the doctor's fault. For all that had been, Mr. Linden was still his friend,—he realized more and more every day the value of the prize for which Dr. Harrison had played and lost; and pity had made forgiveness easy. He was ready for all their old kindly intercourse, but seeing the doctor shunned him there was nothing to do but follow the lead. Sometimes indeed they came together for a few minutes—were thrown so—in a way that was worse than hours of talk.

The Vulcan had made about half her passage, and a fair, fresh morning had brought most of the passengers on deck. Mr. Linden was not there, but the rest were grouped and watching the approach of a homeward bound steamer; when as she neared them Mr. Linden too came on deck. It was to talk with the Captain however, not the passengers—or to consult with him, for the two stood together speaking and smiling. "You can try," Dr. Harrison heard the Captain say; and then he lifted his trumpet and hailed—the other Captain responding. Still the steamer came on, nearer and nearer,—still the two on the deck of the Vulcan stood side by side; till at a certain point, just where the vessels were at the nearest, Captain Cyclops gave his companion a little signal nod. And Mr. Linden stepping forward a pace or two, lent the whole power of his skill and strength to send a despatch on board the Polar Bear. The little packet sped from his hand, spinning through the air like a dark speck. Not a person spoke or moved—Would it reach?—would it fail?—until the packet, just clearing the guards, fell safe on the deck of the other vessel, was picked up by her Captain and proclaimed through the speaking trumpet. Slightly raising his hat then, Mr. Linden drew back from his forward position; just as a shout of delighted acclaim burst from both the boats.

"That went with a will, I tell you!" said Captain Cyclops with a little nod of his head.

"I say, Linden!" spoke out one of the young men—"is that your heart you sent home?"

"I feel it beating here yet," Mr. Linden answered. But just how much of it he carried back to his state-room for the next hour has never been ascertained. Society had no help from Dr. Harrison for more than that length of time. Neither could proximity nor anything else make him, visibly, aware of Mr. Linden's existence during the rest of the day.

Mr. Linden knew the doctor too well—and it maybe said, knew Faith too well—to be much surprised at that. If he could have spared Dr. Harrison the pain of seeing his little air-sent missive, he would have done it; but the letter could go but at one time, and from one side of the ship—and just there and then Dr. Harrison chose to be. But though the sort of growing estrangement which the doctor practised sprang from no wish nor feeling but his own, yet Mr. Linden found it hard to touch it in any way. Sometimes he tried—sometimes he left it for Time's touching, which mends so many things. And slowly, and gently, that touch did work—not by fading one feeling but by deepening another. Little as Dr. Harrison had to do with his friend, almost every one else in the ship had a good deal, and the place which Mr. Linden soon took in the admiration as well as the respect of the passengers, could not fail to come to the doctor's notice. Men of very careless life and opinions pruned their language in his presence,—those who lived but for themselves, and took poor care of what they lived for, passed him reverently on some of his errands through the ship. Dr. Harrison had never lived with him before, and little as they saw each other, you could as well conceal the perfume of a hidden bunch of violets—as well shut your senses to the spring air—as could the doctor shut his to the beauty of that well-grown Christian character. The light of it shone, and the influence of it went forth through all the ship.

"What a strange, incomprehensible, admirable fellow, Linden is!" said Mr. Motley one day when he and the doctor were sunning themselves in profound laziness on deck. It was rather late Sunday afternoon, and the morning service had left a sort of respectful quietness behind it.

"He must be!" said the doctor with a slight indescribable expression,—"if at this moment you can be roused to wonder at anything."

Mr. Motley inclined his head with perfect suavity in honour of the doctor's words.

"It's a glorious thing to lie here on deck and do nothing!" he said, extending his elegantly clad limbs rather more into the distance. "How fine the breeze is, doctor—what do you think of the day, as a whole?"

"Unfinished, at present,—"

"Well—" said Mr. Motley,—"take that part of it which you with such precision term 'this moment',—what do you think of it as it appears here on deck?"

"Sunny—" said the doctor,—"and we are flies. On the whole I think it's a bore, Motley."

"What do you think of the Black Hole of Calcutta, in comparison?" said Mr. Motley closing his eyes.

"The difference is, that that would have been an insufferable bore."

Mr. Motley smiled—stroking his chin with affectionate fingers. "On the whole," he said, "I think you're right in that position. What do you suppose Linden's about at this moment?"

"Is he your ward?" said the doctor.

"He's down below—" said Mr. Motley with a significant pointing of his train of remarks. "By which I don't mean! that he's left this planet—for truly, when he does I think it will be in a different direction; but he's down in the steerage—trying to get some of those creatures to follow him."

"Which way?"

"You and George Alcott have such a snappish thread in you!" said Mr. Motley yawning—"only it sits better on George than it does on you. But I like it—it rather excites me to be snubbed. However, here comes Linden—so I hope they'll not follow him this way."

"This way" Mr. Linden himself did not come, but chose another part of the deck for a somewhat prolonged walk in the seabreeze. The doctor glanced towards him, then moved his chair slightly, so as to put the walker out of his range of vision.

"He's a good fellow enough," he remarked carelessly. "You were pleased to speak of him just now as 'incomprehensible'—may I ask how he has earned a title to that?" The tone was a little slighting.

"Take the last instance—" said Mr. Motley,—"you yourself were pleased to pronounce the steerage a more insufferable bore than the deck—yet he chooses it,—and not only on Sundays. I don't believe there's a day that he don't go down there. He's popular enough without it—'tisn't that. And nobody knows it—one of the sailors told me. If he was a medico, like you, doctor, there'd be less wonder—but as it is!—" and Mr. Motley resigned himself again to the influence of the sunshine. A moment's meditation on the doctor's part, to judge by his face, was delectable.

"There isn't any sickness down there?" he said then.

"Always is in the steerage—isn't there?" said Mr. Motley,—"I don't know!—the surgeon can tell you."

"There's no occasion,—" said the doctor with a little haughtiness. "He knows who I am."

And Dr. Harrison too resigned himself, apparently, to the sunny influences of the time and was silent.

But as the sun went down lower and lower, Mr. Motley roused himself up and went off to try the effect upon his spirits of a little cheerful society,—then Mr. Linden came and took the vacant chair.

"How beautiful it is!" he said, in a tone that was half greeting, half meditation. The start with which Dr. Harrison heard him was skilfully transformed into a natural change of position.

"Beautiful?—yes," said he. "Has the beauty driven Motley away?"

"He is gone.—Your waves are very dazzling to-night, doctor."

"They are helping us on," said the doctor looking at them. "We shall be in after two days more—if this holds."

Helping us on—perhaps the thought was not unqualified in Mr. Linden's mind, for he considered that—or something else—in grave silence for a minute or two.

"Dr. Harrison," he said suddenly, "you asked me about my course—I wish you would tell me yours. Towards what—for what. You bade me call myself a friend—may I use a friend's privilege?" He spoke with a grave, frank earnestness.

The doctor's face shewed but a small part of the astonishment which this speech raised. It shewed a little.

"I can be but flattered!—" he said with something of the old graceful medium between play and earnest. "You ask me what I am hardly wise enough to answer you. I am going to Paris, and you to Germany. After that, I really know about as much of one 'course' as of the other."

"My question referred, not to the little daily revolutions, but to the great life orbit. Harrison, what is yours to be?"

Evidently it was an uneasy question. Yet the power of influence—or of associations—was such that Dr. Harrison did not fling it away. "I remember," he said, not without some bitterness of accent—"you once did me the honour to profess to care."

"I do care, very much." And one of the old looks, that Dr. Harrison well remembered—said the words were true.

"You do me more honour than I do myself," he said, not so lightly as he meant to say it. "I do not care. I see nothing to care for."

"You refuse to see it—" Mr. Linden said gently and sorrowfully.

Dr. Harrison's brow darkened—it might be with pain, for Mr. Linden's words were the echo of others he had listened to—not long ago. In a moment he turned and spoke with an impulse—of bravado? Perhaps he could not have defined, and his companion could not trace.

"I refuse to see nothing!—but I confess to you I see nothing distinctly. What sort of an 'orbit' would you propose to me?"

The tone sounded frank, and certainly was not unkind. Mr. Linden's answer was in few words—"'To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life'."

Dr. Harrison remained a little while with knitted brow looking down at his hands, which certainly were in an order to need no examination. Neither was he examining them. When he looked up again it was with the frankness and kindliness both more defined. Perhaps, very strange to his spirit, a little shame was at work there.

"Linden," he said, "I believe in you! and if ever I enter upon an orbit of any sort, I'll take up yours. But—" said he relapsing into his light tone, perhaps of intent,—"you know two forces are necessary to keep a body going in one—and I assure you there is none, of any sort, at present at work upon me!"

"You are mistaken," said Mr. Linden,—"there are two."

"Let's hear—" said the doctor without looking at him.

"In the first place your conscience, in the second your will."

"You have heard of such things as both getting stagnant for want of use—haven't you?"

"I have heard of the one being half choked by the other," said Mr. Linden:

"It's so warm this afternoon that I can't contradict you. What do you want me to do, Linden?"

"Let conscience do its work—and then you do yours."

A minute's silence.

"You do me honour, to believe I have such a thing as a conscience,"—said the doctor again a little bitterly. "I didn't use to think it, myself."

He was unaware that it was that very ignored principle which had forced him to make this speech.

"My dear friend—" Mr. Linden began, and he too paused, looking off gravely towards the brightening horizon. "Then do yourself the honour to let conscience have fair play," he went on presently,—"it is too delicate a stream to bear the mountain torrents of unchecked will and keep its clearness."

"Hum!—there's no system of drainage that ever I heard of that will apply up in those regions!" said the doctor, after again a second's delay to speak. "And you are doing my will too much honour now—I tell you it is in a state of stagnation, and I don't at present see any precipice to tumble down. When I do, I'll promise to think of you—if that thought isn't carried away too.—Come, Linden!" he said with more expression of kindliness than Mr. Linden had seen certainly during all the voyage before,—"I believe in you, and I will!—though I suppose my words do seem to you no better than the very spray of those torrents you are talking about. Will you walk?—Motley put me to sleep, but you have done one good thing—you have stirred me to desire action at least."

It was curious, how the power of character, the power of influence, had borne down passion and jealousy—even smothered mortification and pride—and made the man of the world speak truth. Mr. Linden rose—yet did not immediately begin the walk; for laying one hand on the doctor's shoulder with a gesture that spoke both regard and sorrow and entreaty, he stood silently looking off at the colours in the west.

"Dr. Harrison," he said, "I well believe that your mother and mine are dear friends in heaven—God grant that we may be, too!"

Then they both turned, and together began their walk. It lasted till they were summoned to tea; and from that time till they got in there was no more avoidance of his old friend by the doctor. His manner was changed; if he did not find enjoyment in Mr. Linden's society he found somewhat else which had value for him. There was not again a shade of dislike or of repulsion; and when they parted on landing, though it might be that there lay in Dr. Harrison's secret heart a hope that he might never see Mr. Linden again, there lay with it also, as surely, a secret regret.

Now all that Faith knew of this for a long time, was from a newspaper; where—among a crowd of unimportant passengers in the Vulcan's list—she read the names of Dr. Harrison and J. E. Linden.



CHAPTER XXXIII.



Faith and her mother sat alone at breakfast. About a fortnight of grave quiet had followed after the joyous month that went before, with little enlivening, few interruptions. Without, the season had bloomed into greater luxuriance,—within, the flowers now rarely came; and Faith's flowerless dress and belt and hair, said of themselves that Mr. Linden was away. Roses indeed peeped through the windows, and thrust their heads between the blinds, but no one invited them in.

Not so peremptorily as the roses—and yet with more assurance of welcome—Reuben Taylor knocked at the door during breakfast time; scattering the abstract musings that floated about the coffee-pot and mingled with its vapoury cloud.

"Sit down, Reuben," said Faith jumping up;—"there's a place for you,—and I'll give you a plate." To which Reuben only replied, "A letter, Miss Faith!"—and putting it in her hands went off with quick steps. On the back of it was written, up in one corner—"Flung on board the Polar Bear, by a strong hand, from steamship Vulcan, half way across."

There was no need of flowers now truly in the house, for Faith stood by the table transformed into a rose of summer joy.

"Mother!" she exclaimed,—"It's from sea—half way across."—

"From sea!—half way across—" her mother repeated. "Why child, what are you talking about? You don't mean that Mr. Linden's contrived to make a letter swim back here already, do you?"

Faith hardly heard. A minute she stood, with her eyes very like what Mr. Motley had graphically described them to be, breaking the seal with hurried fingers,—and then ran away. The breakfast table and Mrs. Derrick waited—they waited a long time before Faith came back to eat a cold breakfast, which tasted of nothing but sea-breezes and was therefore very strengthening. The strengthening effect went through the day; there was a fresh colour in Faith's face. Fifty times at least the "moonbeams" of her eyes saw a "strong hand" throw her packet across the sea waves that separated the two steamers; the master of the "Polar Bear" might guess, but Faith knew, that a strong heart had done it as well. And when her work was over Faith put a rose in her belt in honour of the day, and sat down to her books, very happy.

The books were engrossing, and it was later than usual when she came down stairs to get tea, but Mrs. Derrick was out. That wasn't very strange. Faith went through the little routine of preparation,—then she took another book and sat down by the sweet summer air of the open window to wait. By and by Mrs. Derrick came slowly down the road, opened and shut the gate with the same air of abstracted deliberateness, and came up the steps looking tired and flushed. In the porch Faith met and kissed her.

"Where have you been now, mother? tea's ready."

"Pretty child!" was Mrs. Derrick's answer, "how glad I am you got that letter this morning!"

Faith smiled; she didn't forget it, but it was not to be expected that it should be quite so present to Mrs. Derrick's mind. Yet almost at the same instant she felt that her mother had some particular reason for saying that just then.

"Where have you been, mother?"

"Up to Squire Stoutenburgh's," said Mrs. Derrick, putting herself wearily in the rocking-chair,—"and they were all out gone—to Pequot to spend the day. So I lost my labour."

Gently Faith stood before her and took off her bonnet. "What did you go there for, mother?"

"I wanted to see him—" said Mrs. Derrick. "Squire Deacon's been here, Faith."

"Mother! Is he back again?—What for?"

"Settle here and live, I suppose. He's married—that's one thing. What was he here for?—why the old story, Faith,—he wants the place." And Mrs. Derrick's eyes looked as if she wanted it too.

"Does he want it very much, mother?"

"Means to have it, child—and I don't feel as if I could live in any other house in Pattaquasset. So I thought maybe Mr. Stoutenburgh would make him hold off till next year, Faith," said Mrs. Derrick, a little smile coming back to her lips. "I guess I'll go up again after tea."

Faith coaxed her mother into the other room and gave her her tea daintily; revolving in her mind the while many things. When tea was over and Mrs. Derrick was again bent upon business, Faith ventured a question. "Mother, what do you suppose Squire Stoutenburgh can do to help us?"

"I can't tell, child,—he might talk Sam Deacon into letting us keep the house, at least. We've got to live somewhere, you know, Faith. It's no sort of use for me to talk to him,—he's as stiff as a crab tree—and I aint. I think I'll try."

"To-night, mother?"

"I thought I would."

Faith hesitated, putting the cups together. "Mother, I'll go. I dare say I shall do as well."

"I'm afraid you're tired too, pretty child," said Mrs. Derrick, but with evident relief at the very idea.

"I tired?—Never," said Faith. "You rest, mother—and don't fear," she added, kissing her. "I'll put on my bonnet—and be there and back again in a little while."

The summer twilight was falling grey, but Faith knew she could have a guardian to come home; and besides the road between the two houses was thickly built up and perfectly safe. The evening glow was almost gone, the stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must manage it as she could.

Spite of this bugbear, she had gone with a light free step all along her road, walking rather quick; for other thoughts had kept her company, and the image of her little flying packet shot once and again through her mind. At length she came to Mr. Stoutenburgh's gate, and Faith's foot paused. Light shone through the muslin curtains; and as her step neared the front door the broken sounds of voices and laughter came unwelcomely through. A most unnecessary formality her knock was, but one of the children came to the door and ushered her at once into the tea-room, where the family were waiting for their late tea. Mrs. Stoutenburgh—looking very pretty in her light summer dress—was half reclining on the sofa, professing that she was tired to death, but quite failing to excite any sympathy thereby in the group of children who had not seen her since morning. The Squire himself walked leisurely up and down, with his hands behind him, sometimes laughing at the children sometimes helping on their play. Through the room was the full perfume of roses, and the lamplight could not yet hide the departing glow of the western horizon. Into this group and atmosphere little Linda brought the guest, with the simple announcement, "Mother, it's Miss Faith."

"Miss Faith!" Mrs. Stoutenburgh exclaimed, starting up and dispersing the young ones,—"Linda, you shall have a lump of sugar!—My dear other child, how do you do?—and what sweet corner of your little heart sent you up here to-night? You have not—no, that can't be,—and you wouldn't come here if you had. But dear Faith, how are you?"—and she was rescued from the Squire and carried off to the sofa to answer at her leisure. With a sort of blushing, steadfast grace, which was common with her in the company of friends who were in her secret, Faith answered.

"And you haven't had tea yet,"—she said remorsefully. "I came to give Mr. Stoutenburgh some trouble—but I can do it in three minutes." Faith looked towards the Squire.

"My dear," he said, "it would take you three years!"

"But Faith," said Mrs. Stoutenburgh—"here comes the tea, and you can't go home without Mr. Stoutenburgh,—and nothing qualifies him for business like a contented state of his appetite!"

Faith laughed and sat down again, and then was fain upon persuasion to take a place at the table, which was a joyous scene enough. Faith did little but fill a place; her mind was busy with thoughts that began to come pressingly; she tried not to have it seem so.

"My dear," said the Squire as he helped Faith to raspberries, "what fine weather we have had, eh?"

"Beautiful weather!"—Faith responded with a little energy.

"Papa," said one of the children, "do you think Mr. Linden's had it fine too?"

"What tangents children's minds go off in!" observed Mrs. Stoutenburgh. "Faith! don't eat your raspberries without sugar,—how impatient you are. You used to preach patience to me when I was sick."

"I can be very patient, with these raspberries and no sugar," said Faith, wishing she could hide the bloom of her cheeks as easily as she hid that of the berries under the fine white shower.

"Poor child!" said her friend gently,—"I think you have need of all your patience." And her hands came softly about Faith's plate, removing encumbrances and adding dainties, with a sort of mute sympathy that at the moment could find no more etherial channel. "Mr. Stoutenburgh drove down to Quapaw the other day," she went on in a low voice, "to ask those fishing people what indications our land weather gave of the weather at sea; and—he couldn't half tell me about his visit when he came home," said Mrs. Stoutenburgh, breaking short off in her account. "Linda, go get that glass of white roses and set it by Miss Faith,—maybe she'll take them home with her."

Faith looked at the white roses and smelled their sweetness; and then she said, "Who did you see, Mr. Stoutenburgh?—down at Quapaw?"

"None of the men, my dear—they were all away, but I saw half the rest of the village; and even the children knew what report the men had brought in, and what they thought of the weather. Everybody had a good word to say about it, Miss Faith; and everybody—I do believe!" said the Squire reverently, "had been on their knees to pray for it. Jonathan Ling's wife said that was all they could ever do for him." Which pronoun, be it understood, did not refer to Jonathan Ling.

"They're Mr. Linden's roses, Miss Faith," said little Linda, who stood waiting for more marked admiration,—"do you like them? He always did."

Faith kissed the child, partly to thank her and to stop her lips, partly to hide her own which she felt were tale-telling.

"Where did you get the roses, Linda?"

"O off the bush in the garden. But Mr. Linden always picked one whenever he came, and sometimes he'd stop on his way to school, and just open the gate and get one of these white roses and then go away again. So we called it Mr. Linden's bush." Faith endeavoured to attend to her raspberries after this. When tea was over she was carried off into the drawing-room and the children were kept out.

"If you want me away too, Faith," Mrs. Stoutenburgh said as she arranged the lamp and the curtains, "I'll go."

"I don't want you to go, ma'am."—And then covering her trepidation under the simplest of grave exteriors, Faith spoke to the point. "It is mother's business. Squire Deacon has come home, Mr. Stoutenburgh."

"My dear," said the Squire, "I know he has. I heard it just before you came in. But he's married, Miss Faith."

"That don't content him," said Faith, "for he wants our farm."

"Rascal!" said Mr. Stoutenburgh in an emphatic under tone,—"the old claim, I suppose. What's the state of it now, my dear?"

"Nothing new, sir; he has a right to it, I suppose. The mortgage is owing, and we haven't been able to pay anything but the interest, and that must be a small rent for the farm." Faith paused. Mrs. Stoutenburgh was silent; looking from one to the other anxiously,—the Squire himself was not very intelligible.

"Yes"—he said,—"of course. Your poor father only lived to make the second payment. I don't know why I call him poor—he's rich enough now. But Sam Deacon!—a small rent? too much for him to get,—and too little.—Why my dear!" he said suddenly sitting up straight and facing round upon Faith, "I thought—What does your mother expect to do, Miss Faith?—has she seen Sam? What does he say?"

"He came to see her this afternoon, sir—he is bent upon having the place, mother says. And she don't like to leave the old house," Faith said slowly. "He will take the farm, I suppose,—but mother thought, perhaps, sir—if you would speak to Mr. Deacon, he would let us stay in the house—only the house without anything else—for another year. Mother wished it—I don't know that your speaking to him could do any good." Faith went straight through, but the rosy colour sprung and grew till its crimson reached her forehead. Not the less she went clearly through with what she had to say, her eyes only at the last words drooping. Mr. Stoutenburgh rose up with great energy and stood before her.

"My dear," he said, "he shall do it! If it was any other man I'd promise to make him do more, but Sam always must have some way of amusing himself, and I'm afraid I can't make this as expensive as the last one he tried. You tell your mother, Miss Faith, that she shall stay in her house till she'd rather go to yours. I hope that won't be more than a year, but if it is she shall stay."

"That's good, Mr. Stoutenburgh!" said his wife with a little clap of her hands.

Whether Faith thought it was 'good' might be a question; her eyes fell further, she did not offer to thank Mr. Stoutenburgh for his energetic kindness, nor to say anything. Yet Faith had seemingly more to say, for she made no motion to go. She sat quite still a few minutes, till raising her eyes fully to Mr. Stoutenburgh's face she said gravely, "Mother will feel very glad when I tell her that, sir."

"She may make herself easy But tell her, my dear," said the Squire, again forgetting in his earnestness what ground he was on,—"tell her she's on no account to tell Sam why she wants to stay. Will you recollect that, Miss Faith?"

Faith's eyes opened slightly. "I think he must know—or guess it, Mr. Stoutenburgh? Mother says she could hardly bear to live in any other house in Pattaquasset."

"My dear Miss Faith!" said Mr. Stoutenburgh,—"I mean!—why she don't want to stay any longer. That's what Sam mustn't know. I'm very stupid about my words, always."

Faith was again obliged to wait a few minutes before she could go on. Mrs. Stoutenburgh was the first to speak, for the Squire walked up and down, no doubt (mentally) attacking Mr. Deacon.

"I'm so glad!" she said, with the old dance of her eyes—and yet a little sigh too. "So glad and so happy, that I could cry,—I know I shall when the time comes. Dear Faith, do you feel quite easy about this other business now?"

"What, ma'am?—about Mr. Deacon?"

"Why yes!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh laughing,—"isn't that the only one you've been uneasy about?"

"I am not uneasy now," said Faith. "But Mr. Stoutenburgh—if Mr. Deacon takes the farm back again, whom does the hay belong to, and the cattle, and the tools and farm things?"

"All that's on the land—all that's growing on it, goes with it. All that's under cover and moveable belongs to you."

"Then the hay in the barn is ours?"

"Everything in the barn."

"There's a good deal in the barn," said Faith with a brightening face. "You know the season has been early, sir, and our hay-fields lie well to the sun; and a great deal of the hay is in. Mr. Deacon will want some rent for the house I suppose,—and I guess there will be hay enough to pay it, whatever it is. For I can't sell my cows!—" she added laughing a little.

Her two friends—the Squire on the floor and his wife on the sofa—looked at her and then at each other.

"My dear," the Squire began, "I want to ask you a question. And before I do, let me tell you—which perhaps you don't know—just what right I"—

"Oh Mr. Stoutenburgh!" cried his wife, "do please hush!—you'll say something dreadful."

"Not a bit of it—" said the Squire,—"I know what to say this time, my dear, and when to stop. I wanted to tell you, Miss Faith, that I am your regularly appointed guardian—therefore if I ask questions you will understand why." But what more on that subject the Squire might have said, and said not, was left to conjecture. Faith looked at him, wondering, colouring, doubting.

"I never heard of it before, sir," she said.

"You shouldn't say regularly, Mr. Stoutenburgh," said his wife,—"Faith will think she is to be under your control."

"I shouldn't say legally," said the Squire, "and I didn't. No she aint under my control. I only mean, Miss Faith," he said turning to her, "that I am appointed to look after your interests, till somebody who is better qualified comes to do it."

"There—Mr. Stoutenburgh,—don't go any further," said his wife.

"Not in that direction," said the Squire. "Now my dear, if Sam Deacon will amuse himself in this way, as I said, what will you do? Do the farm and the house about counterbalance each other most years?"

Faith never knew how she separated the two parts of her nature enough at this moment to be practical, but she answered. "We have been able to pay the interest on the mortgage, sir, every year. That's all. Mother has not laid up anything."

The Squire took a turn or two up and down the room, then came and stood before her again. "My dear," he said, "you can't tell just yet what your plans will be, so I won't ask you to-night, but you had better let me deal with Sam Deacon, and the new tenant, and the hay, and everything else. And you may draw upon me for something more solid, to any amount you please."

"Something more solid than yourself!—O Mr. Stoutenburgh!" his wife said, though her eyes were bright with more than one feeling.

Faith was silent a minute, and then gave Mr. Stoutenburgh a full view of those steady eyes that some people liked and some did not care just so to meet.

"No, sir!—" she said with a smile and also a little wistful look of the gratitude she did not speak,—"if the hay will pay the rent, I don't want anything else. Mother and I can do very well. We will be very much obliged to you to manage Mr. Deacon for us—and the hay. I think I can manage the rest. I shall keep the cows and make butter,"—she said with a laughing flash of the eye.

"O delicious!" cried Mrs. Stoutenburgh, "(I mean the butter, Faith)—but will you let me have it?"

"You don't want it," said Faith.

"I do!—nobody makes such butter—I should eat my breakfast with a new appetite, and so would Sam. We never can get butter enough when he's in the house. I'll send down for it three times a week—how often do you churn, Faith?"

Faith came close up to her and kissed her as she whispered laughingly, "Every day!"

"Then I'll send every day!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh clapping her hands. "And then I shall hear of you once in a while.—Ungrateful child, you haven't been here before since—I suppose it won't do to say when," she added, kissing Faith on both cheeks. "I shall tell Mr. Linden it is not benevolent to pet you so much."

"But my dear—my dear—" said the Squire from one to the other. "Well, well,—I'll talk to you another time, Miss Faith,—I can't keep up with more than one lady at once. You and Mrs. Stoutenburgh have gone on clean ahead of me."

"What's the matter, Mr. Stoutenburgh?" said Faith. "I would like to hear it now, for there is something I want settled."

"What's that?" said the Squire.

"Will you please go on, sir?"

"I guess I'll hear you first," said the Squire. "You seem to know just what you want to say, Miss Faith, and I'm not sure that I do."

"You said we had gone on ahead of you, sir. Shall we go back now?"

"Why my dear," said the Squire smiling, "I thought you two were settling up accounts and arrangements rather fast, that's all. If they are the beginning and end, that's very well; but if they're only premonitory symptoms, that again's different."

"And not 'very well'?" said Faith, waiting.

"Not very," said Mr. Stoutenburgh shaking his head.

"How should it be better, sir?"

"My dear, in general, what is needless can be spared."

"I don't know what I am going to do, Mr. Stoutenburgh. I am going to do nothing needless, not wilfully needless. But I am going to do it without help." She stood before him, with perfect gentleness but with as clear determination in both look and manner, making her meaning known. Mrs. Stoutenburgh laughed, the Squire stood looking at her in a smiling perplexity. Finally went straight to the point.

"Miss Faith, it is doubly needless that you should do anything more than you've been doing—everybody knows that's enough. In the first place, my dear, you are your father's child—and that's all that need be said, till my purse has a hole at both ends. In the next place—shall I tell her what she is in the next place, Mrs. Stoutenburgh?"

"I fancy she knows," said his wife demurely.

"Well," said the Squire, "the next place is the first place, after all, and I haven't the right to do much but take care of her. But my dear, I have it under hand and seal to take better care than that."

"Than what, sir?"—said Faith with very deep colour, but unchanged bearing.

"I don't know yet," said Mr. Stoutenburgh, "any more than you know what you are going to do. Than to let you do anything that would grieve your dear friend and mine. If I could shew you the letter you'd understand, Miss Faith, but I'm not good at repeating. 'To take care of you as lie would'—that was part of it. And because I can't half carry out such instructions, is no sign I shouldn't do it a quarter." And the Squire stood as firm on his ground as Faith on hers.

No, not quite; for in her absolute gentleness there was a power of intent expressed, which rougher outlines could but give with less emphasis. The blood spoke for her eloquently before Faith could find any sort of words to speak for herself, brought now by more feelings than one; yet still she stood before the Squire, drooping her head a little, a soft statue of immoveability. Only once, just before she spoke, both Faith's hands went up to her brow to push the hair back; a most unusual gesture of agitation. But her look and her words were after the same steady fashion as before, aggravated by a little wicked smile, and Faith's voice sounded for sweetness like silver bells.

"You can't do it, Mr. Stoutenburgh!—not that way. Take care of me every other way;—but I'll not have—of that sort—a bit of help."—

The Squire looked at her with a mixture of amusement and perplexity.

"Pin to follow suit—" he said,—"but then I don't just know what Mr. Linden would do in such a case! Can you tell me, Miss Faith?"

"It is no matter—it would not make any difference."

"What would not?" said the Squire innocently.

"Anything that he could do, sir;—so you have no chance." She coloured gloriously, but she smiled at him too with her last words.

"Well, Miss Faith," said Mr. Stoutenburgh, "I have my doubts as to the correctness of that first statement; but I'll tell you what I shall do, my refractory young lady. If you set about anything outside the limits, I'll do my best to thwart you,—there!"

If Faith was not a match for him, there was no meaning in the laugh of her dark eye. But she only bade Mrs. Stoutenburgh an affectionate good night, took her bunch of white roses and Mr. Stoutenburgh's arm and set out to go home.



CHAPTER XXXIV.



Faith put her roses in water and listened half a minute to their strange silent messages. But after that she did a great deal of thinking. If all went well, and Mr. Linden got home safe from abroad,—and this year were all she had to take care for, it was a very little matter to keep the year afloat, and very little matter, in her estimation, whatever she might have to do for the purpose. But those "ifs" no mortal could answer for. Faith did not look much at that truth, but she acted upon it; prayed over her thoughts and brought her plans into shape in very humble consciousness of it. And at the early breakfast the next morning she began to unfold them; which as Mrs. Derrick did not like them, led on to a long talk; but Faith as usual had her way.

After some preliminary arrangements, and late in the day, she set off upon a long walk to Miss Bezac's. The slant beams of the summer sun were again upon the trim little house as Faith came up towards it. Things were changed since she was there before! changed a good deal from the gay, joyous playtime of that visit. Mr. Linden in Europe, and she—"It is very well," thought Faith; "it might not have been good for me to have too much of such a time. Next year"—