Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 64

His face was very bright and grateful, and humble too. "Miss Faith," he said, taking up her words, "don't you love to think of that other definition of minister?--you know--'ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.'"

"In that way the world is full now," said Faith; "in all things except men. But by and by 'the great trumpet will be blown' and 'they that were ready to perish' shall come, from everywhere. It's good to know that."

"It's such a beautiful thing to know, just by believing!" Reuben said,--"don't you think so, Miss Faith? And then whatever people say or do, and if we can't find a word to answer them, we _know_ down in our hearts, that the Bible is true. And so 'by faith we stand.'"

"But we ought to find words to answer them, Reuben--or else, though _we_ stand, they fall!"

"Yes, ma'am--sometimes," Reuben said rather hesitatingly. "Only--I've heard Mr. Linden say that a Christian must take care of his own standing _first_, and do nothing to shake that; or else he may have his own light blown out while he's trying to light other people's. You know, Miss Faith, the five wise virgins would not give their oil to the others. I've heard Mr. Linden talk about it very often," Reuben added softly, as if he wanted to screen himself from the charge of presumption.

If Faith was bringing charges, it was against herself, for she sat very silent and thoughtful, and weary also; for when for the fifth or sixth time Reuben brought his eyes from the fire to her face he saw that she had fallen asleep.

Mr. Linden's letters about this time told two or three things, among the rest that he might soon be looked for instead of letters. Moreover that he felt sure he was wanted--and further, that Faith's letters had changed. These two last things were not said in words, but Faith read them none the less surely--read thus first that her letters really _were_ different. Just what cause Mr. Linden a.s.signed to himself, she did not know, nor whether he had fixed upon any; but it was clear that nothing but the fact that his freedom was so close at hand, kept him from freeing himself at once and coming to Pattaqua.s.set. And second only to Faith did Mrs. Derrick long for his appearance.

She had heard bits of the doctor's talk from time to time, but for a while with some doubt of their meaning,--as whether he was reporting what other people said, or whether she had heard him correctly. But when by degrees the goodness of her hearing attested itself, _then_ Mrs. Derrick's indignation began to follow suit. The doctor's object she did not at first guess (perhaps made it, if possible, worse than it was) but that made little difference.

On this particular afternoon, when Faith woke up she found Reuben gone and her mother keeping watch. The fair look that always greeted Mrs.

Derrick was given her, but otherwise the face she was studying was not satisfactory. The roundness of the cheek was much lessened, the colour was gone, and the lines of expression were weary though she had slept.

Or rather perhaps they were too gravely drawn.

"Faith," said her mother decisively, "you want your tea. Can you eat a broiled pigeon, if I broil it myself?"

"I can eat a piece of one, if you'll take the rest, mother," she said with a smile at her. "I eat a whole banana just before I went to sleep."

"Well this ain't the doctor's pigeon, so I guess it will be good," said Mrs. Derrick. "Sam Stoutenburgh brought it.--And I'm going to cook it here, pretty child, because I want to be here myself. I suppose the smoke won't trouble you if it goes up chimney?"

"I'd like it, smoke and all, mother," said Faith, changing the resting-place for her head. "But you needn't slight the doctor's birds--they were as fine birds as could be--when I could eat them."

"'Birds of a feather'"--said Mrs. Derrick laconically. And she drew out some of the glowing and winking embers, and set thereon the tiny gridiron with its purplish plump pigeon. "Sam's home now, Faith, and you'd think he'd been through every degree of everything. But the first thing he did was to go off and shoot pigeons for you."

Faith was inclined to think he had not got above one degree. She sat in her easy-chair and watched the play cookery with amused pleased eyes.

"I should like to be in the kitchen again, mother--doing something for you."

"You shall do something for me presently," said her mother, as the pigeon began to send out little puffs of steam and jets of juice, which the coals resented. "_This_ one's fat, anyway--and there's a half dozen more. The fun of it is, child, that Sam was afraid there weren't enough!--he wanted to know if I was _sure_ they'd last till to-morrow!--so I guess _he's_ not in a fainting away state. I told him we'd roast beef in the house, for you to fall back upon, child," she added with a little laugh, as she turned the pigeon. But her face was very grave the next moment, with the sorrowful reality. "Pretty child,"

she said tenderly, "do you feel as if you could eat a m.u.f.fin or a biscuit best?"

"Mother, that pigeon is making me hungry, it smells so nice. I am sure I can eat anything."

"Well I _made_ m.u.f.fins," said Mrs. Derrick, bustling softly about with the little table and the tea-things. "Faith, I'm afraid to have Mr.

Linden come home and find your cheeks so thin."

"I'm not," said Faith quietly.

"My!" said her mother, "you never were afraid of anything he'd a mind to do, child. But for all _I_ know, he may carry you off to Europe in the next steamer. He's up to 'most anything," said Mrs. Derrick stooping down by the pigeon, and giving it the persuasion of a few more coals.

Faith said languidly that she did not think there was much danger, and Mrs. Derrick for the present concentrated her attention upon the tea preparations. Cindy came up with a little teakettle, and Mrs. Derrick made the tea, and then went down stairs to superintend the first baking of the m.u.f.fins, leaving the teakettle to sing Faith into a very quiet state of mind. Then presently reappearing, with a smoking plate of cakes in her hand, Mrs. Derrick took up the pigeon, with due applications of b.u.t.ter and salt and pepper, and the tea was ready. It was early; the sunbeams were lingering yet in the room, the air wafted in through the window the sweet dewy breath of flowers and buds and springing gra.s.s over the pigeon and m.u.f.fins; and by Faith's plate stood the freshest of watercresses in a little white bowl. These Reuben brought her every day, wet from the clear stream where they grew, s.h.i.+ning with the drops of bright water, and generally sprinkled too with some of the spring flowers. To-day the plate on which the bowl stood had a perfect wreath or crown of mouse-ear,--the pale pink blossoms saying all sorts of sweet things. The room was well off for flowers in other respects. Dr. Harrison's hothouse foreigners looked dainty and splendid, and Mrs. Stoutenburgh's periwinkle and crocuses and daffodils looked springlike and fresh; while in another gla.s.s a rich a.s.sortment of dandelions spoke a prettier message yet, from Charles twelfth and his little compeers.

"And the mouse-ear is come!" said Faith as she applied herself to the refreshment of salt and watercresses. "I wonder whether Reuben does this because he loves flowers him self, or because he knows I do. I guess it's both. How lovely they are! How my dairy must want me, mother." Which was said with a little recollective patient sigh.

"I guess it can wait," said her mother cheerfully. "And I guess it'll have to. You needn't think you'll be let do anything for one while, Faith."

"I guess I shall, mother. I am sure I am stronger to-day,--and Dr.

Harrison said I had less fever. And your pigeon is good. Besides, I _must_,--if I can,"--said Faith, with an antic.i.p.ative glance this time.

"It's my belief, child," said her mother, "that if Dr. Harrison had staid away altogether--or never staid here more than five minutes at a time, you'd have been better long ago. But I think you _are_ better--in spite of him."

Of the two subjects Faith preferred the pigeon to Dr. Harrison, and discussed it quite to her mother's satisfaction. But if silent, she thought never the less. Both Reuben Taylor's words and her mother's words quickened her to thinking, and thinking seemed of very little use. The next day when the doctor came she was as grave and still and unresponsive as she could be. And it had no effect on him whatever. He was just as usual, he talked just as usual; and Faith could but be grieved, and be silent. It did not enter her gentle imagination that the very things which so troubled her were spoken on purpose to trouble her. How could it? when they made their way into the conversation and into her hearing as followers of something else, as harpies that worried or had worried somebody else, as shapes that a cloud might take and be a cloud again--only she could not forget that shape. It was near now the time for Mr. Linden to come home, and Faith looked for his coming with an hourly breath of longing. It seemed to her that his very being there would at once break the mesh Dr. Harrison was so busy weaving and in which she had no power to stop him.

But the doctor's opportunity for playing this game was nearing an end, and he knew it. He did not know that Mr. Linden was coming; he did know that Faith was getting well.

A day or two after the talk with Reuben it happened that Mrs. Derrick was detained down stairs when the doctor came up to see Faith. The room was full of a May warmth and sweetness from the open windows; and Faith herself in a white dress instead of the brown wrapper, looked May-like enough. Not so jocund and blooming certainly; she was more like a snowdrop than a crocus. Her cheeks were pale and thin, but their colour was fresh; and her eye had the light of returning health,--or of returning something else!

"You are getting well!" said the doctor. "I shall lose my work--and forgive me, my pleasure!"

"I will give you some better work to do, Dr. Harrison."

"What is that? Anything for you!--"

"It is not for me. That little lame child to whom you sent the rose-tree, Dr. Harrison,--she is very sick. Would you go and see her?"

"Did you think I would not?" he said rather gravely.

"I want to see her very much myself," Faith went on;--"but I suppose I could not take so long a ride yet. Could I?"

The doctor looked at her.

"I think the mother of the Gracchi must have been something such a woman!" he said with an indescribable grave comic mien;--"and the other Roman mother that saved Rome and lost her son! Or that lady of Sparta who made the affectionate request to _her_ son about coming home from the battle on his s.h.i.+eld! I thought the race had died out."

Faith could not help laughing. He had not been sure that she would understand his allusions, but his watchful eye saw that she did.

"Were you educated in Pattaqua.s.set?" he said. "Pardon me!"--

All Faith's gravity returned, and all her colour too. "No, sir," she said, "I have never been educated. I am studying now."

"Studying!" said he gently. "You have little need to study."

"Why, sir?"

"There are minds and natures so rich by their original const.i.tution, that their own free growth is a fuller and better harvest than all the schoolmasters in the world can bring out of other people."

Again Faith's cheek was dyed. "I was poor enough," she said bowing her head for a moment. "I am poor now,--but I am studying."

In which last words lay perhaps the tiniest evidence of an intention not to be poor always. A suspicious glance of thought shot from the doctor's mind. But as it had happened more than once before, the simplicity of Faith's frankness misled him, and he dismissed suspicion.

"If you want an ill.u.s.tration of my meaning," he went on without change of manner, "permit me to remind you that your paragon of character,--the Rhododendron--does no studying. My conclusion is plain!"

"The Rhododendron does all it can."