CHAPTER XXVI.

LAKESIDE.

"Look! are the southern curtains drawn?

Fetch me a fan, and so begone!

Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair; And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes."

O. W. HOLMES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Good morning, Faithie!"

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

"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr.

Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?"

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

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

Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong?

They had not surely quarreled!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday had come round again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is Aunt Faith ill?"

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

"I'll come."