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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXVII.

AT THE MILLS.

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

MRS. BROWNING.

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

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

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

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

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

A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow.

She sat and suffered it under his eye--uttering not a syllable.

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

Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

Perfect love casteth out fear.'"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as G.o.d should show her how.