"Not a bit of it! Stowed away with her earrings and ribbands upstairs somewhere."

"Phil," said Reuben when he had pondered this strange information in silence for a minute, "will you be in the office when the mail comes in for a night or two?--and don't tell this to any one till Mr. Linden sends word what should be done."

"You expect more letters?" said Phil, with a not stupid glance at his fellow.

"Yes," Reuben said, too frankly to increase suspicion; "and if one should come it's very important that I should get it. And of course _I_ can't watch."

"_She_ sha'n't get it!" said Phil. "I'll be there. I'll be Sinbad's old man of the mountain for Mintie. I won't sit on her shoulders, but I'll sit on the counter; and if there's a scratch of Mr. Linden's in the mail-bag, I'll engage I'll see it as fast as she will. I know his seal too."

"_Could_ she have done it to tease me?" Reuben said,--"I've never had the least thing to do with her but through that post-office window."

"What did you ever give her through the post-office window?" Phil asked half laughingly.

"Questions enough--" Reuben said, his thoughts too busy to notice any underhand meaning,--"and lately she's given me rather cross answers.

That's all."

"Well what do you suppose she stole your letters for?"

"I don't know enough about her to guess," Reuben said frankly.

"Well," said Phil, "_I_ guess Dr. Harrison won't appoint the postmaster of Pattaqua.s.set when I am President. I rather think he won't."

"I wish you'd make haste and be President," Reuben said. "But if he didn't know anything about Mrs. Tuck, Phil, other people did--and thought she was honest at least. And you know _she_'s postmaster, by right."

"_She_--is the female of Dromy!" said Phil with intense expression.

"But Mintie aint a fool, and it's _she_'s post-master--anyhow Dromy says it's she that's Dr. Harrison's friend;--so that makes it. But that don't tell why she wants the letters."

"Dr. Harrison's friend?" said Reuben,--"what does she have to do with him?"

"I aint a friend of either of 'em, so I don't know," said Phil. "But girls with pretty faces will make friends with anybody!"

A very high degree of masculine charity and correctness of judgment was expressed in Phil's voice and words. Reuben made no reply--his charity, of any sort, was not in a talkative mood, and the two parted kindly at Phil's cross road.

Not home to dinner now, for Reuben! The minutes of talk had seemed long to his impatience; he had borne them, partly to get information, partly to keep down suspicion. But now with Phil out of sight, he turned short about and took the way to Mrs. Derrick's with almost flying steps.

True, he was not dressed for "Miss Faith's" room--but Reuben Taylor was always neat and in order, and she must not wait. He hurried into Mrs.

Roscom's--there to leave his basket and every removable trace of his work,--then on!

Faith had spent the early morning upon her couch;--no need to ask if she felt stronger than yesterday,--every line and feature shewed prostration--and patience. Breakfast had been pa.s.sed over nominally.

What Mrs. Derrick could do for her was done; what she could not, lay heavy on the hearts of both as the one went down to make the days arrangements, and the other lay still to endure. Reuben had not come after the morning train--there was nothing even to expect till night, and Faith lay listening to her little clock and watching the pa.s.sage of the April sunbeams through her room.

Suddenly a loud startling rap at the front door. But she was powerless to go and see, and after that one sound the house seemed to sink into perfect stillness. Then the door of her room opened, and Mrs. Derrick came in bearing a large basket. A heavy one too, but Mrs. Derrick would have spent her last atom of strength before she would have let any one else bring it up. Her face looked quite radiant.

"Pretty child!" she said, "here's something for you!"

It was needless to ask questions,--Mrs. Derrick's face could have but one meaning. Faith neither asked nor answered, except by the sudden start of the blood into cheeks which were pale enough before. Slipping from the couch she was on her knees by the basket, pulling out the ends of the knots by which it was tied, with just a tiny beautiful smile at work on her changed lips. Her mother went softly away (she thought the first sight of anything in _that_ line belonged to Faith alone) and the April sunbeams took a new view of things.

The knots gave way, and the basket cover swung round, and the white wrapping paper came off; and within lay something for her truly!--most appropriate! A great stem of bananas and another of plantains, thick set with fruit, displayed their smooth green and red coats in very excellent contrast, and below and around and doing duty as mere packing, were sunny Havana oranges, of extra size, and of extra flavour--to judge by the perfume. But better than all, to Faith's eye, was a little slip of blackmarked white paper, tucked under a red banana--it had only these words--

'Sweets to the sweet.'

"Faith, I should put in more, but the basket refuses. It is the measure of only one part of the proverb--do you understand?"

Faith knew oranges, she had never seen bananas or plantains before. It was all one; for the time being they were not bananas or oranges but hieroglyphics; and the one fruit looked as much like Mr. Linden's handwriting as the other. She sat with her arm resting on the couch supporting her head, and looking at them. Not the finest picture that Goethe ever viewed, or bade his friends view as part of their "duty,"

was so beautiful as that basket of red and yellow fruit to Faith's eye.

And all the more for that foreign look they were like Mr. Linden; for the common things which they said, it was like him to say uncommonly.

How very sweet was the smell of those oranges! and how delicious the soft feeling of peace which settled down on all Faith's senses. Very different from the sort of quiet she was in a quarter of an hour ago.

She did not trouble herself now about the missing letters. This told that Mr. Linden was well, or he could hardly have been out to buy fruit and pack it and pack it off to her. So Mrs. Derrick found her--reading not words, but oranges and bananas; with a face it was a pity Mr.

Linden could not see.

It may be remarked in pa.s.sing that the face was not lost upon the one who did see it. Mrs. Derrick came and stooped down by Faith and her basket in great admiration and joy and silence for a moment--the sight almost put everything else out of her head; but then she exclaimed, "Child, the doctor's coming!--I saw him driving up to the door."

Faith put the cover on the basket, and while Mrs. Derrick set it out of sight, she received the doctor as yesterday, standing. But with a nice little colour in her cheeks to-day, in place of yesterday's sad want of it. Dr. Harrison came up with one hand full of a most rare and elegant bunch of hothouse flowers.

"My amends-making--" he said as he presented it.

It was not in Faith's nature not to look pleasure and admiration at such bits of kindred nature. They were very exquisite, they were some of them new to her, they were all most lovely, and Faith's eyes looked love at them. Dr. Harrison was satisfied, for in those eyes there was to-day no shadow at all. Their gravity he was accustomed to, and thought he liked.

"How do you do?" he said.

"I am--a great deal better. O mother--may I have a gla.s.s of water for these?"

"You said yesterday you were well, Miss Faith."

"You saw I wasn't," said Faith as she put her flowers in the gla.s.s.

"That is very true. And I see also that your statement to-day is not of much juster correctness. How came you to say that?"

"I said, it without knowing--what I said," Faith answered simply. "What is this, Dr. Harrison?"

The doctor puzzled over her answer and could make nothing of it.

"That is a Fuchsia--and that is another."

"How beautiful!--how beautiful. They are not sweet?"

"You cannot _always_ have sweetness in connexion with everything else,"

he said with a slight emphasis. Faith's mind was too far away from the subject to catch his innuendo; unless other lips had spoken it.

"Mrs. Derrick," said the doctor, "I should like as a professional man, to know what portion of the wing of a robin this lady can manage for her breakfast?"

"Some days more and some days less," said Mrs. Derrick. "She was not very hungry this morning." (A mild statement of the case.)

"Some days less than the wing of a robin!" said the doctor. "The robin himself is a better feeder. Mrs. Derrick, what fancies does this bird live upon?"

The allusion drew a smile to Faith's face, which Mrs Derrick did not understand.