"Nothing--Never mind me,--" she said deprecatingly.

"Tell me, Faith," he repeated.

But she did not. The quivering emotion pa.s.sed away or was overcome; and then her answer was a very grave and sweet look and smile; still such a one as might without any force have been given to an angel.

"Faith, what will make you speak?--this?--Tell me what you were trembling about--I shall begin to think you have grown afraid of me."

"I don't think I have,--" she said very quietly.

"You are a sort of willowbranch,--so very pliant that you glide out of reach on the very breath that comes after you. Now I think the very profound confidence I reposed in you this morning, deserves some return. I'm afraid I cannot ask for it with such persuasive eyes."

"It's no confidence--" said Faith. "I didn't know I had been in such danger; and"--she spoke with some difficulty--"I didn't know what it would be to offend you."

"Did you think you could?"

"If I did wrong--?"

"Faith," he said, "do you know what I should expect 'if I did wrong,'

as you say?--that you would break your heart, perhaps, but never that you would be offended. I should expect to find you more than ever my sweet ministering spirit."

A look of intense grave earnestness followed and echoed his thought with one or two of her own; then her gravity broke in a radiant little smile. "I am not exactly like you, Endecott," she said.

"What is the precise bearing of that remark?"

"You might be offended--where I should have no right,--" she said with slow utterance and consideration of her words.

"But _why_--little Arabic poem?"

The colour started into Faith's cheeks, but she answered. "You are better than I,--and besides,--you know, Endy!--it would be right for you to do what it wouldn't be right for me to do." Her colour deepened to brightness and her eyes were very cast down. Mr. Linden looked at her--smiling a grave sweet smile.

"Faith," he said, "I have heard--or imagined--that a man might have an angel for his wife, but I never heard yet of a woman who had an angel for her husband--did you?"

Faith endeavoured to shield her eyes and cheek with a very insufficient hand. "You put me in the witness-box,--what can I do?" she said.

"You can do one thing as well as anybody I ever saw," Mr. Linden said, taking her hand down. "Faith, where did you get such pink cheeks?"

"What is an Arabic poem?" said Faith gravely.

"A pretty thing that requires translating. Faith, I have a great desire to take you all about Pattaqua.s.set and tell everybody what you are to be."

"Endecott!"--said Faith with a startled glance.

"What?" he answered laughing.

"Why do you say so?"

"Just imagine the delight of all Quapaw, and the full satisfaction of the Roscoms. Shouldn't you like to see it?"

Faith looked at him in a sort of frightened mood of mind, discerning some earnest in the play. Mr. Linden's face did not rea.s.sure her, though he carried the play at that time no further.

CHAPTER XXIX.

If the fears of the night before had not quite been slept off, if the alarming ideas had not all been left in dreamland, still it was hard for anything but peace and pleasure to shew its head that morning. In at Faith's window came the sunbeams, the tiny panes of gla.s.s shewed each a patch of the bluest sky, and through some unseen open sash the morning air swept in full sweetness. When Faith opened her own window, the twitter and song of all manner of birds was something to hear, and their quick motions were something to see. From the sweetbriar on the house to the trees in the orchard,--from the mud nest under the eaves to the hole in the barn wall,--what darting and skimming and fluttering! Off in the orchard the apple trees were softly putting on their nonpareil dress of blossoms, feeding the air with nectar till it was half intoxicated; and down in the garden a little bevy of bells stood prim and soft and sweet, ringing their noiseless spring chimes under Faith's window.

Under her window too, that is within close sight of it, stood Reuben Taylor and Mr. Linden. Not watching for her just then as it appeared, but intent upon their own concerns. Or rather, Reuben--in his usual dark, neat dress and straw hat, with hands neither busy nor at rest, but waiting and ready--was intent upon Mr. Linden--and Mr. Linden upon his work. His hat was off, on the gra.s.s beside him, and he himself--half sitting half leaning upon an old crooked apple tree, had his hands full of cowslips--though what he was doing with them Faith could not tell. Only from a fluttering end of blue ribband that appeared, she could guess their destination. The two friends were talking busily and merrily, with little cowslip interludes, and the yellow blossoms sprinkled the gra.s.s all about the tree, some having dropped down, others been tossed off as not worthy a place in the ball.

For that was the work in Mr. Linden's hands--something which Faith had never seen.

It was so very pretty a picture that Faith sat down to look at it, and thoughtless of being found out, looked on in a dream. Mr. Linden's threats of yesterday did come back to her shrinkingly, but she threw them off; the time was too happy to bear the shadow of anything weightier than apple blossoms. Faith looked out through them admiringly, marvelling anew how Mr. Linden had ever come to like her; and while her soft eyes were studying him, her heart made many a vow before the time. She only felt the birds fly past; her mind was taking strange glimpses into the future.

Stepping jauntily out from the house, Sam Stoutenburgh came next upon the scene, the springtime of his man's attire suiting well enough with his years but not so well with his surroundings; too desperately smart for the cowslips, bright and shining as they were there in the sun, too _new_ for the tulips--though they had been out of the ground but a few days. For

In a little bit of garden ground Where many a lovely plant was found, Stood a tulip in gay attire!

His pantaloons green as ever were seen, His cap was as red as fire.

But the tulip was at least used to his cap--which was more than could be said of Sam and his hat.

"Mrs. Derrick told me to come out here and find you, sir," he said.

"But what _are_ you doing, Mr. Linden?"

"I am making a ball."

"A ball!"

"Yes," said Mr. Linden,--"gratifying one of my youthful tastes. Sam, I'll lend you my hat."

"Why! what for, sir?" said Sam, a little confused and a good deal puzzled, while Reuben smiled.

"Just to save you from the headache while you stand there in the sun,"

said Mr. Linden, tying the ends of his ribband together. "It's a man's hat, Sam--you need not be afraid of it. That's a good lesson in whistling!" he said, looking up into the tree over his head, where a robin had just come to exercise his powers. But as Mr. Linden's eyes came back from the robin they caught sight of Faith at her window, and instantly he was on his feet and made her a most graceful and low reverence. Instinctively the two boys turned and followed suit--the one with his straw hat the other with his beaver.

Faith's contemplative quiet was broken up, and her face grew shy and flushed as she gave her tiny grave signs of recognition; but a soft "good morning" floated down to them, followed--n.o.body knows why--by a more particular "Good morning, Sam."

"Miss Faith!" said Sam affectingly, "are you always going to stay up stairs?"

"No--I am coming down presently. You are early to-day, Sam."

"Not earlier than I've been some other days, Miss Faith."

Faith nodded at him and left the window; threw round her the light shawl which she was expected to wear because she had been sick, rather than because the May air called for it, and prepared to go down. But in the second of time which all this took, she heard her name called from the orchard--not very loud but very distinct.

"Faith!"

She knew who called, and it was with a little startled thrill that she presented herself at the window to answer the summons. Mr. Linden stood close beneath it.