"What lessons?" said the boy blackly.

"All you get--at home and abroad. You go to school I fancy," replied Mrs. Somers.

The boy glanced towards the clock and began to move off, answering by actions rather than words.

"You were over at Neanticut, I suppose, Sat.u.r.day," said Mr. Somers affably. To which the answer was a choked and unwilling 'yes.'

"Well who drove you over?"

"He druv," said Phil. "I'm going--"

"And the ladies--weren't there ladies along?"

"Yes--They druv too."

"Did you have a fine time?" said Mrs. Somers.

"Yes! _I_ did," said Phil very gloomily.

"Why what did you do more than the rest?"

"I didn't do nothing!" said Phil, blurting out,--"and he went and took all my nuts away. He's the devil!"

The boy looked at the minute as if he was a young one.

"Hush, hush!" said Mr. Somers. "You--you oughtn't to speak that way--don't you know? it's not proper."

"I hope he boxed your ears first," said Mrs. Somers--"I'm certain you deserved it. What made him take your nuts away?"

"He wanted 'em to make a present to you"--said the boy; and with another glance at the hands of the clock, he darted out of the house and down the road towards the schoolhouse, as if truly he had expected to meet there the character he had mentioned.

"My dear--" said Mr. Somers--"do you think it is quite--a--politic, to tell Mrs. Davids she don't bring up her children right? Mrs. Davids is a very respectable woman--and so is Farmer Davids--none more so."

"I don't know what you call respectable women--" said Mrs. Somers--"I should be sorry to think _he_ was. But I just wish, Mr. Somers, that you would preach a sermon to the people about cutting off their children's tongues if they can't keep them in order. I declare! I could hardly keep hands off that boy."

And with this suggested and suggestive text, Mr. Somers retired to his study.

It had been a busy day with more than Mr. Somers, when towards the close of the afternoon Faith came out upon the porch of her mother's house. She had not read more than one delicious bit of her letter on the ride home from Neanticut; the light failed too soon. After getting home there was no more chance. Sat.u.r.day night, that Sat.u.r.day, had a crowd of affairs. And Monday had been a day full of business. Faith had got through with it all at last; and now, as fresh as if the kitchen had been a bygone inst.i.tution--though that was as true of Faith in the kitchen as out of it--she sat down in the afternoon glow to read the letter. The porch was nice to match; she took a low seat on the step, and laying the letter in her lap rested her elbow on the yellow floor of the porch to take it at full ease.

It was not just such a letter as is most often found in biographies,--yet such as may be found--'out of print.' A bright medley of description and fancy--mountains and legends and sc.r.a.ps of song forming a mosaic of no set pattern. And well-read as the writer was in other respects, it was plain that she was also learned in both the books Faith had had at Neanticut. The quick flow of the letter was only checked now and then by a little word-gesture of affection,--if that could be called a check, which gave to the written pictures a better glow than lit up the originals.

It was something to see Faith read that letter--or would have been, if anybody had been there to look. She leaned over it in a sort of breathless abstraction, catching her breath a little sometimes in a way that told of the interest at work. The interest was not merely what would have belonged to the letter for any reader,--it was not merely the interest that attached to the writer of it, nor to the person for whom it was written; it was not only the interest deep and great which Faith felt in the subjects and objects spoken of in the letter. All these wrought with their full power; but all these were not enough to account for the intent and intense feeling with which Faith bent over that letter, with eyes that never wavered, and a cheek in which the blood mounted to a bright flush. And when it was done, even then she sat still leaning over the paper, looking not at it but through it.

A little shower of fringed gentian and white Ladies' tresses came patting down upon the letter, hiding its delicate black marks with their own dainty faces.

"These are your means of transport back to Pattaqua.s.set," said Mr.

Linden. Faith looked up, and rose up.

"I had come back," she said, drawing one of those half long breaths as she folded up and gave him the letter. "I can't thank you, Mr. Linden."

"I thought you were not reading, or I should not have ventured such an interruption. But I am in no hurry for the letter, Miss Faith. How do you like Italy?"

"I like it--" said Faith doubtfully,--"I don't know it. Mr. Linden,"

she went on with some difficulty and flushing yet more,--"some time, will you tell me in what books I can find out about those things?--those things the letter speaks of."

"Those which concern Italy, do you mean! I can arrange an Italy shelf for you up stairs--but I am afraid I have not very much here to put on it."

"No indeed!" said Faith looking half startled,--"I didn't mean to give you trouble--only some time, if you would tell me what books--perhaps--"

"Perhaps what?" he said smiling,--"perhaps I wouldn't?"

"No," she said, "I mean, perhaps you _would;_ and perhaps I could get them and read them. I feel I don't know anything."

That Faith felt it was very plain. She had that rare beauty--a soft eye. I do not mean the grace of insipidity, nor the quality of mere form and colour; but the full l.u.s.trous softness that speaks a character strong in the foundations of peace and sweetness. Many an eye can be soft by turns and upon occasion; it is rarely that you see one where sweetness and strength have met together to make that the abiding characteristic. The gentleness of such an eye has always strength to back it. Weakness could never be so steadfast; poverty could not be so rich. And Faith's eye shewed both its qualities now.

Mr. Linden merely repeated, "I will arrange it for you--and you can take the books in what order you like. Perhaps I can send you another journey when they are exhausted," he added, turning the letter softly about, as if the touch were pleasant to him. She stood looking at it.

"I don't know how to thank you for letting me read that," she said. "It would be foolish in me to tell you how beautiful I thought it."

"_She_ is--" her brother said, with a tender, half smiling half grave expression. And for a minute or two he was silent--then spoke abruptly.

"Miss Faith, what have you done with your 'Philosophe'? You know, though the rooms in the great Temple of Knowledge be so many that no one can possibly explore them all, yet the more keys we have in hand the better. For some locks yield best to an English key, some to a French; and it is often pleasant to take a look where one cannot go in and dwell."

She flushed a good deal, with eyes downcast as she stood before him; then answered, with that odd little change of her voice which told of some mental check.

"I haven't done anything with it, Mr. Linden."

"That requires explanation."

"It isn't so hard as one of your puzzles," she said smiling. "I mean to do something with it, Mr. Linden, if I can; and I thought I would try the other day; but I found I didn't know enough to begin--to learn that yet."

"What other key are you forging?"

"What _other_ key?" said Faith.

"I mean," he answered with a tone that shewed a little fear of going too far, "what do you want to learn before that?"

"I don't know," said Faith humbly.--"I suppose, English. It was a grammar of yours, Mr. Linden, a French grammar, that I was looking at; and I found I couldn't understand what it was about, anywhere. So I thought I must learn something else first."

"Never was philosopher so put in a corner!" said Mr. Linden. "Suppose you take up him and the dictionary and let me be the grammar--do you think you could understand what I was about?"

The blood leapt to her cheek; part of her answer Faith had no need to put in words, even if he had not seen her eyes, which he did. The words were not in any hurry to come.

"When you have been teaching all day already"--she said in a tone between regretful and self-reproving. "It wouldn't be right."

"Mayn't I occasionally do wrong?--just for variety's sake!"

"_You_ may--and I don't doubt you would. I was thinking of my own part."