"No, mother," she said, looking at her.

"Why child!"--Mrs. Derrick began,--then she stopped and began again. "I guess he'd rather see you than that box, child,--if the doctor hasn't talked him to death."

"Mother, do you think he would like to have me come up and see him?"

"Like it?" said Mrs. Derrick, her mind almost refusing to consider such an absurd question. "I'm sure he likes to see you when he's well, Faith. Didn't he like it last night?"

Faith looked a little bit grave, then she hastily pushed her brown moreen and box into a somewhat more orderly state of disorganization, and went up stairs, with a quick light step that was not heard before her tap at Mr. Linden's door. And then receiving permission she went in, a little rosy this time at venturing into the charmed region when its occupant was there; and came with her step a little lighter, a little slower, up to the side of the couch and held out her hand; saying her soft "How do you do, Mr. Linden?"

He was lying just as the doctor had left him, with the unopened letters, and the white paper which Faith felt instinctively was her own exercise. But eye and hand were ready for her.

"Courageous Miss Faith!" he said with a smile. "And so, 'She's gentle and not fearful'?"

She smiled, with an eye that took wistful note of him.

"How do you feel to-day, Mr. Linden?"

"Not very well--and not worse. Miss Faith, do you know that we have a great deal to do this week? You may lock up your stocking basket."

"Please let me do something for you, Mr. Linden?" she said earnestly.

"That's just what I'm talking about. Do you think, Miss Faith, that if you brought that low chair here, and set the door wide open so that you could run out if you got frightened at my grim appearance, you would be willing to philosophize a little?"

"Not to-day, Mr. Linden," said Faith. "Don't speak so! I haven't any stocking basket in the way. Can't I do _something_ that would do you some good?"

"It would do me a great deal of good to get up and set that chair for you, but that is something I must ask you to do for me. I see you want coaxing"--he added, looking at her. "Well--if you will do half a dozen things for me this morning, you shall have the reward of a letter and two messages."

Faith looked down doubtful,--doubtful, whether to do what would please herself, and him, would be just right to-day; but the pleading of the affirmative side of the question was too strong. She gave up considering the prudential side of the measure, thinking that perhaps Mr. Linden knew his own feelings best; and once decided, let pleasure have its full flow. With hardly a shade upon the glad readiness of her movements, she placed the chair and brought the book, and sat docile down, though keeping a jealous watch for any sign of pain or weariness that should warn her to stop. And from one thing to another he led her on, talking less than usual, perhaps, himself, but giving her none the less good a lesson. And the signs she sought for could not be found.

Weary he was not, mentally, and physical nature knew its place. Last of all, the little exercise was opened and commented upon and praised--and she praised through it, though very delicately.

"Have I tired you?" he said, as the town clock struck an hour past the mid-day.

"Oh no!--And you, Mr. Linden?"

In what a different tone the two parts of her speech were spoken.

"I have not hurt myself," he said smiling. "Perhaps by and by, this afternoon, you will let me see you again. Dr. Harrison threatens to keep me at home for two or three weeks, and I want to make the most of them,--I may not have such a time of leisure again." And then Mr.

Linden gave the doctor's message--a message, very strictly, and as near as possible in the doctor's own words, receiving as little tinge as it well could from the medium through which it pa.s.sed.

"The other message," he said, giving her a letter, "you will find there."

"A message?"--said Faith doubtfully and flushing with pleasure--"isn't this one of your sister's letters?"

"Yes. Mayn't she send you a message?"

A very modest and very happy smile and deepening blush answered that; and she ran away with a sudden compunctious remembrance of Mr. Linden's dinner.

After dinner Faith had something to do in the kitchen, and something to do in other parts of the house, and then she would have read the letter before all things else; but then came in a string of company--one after the other, everybody wanting the news and much more than could be given. So it was a succession of flourishing expectations cut down and blasted; and both Faith and her mother grew tired of the exercise of cutting down and blasting, and Faith remembered with dismay that the afternoon was wearing and Mr. Linden had wished to see her again. She seized her chance and escaped at last, between the adieu of one lady and the accost of another who was even then coming up from the gate, and knocked at Mr. Linden's door again just as Mrs. Derrick was taking her minister's wife into the parlour. Her first move this time on coming in, was to brush up the hearth and put the fire in proper order for burning well; then she faced round before the couch and stood in a sort of pleasant expectation, as waiting for orders.

"You are a bright little visiter!" Mr. Linden said, holding out his hand to her. "You float in as softly and alight as gently as one of these crimson leaves through my window. Did anybody ever tell you the real reason why women are like angels?"

"I didn't know they were," said Faith laughing, and with something more of approximation to a crimson leaf.

"'They are all ministering spirits,'" he said looking at her. "But you must be content with that, Miss Faith, and not make your visits angelic in any other sense. What do you suppose I have been considering this afternoon?--while you have been spoiling the last Pattaqua.s.set story by confessing that I am alive?"

"Did you hear them coming in?" said Faith. "I didn't know when they were going to let me get away.--What have you been considering, Mr.

Linden?"

"The wide-spread presence and work of beauty. You see what a shock you gave my nervous system yesterday. Will you please to sit down, Miss Faith?"

Faith sat down, clearly in a puzzle; from which she expected to be somehow fetched out.

"What do you suppose is beauty's work in the world?--I don't mean any particular Beauty."

Faith looked at the crimson leaves on the floor--for the window was open though the fire was burning; then at the fair sky outside, seen beyond and through some other crimson leaves yet hanging on the large maple there,--then coming back to the face before her, she smiled and said,

"I don't know--except to make people happy, Mr. Linden."

"That is one part of its use, certainly. But take the thousands of wilderness flowers, and the thousands of deep sea sh.e.l.ls; look at the carvings on the scale of a fish, which no human eye can see without a gla.s.s, or those other exquisite patterns traced upon the roots and stems of some of the fossil pines, which were hid in the solid rock before there was a human eye to see. What is _their_ use?"

To the wilderness and to the deep sea, Faith's thought and almost her eye went, and she took some time to consider the subject.

"I suppose--" she said thoughtfully--"I don't know, Mr. Linden."

"Did you ever consider those words which close the account of the Creation--'G.o.d saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good'."

"That is what I was going to say!" she said modestly but with brightening colour,--"that perhaps he made all those things, those you spoke of, for _himself?_"

"For himself--to satisfy the perfectness of his own character. And think how different the divine and the human standards of perfection!

Not the outward fair colour and proportion merely, not the perfect fitness and adaptation, not the most utilitarian employment of every grain of dust, so that nothing is lost,--not even the grandest scale of working, is enough; but the dust on the moth's wing must be plumage, and the white chalk cliffs must be made of minute sh.e.l.ls, each one of which shines like spun silver or is figured like cut gla.s.s. Not more steadily do astronomers discover new worlds, than the microscope reveals some new perfection of detail and finish in our own."

Faith listened, during this speech, like one literally seeing 'into s.p.a.ce,' as far as an embodied spirit can, for the first time. Then with a smile, a little sorrowful, she brought up with,

"I don't know anything of all that, Mr. Linden! Do you mean that chalk is really made of little sh.e.l.ls?"

"Yes, really--and blue mould is like a miniature forest. You will know about it"--he said with a smile. "But do you see how this touches the standard of moral perfection?--how it explains that other word, 'Be ye also perfect'."

Faith had not seen before, but she did now; for in her face the answer flashed most eloquently. She was silent.

"That is the sort of perfection we are promised," Mr. Linden went on presently,--"that is the sort of perfection we shall see. Now, both gla.s.s and eye are imperfect,--specked, and flawed, and short-sighted; and can but faintly discern 'the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him that is perfect in knowledge.' But then!--

'When sin no more obstructs our sight, When sorrow pains our hearts no more, How shall we view the Prince of Light, And all his works of grace explore!

What heights and depths of love divine Will then through endless ages shine!'"

The words moved her probably, for she sat with her face turned a little away so that its play or its gravity were scarce so well revealed. Not very long however. The silence lasted time enough to let her thoughts come back to the subject never very far from them.

"You are tired, Mr. Linden."