Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 3

"Are you fatigued?" said Mr. Linden, taking off the bandage. "Miss Faith, you did _this_ part of your work very ill."

"How did you get here?" repeated the doctor, taking hold of his arm and shaking it slightly. "I wasn't looking for _you_, man."

"What were you _looking_ for?" said Mr. Linden, with a laughing return of the doctor's gaze.

"Shall I put that on for you?" said the latter with a sort of complicate expression, which however never lost its grace and ease. And then began another chase--but not of Faith this time,--perhaps Mr.

Linden thought she needed rest. And the changes ran round the company, but never (as it happened) including Faith or Dr. Harrison, until they reached the finis.h.i.+ng round of the game. Then it was Mr. Linden's turn again to wear the bandage, and then he gave Faith the sort of run he had given her before at Mrs. Stoutenburgh's--and with the same success.

"Haven't they played blind man's buff long enough?" Faith whispered, when the bandage was taken off her captor. She was flushed, a little, and sober more than a little.

"Yes--I will move a change," he answered in the same tone. Which he did, after a short consultation.

"Dr. Harrison--you have seen the 'b.u.t.terfly,' I suppose?"

"_The_ b.u.t.terfly?" said the doctor. "I have seen many--of all colours; but the b.u.t.terfly par excellence, I know not. Unless it is one with white wings and black body, and spots of most brilliant red on the breast."

"The one I mean combines more colours," said Mr. Linden. "What were you doing in France, not to see it?"

"Seeing other things, I suppose. However, now you speak of it, I believe that b.u.t.terfly has flown over me--sometime."

"Please to imagine yourself a gay rover for the nonce," said Mr.

Linden, leading the doctor persuasively into the middle of the floor.

"Just suppose you are a Purple Emperor--will you doctor? Miss Essie wants a story and forfeits,--I shall leave you to gratify her." But he himself went to give Miss Faith a seat. That was done with a very different manner from the gay, genial way in which he had addressed the doctor: it was genial enough, certainly, but grave.

"You do not feel well?" he said, as he wheeled up an easy chair for her. It was spoken too low for any one else to hear.

"Yes, I do,"--said Faith quickly. But her face flushed deep, and her eye though it glanced towards him, failed timidly of meeting his; and her voice had lost all the spring of pleasure.

"Then cannot you keep the promise you made about a disagreeable evening?" The tone was very low still--(he was arranging her footstool and chair) a little concerned too, a little--or Faith fancied it--but indeed she was not quite sure what the third part was; and then the doctor began his work.

For a minute or two she did not hear him, or heard without heed. She was thinking over Mr. Linden's question and struggling with it. For its slight tone, of remonstrance perhaps, only met and stirred into life the feeling she was trying to keep down. Her lip took one of its sorrowful curves for an instant; but then Dr. Harrison came towards them.

"What insect on the face of the earth, Linden, will you be? What does he resemble most, Miss Derrick?"

"I am not particular about being on the face of the earth," said Mr.

Linden,--"the air will do just as well."

The doctor was waiting for Faith's answer. Under the exigency of the moment she gave it him, glancing up first at the figure beside her, perhaps to refresh her memory--or imagination--and smiling a little as she spoke.

"I don't think of any he is like, Dr. Harrison."

"Do you think I am like a purple b.u.t.terfly?" said the doctor.

"Yes, a little,"--said Faith. But it was with a face of such childlike soberness that the doctor looked hard at her.

"What do you think you are like yourself?" said he; not lightly.

"I think I am a little like an ant," said Faith.

The doctor turned half round on his heel.

"'Angels and ministers of grace'!" was his exclamation. "Most winged, gentle, and etherial of all the dwellers in, or on, anthills,--know that thy similitude is nothing meaner than a flower. You must take the name of one, Miss Faith--all the ladies do--what will you be?"

"What will you be?" Mr. Linden repeated,--"Mignonette?--that is even below the level of some of your anthills."

"If you please,"--she said.

"Or one of your Rhododendrons?" said the doctor--"that is better; for you have the art--or the nature, indeed,--of representing all the tints of the family by turns--except the unlovely ones. Be a Rhodora!"

"No"--said Faith--"I am not like that--nor like the other, but I will be the other."

"Mignonette"--said the doctor. "Well, what shall we call him? what is _he_ like?"

"I think," said Faith, looking down very gravely, not with the flas.h.i.+ng eye with which she would have said it another time,--"he is most like a midge."

The little laugh which answered her, the way in which Mr. Linden bent down and said, "How do you know, Miss Faith?" were slightly mystifying to Dr. Harrison.

"I don't know,"--she said smiling; and the doctor with one or two looks of very ungratified curiosity left them and returned to his post.

"What are they going to play, Mr. Linden?" said Faith. The doctor's explanation, given to the rest generally, she had not heard.

"Do you know what a family connexion you have given me, Miss Faith?--The proverb declares that 'the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing.'"

An involuntary little caught breath attested perhaps Faith's acquiescence in the truth of the proverb; but the doctor's words prevented the necessity of her speaking.

"Miss Essie--Ladies and gentlemen! Please answer to your names, and thereby proclaim your characters. Mrs. Stoutenburgh, what are you?"

"A poppy, I think," said Mrs. Stoutenburgh laughing. "I like to be beforehand with the public."

"Will you please to name your lord and master? He is incapable of naming himself."

"I think you've named him!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh with a gay toss of her pretty head. "I'm not learned in insects, doctor,--call him anything that eats up b.u.t.ter-flies."

"Mr. Stoutenburgh will--you be a grub?" said the doctor. "Or a beetle?

I don't know anything else that I--as a b.u.t.terfly--dislike more."

"No, I'll be a cricket--I'm so spry," said the Squire,--"and I'll be down upon _you_ in some other form, doctor."

"You'll have to fly higher first," said the doctor. "Miss Essie declares herself to be a purple Althaea. Miss Davids--an evening primrose. Miss Deacon--a cl.u.s.ter rose. Miss Fax--a sweet pink. Miss Chester--a daisy. Miss Bezac--what shall I put you down?" The b.u.t.terfly was making a list of his flowers and insects, and cards had been furnished to the different members of the party, and pencils, to do as much for themselves.

"I'd as lieve be balm as anything else, if I knew how," said Miss Bezac; "but I shouldn't call _that_ putting me down."

"That fits, anyhow," said Squire Stoutenburgh.

"'Balm for hurt minds'"--said Dr. Harrison writing. "Miss Julia De Staff is a white lily. Miss Emmons--a morning glory. Mrs. Churchill a peony. Miss Derrick is mignonette. Mrs. Somers--?"

"I may as well be lavender," said Mrs. Somers. "You say I am in a good state of preservation."