Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 47

It was good time yet in the afternoon, and though the little boat now lay partly shadowed by the hill, it was none the worse resting place for that. Again Faith was seated there in all the style that shawls and cus.h.i.+ons furnished, and just tired enough to feel luxurious in the soft atmosphere. Mr. Linden arranged and established her to his liking; then he took out of his pocket a letter.

It was one which had been opened and read; but as he unfolded it, there appeared another--unopened, unread; its dainty seal unbroken, and on the back in fair tracery, the words, "Miss Faith Derrick." As Faith read them and saw the hand, her eye glanced first up at Mr. Linden with its mute burden of surprise, and then the roses bloomed out over her cheeks and even threw their flush upon her brow. Her eye was cast down now and fixed on the unopened letter, with the softest fall of its eyelid.

"Shall I read you a part of mine first?"

"If you please. I wish you would."

"Only a little bit," he said smiling--thinking perhaps that she did not know to what she gave her a.s.sent so readily,--"you shall read the whole of it another time." The "little bit" began rather abruptly.

"'I have written to your darling, Endy--Not much, tell her; because what I have in my heart for her cannot be told. I know how precious any one must be whom you love so much. But make her love me a little before she reads my letter--and don't let her call me anything but Pet--and then I shall feel as if I had a sister already. And so I have, as you say. What a glad word!--I could cry again with the very writing of it.

'Endy--I did cry a little over your letter, but only for joy: if it had been for sorrow I should have cried long ago; for I knew well enough what was coming. Only I want more than ever to be at home,--and to see you, and to see Faith--don't let her think I am like you!

'My letter wouldn't hold much, as I told you. But I give you any number of (unspeakable!) messages for her, John Endy. I suppose you will take charge of them? I may feel sure they have all reached their destination?'"

Long before the reading was finished, Faith's head had sunk--almost to the cus.h.i.+ons beside her. The reader's voice and intonation had given every word a sort of ring in her heart, though the tone was low. One hand came round her when she put her head down, taking possession of her hand which lay so still, with the unopened letter in its clasp. But now she was gently raised up.

"Precious child," Mr. Linden said, "what are you drooping your head for?"

"For the same reason she had, I suppose,--" said Faith half laughing, though witnesses of another kind were in her eyes.

"Who are you talking about?"

"Your sister."

"Why don't you begin to practise your lesson?"

Perhaps Faith thought that she _was_. She looked at nothing but her letter.

"Will you wait for your messages till we get home?--this place not being absolute seclusion."

"Shall I read this now?" said Faith rather hastily.

"I should think there would be no danger in that."

With somewhat unsteady fingers, that yet tried to be quiet, Faith broke the seal; and masking her glowing face with one hand, she bent over the letter to read it.

"My very dear, and most unknown, and most well-known little sister! I have had a picture sent me of you--as you appeared one night, when you sat for your portrait, hearing Portia; and with it a notice of several events which occurred just before that time. And both picture and events have gone down into my heart, and abide there. Endecott says you are a Sunbeam--and I feel as if a little of the light had come over the water to me,--ever since his letter came I have been in a state of absolute reflection!

"I thought my love would not be the first to 'find out the way'--even then when I wrote it! Faith--do you know that there is n.o.body in the world just like him? because if you do not--you will find it out!--I mean! like Endecott--_not_ like Love. My dear, I beg pardon for my p.r.o.noun! But just how _I_ have loved you all these months, for making him so happy, I cannot tell you.

"And I cannot write to-day--about anything,--my thoughts are in too uneven a flow to find their way to the end of my pen, and take all possible flights instead. Dear Faith, you must wait for a _letter_ till the next steamer. And you cannot miss it--nor anything else, with Endecott there,--it seems to me that to be even in the same country with him is happiness.

"You must love me too, Faith, and not think me a stranger,--and let me be your (because I am Endy's)

"PET."

Faith took a great deal more time than was necessary for the reading of this letter. Very much indeed she would have liked to do as her correspondent confessed she had done, and cry--but there was no sign of such an inclination. She only sat perfectly moveless, bending over her letter. At last suddenly looked up and gave it to Mr. Linden.

"Well?" he said with a smile at her as he took it.

"You'll see--" she said, a little breathlessly. And still holding her hand fast, Mr. Linden read the letter, quicker than she had done, and without comment--unless when his look shewed that it touched him.

"You will love her, Faith!" he said as he folded the letter up again,--"in spite of all your inclinations to the contrary!"

"Do you think that is in the future tense? But I am afraid," added Faith,--"she thinks too much of me now."

"She does not think as much of you as I do," Mr. Linden said, with a look and smile that covered all the ground of present or future fear.

"And after all it is a danger which you will share with me. It is one of Pet's loveable feelings to think too much of some people whom she loves just enough."

Humility is not a fearful thing. Whatever had been in Faith's speech, her look, bright, wistful, and happy, had no fear, truly b.u.mble though it was. "There is no danger of my loving this letter too much"--she said as she carefully restored it to its envelope; said with a secret utterance of great gratification.

The promised half hour was much more than up, and the broadening shadow on Kildeer river said that the time which could be given to wild flowers was fast running away. Perhaps, too, Mr. Linden thought Faith had mused and been excited enough, for he made a move. Everything in the boat was put up in close order, and then the two went ash.o.r.e again, flower basket in hand.

The long shadows heightened the beauty of the woods now, falling soft and brown upon the yet browner carpet of dry leaves, and the young leaves and buds overhead shewed every tint, from yellow to green. Under the trees were various low shrubs in flower,--shad-blossom, with its fleecy stems, and azalia in rosy pink; and the real wild flowers--the dainty things as wild in growth as in name, were sprinkled everywhere.

Wind flowers and columbine; orchis sweet as any hyacinth; tall Solomon's seal; spotless bloodroot; and violets--white, yellow, and purple. The dogwood stretched its white arms athwart hemlock and service; the creeping partridge berry carried its perfumed white stars over rocks and moss in the deep shade below. Yellow bellwort hung its fair flowers on every ridge; where the ground grew wet were dog's-tooth violet and chick wintergreen. There the red maples stood, with bunches of crimson keys,--at the edge of the higher ground their humbler growing sister the striped bark, waved her green tresses. There seemed to be no end to the flowers--nor to the variety--nor to the pleasure of picking.

"Faith--" said Mr. Linden.

Faith looked up from a bunch of Sanguinaria beside which she was crouching.

"I find so much Mignonette!--do you?"

Faith's eye flashed, and taking one of those little white stars she threw it towards Mr. Linden. It went in a graceful parabolic curve and fell harmlessly, like her courage, at his feet.

"What has become of the princess?"

"You ought rather to ask after the prince!" said Mr. Linden, picking up the Sanguinaria with great devotion. "Is this the Star of the Order of Merit?"

"I am not Queen Flora. I don't know."

"As what then was it bestowed?"

"It might be Mignonette's s.h.i.+eld, which she used as a weapon because she hadn't any other! Endy, look at those green Maple flowers! You can reach them."

He gathered some of the hanging cl.u.s.ters, and then came and sat down where she was at work and began to put them into her basket, arranging and dressing the other flowers the while dextrously.

"Do you know, my little Sunbeam," he said, "that your namesakes are retreating?"

"I know it, Endy," she said hastening her last gatherings--"and I am ready."