Say and Seal, Volume I

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 Pattaquasset 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 shells; look at the carvings on the scale of a fish, which no human eye can see without a glass, 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—'God 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 shells, each one of which shines like spun silver or is figured like cut glass. 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 space,' 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 shells?"

"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 glass 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."

"By what chain of reasoning, Miss Faith?"

"I know by the sound of your voice. And you eat nothing to-day. Do you like cocoa, Mr. Linden?" she added eagerly.

He smiled a little and answered yes.

"Then I shall bring you some!"

Faith stayed for no answer to that remark, but ran off. Half an hour good had passed away, but very few minutes more, when her soft tap was heard at the door again and herself entered, accompanied with the cup of cocoa and a plate of dainty tiny strips of toast.

"Aunt Dilly left some here," she said as she presented the cup,—"and she says it is good; and she shewed me how to make it. Aunt Dilly has lived all her life with a brother who has lived a great part of his life with a French wife—so Aunt Dilly has learned some of her ways—and this is one of them."

But Mr. Linden looked as if he thought 'the way' belonged emphatically to somebody else.

"And so I am under the rule of the blue ribbands still!" he said as he raised himself up to do honour to the cup of cocoa. "Miss Faith, do you know you are subjecting yourself to the penalty of extra lessons?"

"How, Mr. Linden?"

"Don't you know that is one of the punishments for bad conduct? It's a great act of insubordination to bring one cocoa without leave."

She laughed, and then paid her attentions to the fire again; after which she stood by the hearth to see the cocoa disposed of, till she came to take the cup.

"Are you in pain, much, Mr. Linden?" she asked as she did this.

"Not mental—" he said with a smile; "and the physical can be borne Miss Faith, that cocoa was certainly better than I ever had from the hands of anybody's French wife. You must have improved upon the receipt."

"When Dr. Harrison comes for me this evening, shall he come up and see you again?"

"If he wishes—there is no need else."

"How did it happen, Mr. Linden?" she said with a very serious face.

"On this wise, Miss Faith. I, walking home at a rather quick pace, was suddenly 'brought to' as the sailors say, by this shot in my arm. But as for the moment it affected the mind more than the body, I turned and gave chase,—wishing to enquire who had thus favoured me, and why. But the mind alone can only carry one a certain distance, and before I had caught my man I found myself in such danger of fainting that I turned about again, and made the best of my way to the house of Mr. Simlins. The rest you know."

"What did the man run for?"

"There is no thread in my nature that just answers that question," saidMr. Linden. "I suppose he ran because he was frightened."

"But what should have frightened him?"

"The idea of my displeasure probably," said Mr. Linden smiling. "Have you forgotten my character for cruelty, Miss Faith?"

"But—" said Faith. "Why should he think he had displeased you? He wasn't near you, was he?"

"Why I am not supposed to be one of those amiable people who like to be shot," said Mr. Linden in the same tone.