Faith had tears in her eyes.
"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct for things that other people are educated up to."
"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into this rosary. Our saints are the spirits through whom God wills to send us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel ever an offense cometh!"
Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul Rushleigh came eagerly to her side.
"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile."
Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply. But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond mere words of course.
Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field daisy beside a garden rose.
Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet."
Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners.
Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries had not come yet?