“May I spend to-morrow, all day, with Esther?” asked Faith, as her mother went up-stairs with her, and feeling her face flush with the consciousness of not telling her mother all the truth.
“Your very first day at home, dear child! Why, I should be running over to Mrs. Eldridge’s every hour to make sure that you were really within reach,” responded her mother.
“Oh, mother, you wouldn’t!” said Faith, so earnestly that Mrs. Carew smiled reassuringly and said:
“Well, perhaps not every hour. But if you want to spend the day with Esther you may. ’Tis not as if you were going back to Aunt Prissy in a week.”
“And you won’t come to Mrs. Eldridge’s at all, will you, mother dear?” pleaded Faith. “I’ll be safe, and I’ll come home early.”
“You shall do as you like, dear child. I know you will do nothing but what will please me,” and Mrs. Carew leaned over to kiss Faith good-night.
“Oh, dear,” Faith whispered to herself guiltily, as her mother went down the stairs. “Here is another secret, the biggest of all. But I can’t tell mother.”
The song of the brook seemed louder than ever before to the little girl that night, as she lay watching the April stars shine through her window. She remembered that her mother had said that perhaps a little girl could help. “Mother dear is sure to be glad when she knows that Colonel Allen had to be told about Nathan,” thought Faith; and then the brook’s song grew softer and softer and she was fast asleep.
Faith was down-stairs the next morning almost as soon as her father and mother. She had on her brown dress and her moccasins, and the letter was safely hidden in her pocket. She could hardly keep still long enough to eat her breakfast.
“Esther wanted me to come early, mother dear, and I promised,” she urged; so her mother bade her be off, and stood in the door and watched the little girl run down the slope, feeling a little disappointed that Faith should be so eager to be with Esther instead of remaining at home.