“How would you and Faithie like to have your supper here by the fire?” asked Mrs Carew, coming in from the kitchen. “Faith can bring in the light stand and use her own set of dishes. And I will make you a fine dish of cream toast.”
Both the little girls were delighted at the plan. And Faith ran to the kitchen and, with her mother’s help, brought in the stand and put it down in front of the settle. She spread a white cloth over it, and then turned to the closet, from which she had taken the blue beads, and brought out her treasured tea-set. There was a round-bodied, squatty teapot with a high handle, a small pitcher, a round sugar-bowl, two cups and saucers, and two plates. The dishes were of delicate cream-tinted china covered with crimson roses and delicate buds and faint green leaves.
One by one Faith brought these treasures to the little table, smiling with delight at Esther’s exclamations of admiration.
“My grandmother who lives in Connecticut sent me these for my last birthday present,” said Faith. “My Grandmother Carew, whom I have never seen. And they came from across the big salt ocean, from England.”
“To think that a little girl in a log cabin should have such lovely things!” exclaimed Esther. “I have a silver mug with my name on it,” she added.
Mrs. Carew brought them in the fine dish of cream toast, and filled the china teapot with milk so they could play that it was a real tea-party. There were baked apples to eat with the toast, and although Esther longed for cake she did not speak of it, and, bolstered up with cushions, and Faith sitting in a high-backed chair facing her, she began really to enjoy herself.
“My father made this little table,” said Faith, helping Esther to a second cup of “tea,” “and he made these chairs and the settle. He came up here with Mr. Stanley years ago, and cut down trees and built this house and the barn and the mill; then he went way back where my grandmother lives and brought my mother here. Some day I am to go to Connecticut and go to school.”
“Why don’t you come to Brandon and go to school?” suggested Esther. “Oh, do! Faith, ask your mother to let you go home with me and go to school this winter. That would be splendid!” And Esther sat up so quickly that she nearly tipped over her cup and saucer.
“I guess I couldn’t,” replied Faith. “My mother would be lonesome.”
But Esther thought it would be a fine idea; and while Faith carried the dishes to the kitchen, washed them with the greatest care, and replaced them on the closet shelf, Esther talked of all the attractions of living in a village and going to school with other little girls.