Charity met him the first day with tear-stained eyes.
"Isn't it the most awful thing to happen!" she said. "And Mrs. Horn says that perhaps Faith will never get well in her head again. She says children have been turned into idiots for less than what Faith did. Oh, do ask God to make her quite well again! She's so fond of you. She doesn't know anybody now, but she called out this morning, 'I want the Comforter.' You told her all about Him, didn't you?"
Old Timothy nodded his head sadly.
"Bless her little heart, she learns me as much as I learn her. Her name is just right. She's just faith through and through! I only wish mine were as big. But there! Don't you fret, Missy; she's in the Lord's Hands, and whether He carries her Home or leaves her with us, 'tis all for the best."
"But it isn't for the best if Faith dies!" cried Charity, stamping her foot. "We don't want her to die. You don't care for her like we do, and Hope and I think it's all your fault. You made her so good that now she's got to die. All good children do!"
And then Charity burst into tears and ran back into the Cottage.
She and Hope could do no lessons for the first few days; and then as Faith still remained unconscious day after day they begged for Miss Vale to come to them again.
"We can't play, and the days are so long, and there's nothing to do," they wailed.
It was a relief to have their minds employed by sums and history and geography. Miss Vale was very kind, and had them over one day to tea with her. At another time they would have enjoyed themselves tremendously, for Miss Vale and her mother lived in an old-fashioned house in the High Street of the market town, and there was a lot to be seen from the window, and old Mrs. Vale was a bright, talkative old lady with such a lot of anecdotes which she delighted in telling them, that Charity and Hope were quite fascinated. But their thoughts never wandered very far from Faith on her sick bed.
"It seems so wonderful," said Charity to Miss Vale one day, "that just in one moment such awful things can happen. Faith was climbing and talking and laughing, and then the very next minute she was almost dead, and she's never spoken to us since!"