"If Sir George has given you leave, you can. This is his room. But I'll show you the books Master Fairfax likes. Master Lionel is no reader. Sir George has a shelf for them over here."
She took Charity to a corner of the room, and Charity sat down upon the floor at once, and began to take the books out of the shelves.
Then Faith was taken on to the drawing-room, where she found Lady Melville working at a lace pillow.
"I have put my book by," she said to Faith, with her sweet smile, "because we are going to talk together. I am not very strong just now, so I cannot walk about much, and when I am tired of reading, I make lace. I have a class in the village for making it, and some of the village girls are learning very quickly."
Faith sat down upon a little chair by Lady Melville's side and watched the bobbins flying to and fro between her white fingers with the greatest interest.
"Now tell me how you like your little cottage, and all about yourselves. Do you like coming to the country?"
"Oh, so very much!"
Faith clasped her small hands tightly in her quaint fashion.
"I didn't know," she said, looking up at Lady Melville with her soft brown eyes, "that it would be quite so beautiful. Mrs. Cox didn't like the country, she said, because there was nobody to talk to, but we have found lots of people already. Do you know a nice old man called Timothy who looks after sheep? He is a friend of mine."
"Yes, he was very ill last winter, and I went to see him more than once. I felt sorry for him living all by himself, and nobody to take care of him."