“Dear Miss Stuyvesant,
“Many thanks for your kind enquiries. I shall be restricted to using my left hand for a time, but I must tell you how plucky I thought you yesterday. The stupid doctor has forbidden me to leave the house, but unless you wish to increase my feverish symptoms please send me some token by this messenger to assure me you have forgotten my first impressions of your country. As soon as I am able I shall beg you in person to reconsider your decision about marrying ‘only an American.’ My happiness depends upon your marrying an Englishman who is
“Entirely yours,
“E. Gordon-Treherne.”
When Miss Stuyvesant read this note she took two beautiful little silk flags—one a Union Jack, the other the Stars and Stripes, and tying them together with a lover’s knot she sent them to Treherne.
In after years Mr. and Mrs. Gordon-Treherne’s friends remark the deference which they pay to each other’s ideas; and the entwined banners, which occupy a conspicuous place in the library, are called the “Flags of Truce.”
III.
One Woman’s History out of Many.
“Sister Faithful” she was called by the Edgecombe people. Her name was really Faithful Farrington, but no one ever said “Miss Farrington.” She had been born in the old Manor House, where for fifty years she had spent the most of her time. Her father, old Nathan Farrington, had been content to live the life of a recluse after his wife’s death, finding his greatest happiness among his books, and in directing the education of his two children. Francis Farrington, the son, had gone out to India in early life, and had risen high in the Civil Service. He had lost his young wife, and after many years of valuable work had returned, an invalid, to Edgecombe, where he found in his sister the most tender and sympathetic of companions. He was content enough to allow the whole responsibility of the estate to rest upon her patient shoulders. She, for her part, grew up to know a great deal about science and literature, but absolutely nothing of society or the world. When she was thirty her father died, and, besides her brother out in India, and a distant cousin, who was a Professor in some London college, she had no one nearer than the old nurse who had tried to fill the place of a mother to her.
Having a considerable fortune, she lived on in her old home, attended by the same faithful servants, exactly as she had always done, except that when the long winter evenings became tedious, and books failed her, she invited some of her townswomen in to tea and played a rubber of whist. Her days were filled with good works; every cottager in the neighbourhood knew her, and she knew them and sympathized with all their sorrows. Wise in her charities, she was the vicar’s most invaluable assistant, and it is to be doubted whether he, in his rôle of spiritual adviser, was as much loved and revered as “Sister Faithful,” whose tireless hands constructed wonderful garments for the babies, and whose name was borne by half the children in consequence.