It was at this precise period, that Eben Dudley chose to urge the suit, he had always pressed after his own desultory fashion, on the decision of Faith. One of those well-ordered accidents, which, from time to time, had brought the girl and the young borderer in private conversation, enabled him to effect his design with sufficient clearness. Faith heard him without betraying any of her ordinary waywardness, and answered with as little prevarication as the subject seemed to demand.
"This is well, Eben Dudley," she said, "and it is no more than an honest girl hath a right to hear, from one who hath taken as many means as thou to get into her favor. But he who would have his life tormented by me, hath a solemn duty to do, ere I listen to his wishes."
"I have been in the lower towns and studied their manner of life, and I have been upon the scouts of the colony, to keep the Indians in their wigwams," returned her suitor, endeavoring to recount the feats of manliness that might reasonably be expected of one inclined to venture on so hazardous an experiment as matrimony. "The bargain with the young Captain for the hill-lot, and for a village homestead, is drawing near a close: and as the neighbors will not be backward at the stone-bee, or the raising, I see nothing to--"
"Thou deceivest thyself, observant Dudley," interrupted the girl, "if thou believest eye of thine can see that which is to be sought, ere one and the same fortune shall be the property of thee and me. Hast noted, Eben, the manner in which the cheek of the Madam hath paled, and how her eye is getting sunken, since the time when the fur trader tarried with us, the week of the storm?"
"I cannot say that there is much change in the wearing of the Madam, within the bearing of my memory," answered Dudley, who was never remarkable for minute observations of this nature, however keen he might prove in subjects more intimately connected with his daily pursuits. "She is not young and blooming as thou, Faith, nor is it often that we see--"
"I tell thee, man, that sorrow preyeth upon her form, and that she liveth but in the memory of the lost infant!"
"This is carrying mourning beyond the bounds of reason. The child is at peace; as is thy brother, Whittal, beyond all manner of question. That we have not discovered their bones, is owing to the fire, which left but little to tell of--"
"Thy head is a charnel-house, dull Dudley, but this picture of its furniture shall not suffice for me. The man who is to be my husband must have a feeling for a mother's sorrows!"
"What is now getting uppermost in thy mind, Faith! Is it for me to bring back the dead to life, or to place a child that hath been lost so many years once more in the arms of its parents?"
"It is.--Nay, open not thine eyes, as if light were first breaking into the darkness of a clouded brain! I repeat, it is!"