CHAPTER III.
"CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME."
"Beseech your Majesty,
Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady
So tender of rebukes, that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her."—Shakespeare.
"Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love."—Shakespeare.
Faith's nervous trepidation returned in full force when they came in sight of the Evergreens. She cast a piteous glance at the bay-window and then at Dr. Stewart, which secretly moved him to inward laughter, though not a muscle of his face betrayed amusement.
"There are no white slaves in England, leave Miss Charity to me," he said again, and the masculine assurance of his voice gave her a delicious sense of security.
The quiet way, too, in which he relieved her of her cloak in the hall, and bade her lay aside her hat, brought with it a strange new feeling of protection and care. There had been on his part no protestations, no vehement declaration of affection; but for a matter-of-fact, middle-aged wooer, rather new to his duties, Dr. Stewart was doing remarkably well.
Miss Charity was alone when they entered. The other sisters were in the habit of indulging in an afternoon nap, which they enjoyed in strict seclusion; but Miss Charity's bright eyes never closed till night, and not always then. The poor lady could have published many a volume of midnight meditations, when she and pain held their dreary converse together during those ten long years of suffering.
She looked up rather sharply over her knitting-needles as the two made their appearance. She was still put out at Faith's unusual manifestation of self-will, and an afternoon's lonely cogitations had not sweetened her acerbity.
"So you have come back at last, Faith," she remarked ironically; "I hope you have enjoyed your wet walk. I wish you would cure Faith, Dr. Stewart, of her absurd restlessness and love of wandering; she goes out in all weathers, and that is such a ridiculous thing in a woman of her age," finished Charity, who, in certain moods, was given to remind her sister that she would never see thirty-five again.
But the taunt was lost for the first time on Faith, for had she not received this afternoon a fresh lease of youth?