"I wonder what he does with himself after meeting," said Mrs.
Derrick. "Folks do say he goes strolling round, but I don't believe it."
"Mother! Folks say everything, I believe. He knows what he does."
"Maybe you wouldn't like to be seen out on Sabbath?" said Mrs. Derrick, with sudden thought. "Because if you wouldn't, Faith, I'll go myself to Sally's—can or no can."
"No, mother—" she said brightly,—"I would like to go. If I know I am doing right, I don't mind about being seen. I wish people had as good reason for telling tales about me, as they have for some others."
"I guess your class 'll fill up,—" said her mother, with her fond, wistful look at the only thing she had in the world.
It was the fairest, still, sweet afternoon, when after church Faith got the medicine for Sally Loundes and set out to take it to her. So fair and lovely, that Faith hardly considered much the features of the road she travelled; in that light any piece of ground was beautiful. The road was very lonely after a little part of the village had been gone through. It left the main street, then bid farewell to a few scattering distant houses and approached what was called Barley Point;—a barren piece of ground from which a beautiful view of the Sound and the ocean line, and perhaps porpoises, could be had. But at the foot of this field the road turned, round the end of that belt of woods spoken of; and getting on the other side of it ran back eastward towards the Lighthouse point. Between the woods and the sea, on this side, was a narrow down that the farmers could make little of; and here the road, if desolate, had a beauty of its own. On Faith's right was this strip of tolling downs, grown with nothing but short grass and low blackberry vines; and close at hand, just beyond its undulating line, the waves of the sea beating in. Very little waves to-day, everything was so quiet.
At the Lighthouse point, a mile or more on, was a little settlement of fishermen and others; but only one house stood on the way, and that hardly disturbed the monotony or the solitude; it was so little, so brown, and looked so of a piece with the barren country. That was Sally Loundes' house. Faith met nobody till she got there.
When Faith came out of the house, the sun's place warned her she would have no time to spare to get home. She set off with quicker pace, though nowise concerned about it. There was no danger of anything in Pattaquasset. But she had gone only a little part of her wild homeward way when she met Mr. Simlins. Now Mr. Simlins was accustomed to take an afternoon Sunday stroll and sometimes a long one; so it was no matter of surprise to meet him, nor even to meet him there, for Mr. Simlins was as independent in his choice of a walk as in everything else. But he was surprised.
"Hullo! my passenger pigeon," he exclaimed. "Why are you here all alone, in this unfrequent place?"
"It's a very nice place," said Faith. "And it's not disagreeable to be alone—though I am willing to meet you, Mr. Simlins."