Very gravely, and even a little sorrowfully, the last words were said.
"Why yes," said Mrs. Derrick stoutly. "Never tell me it's anything but play to teach you, child—he didn't look as if it was, neither. I thought he got his pay as he went along."
Faith knew he had looked so; but that was not Faith—it was Mr. Linden, in her account.
"Dr. Harrison ought to be a good doctor, mother," she remarked, leaving the subject. "He has had chance enough."
"La, child," said Mrs. Derrick, untying her apron, "chance don't prove anything. A man may have just as good a chance to kill as he has to cure. By which I don't mean that he has, for I don't know."
"The tide is coming in, mother. We came just in the very point of the time. How pretty it is!—" said Faith; standing in the blue mud, with her bare feet, and with the basket of clams in her hand, but standing still to look off at the flats and the dark water and the hazy opposite shore, all with the sunny stillness and the soft enveloping haze of October lying lovingly upon them. Faith thought of the 'glory' again, and watched to see how water and shore and flats and sky were all touched with it. One or two sails on the Sound could not get on; they lay still in the haze like everything else; and the 'glory' was on them too. She thought so. It seemed to touch everything. And another glory touched everything,—the glory of truth Faith had only for a little while come to know. She recognized it; there was 'light from heaven' in more senses than one; the glow of joy and hope unknown a while before; the softening veil of mind-peace over whatever might be harsh or sharp in actual reality. She did not run out all the parallel, but she felt it, and stood looking with full eyes. Not full of tears, but of everything pleasant beside.
Then came the drive home, with the air darkening every minute, but notwithstanding this, Mrs. Derrick stopped by the way.
"Faith," she said, "hold the reins, child—I won't be a second, but I've got something to see to in here;" and Faith was once more left to her meditations.
Not for long; for as she sat gazing out over old Crab's ears, she was 'ware' of some one standing by the wagon: it was Squire Deacon.
"I shall commence to think I'm a lucky man, after all!" said the Squire. "I was coming down to see you, Miss Faith,—and couldn't just resolve my mind to it, neither. I wanted to pay a parting visit."