"Yes. Mayn't she send you a message?"
A very modest and very happy smile and deepening blush answered that; and she ran away with a sudden compunctious remembrance of Mr. Linden's dinner.
After dinner Faith had something to do in the kitchen, and something to do in other parts of the house, and then she would have read the letter before all things else; but then came in a string of company—one after the other, everybody wanting the news and much more than could be given. So it was a succession of flourishing expectations cut down and blasted; and both Faith and her mother grew tired of the exercise of cutting down and blasting, and Faith remembered with dismay that the afternoon was wearing and Mr. Linden had wished to see her again. She seized her chance and escaped at last, between the adieu of one lady and the accost of another who was even then coming up from the gate, and knocked at Mr. Linden's door again just as Mrs. Derrick was taking her minister's wife into the parlour. Her first move this time on coming in, was to brush up the hearth and put the fire in proper order for burning well; then she faced round before the couch and stood in a sort of pleasant expectation, as waiting for orders.
"You are a bright little visiter!" Mr. Linden said, holding out his hand to her. "You float in as softly and alight as gently as one of these crimson leaves through my window. Did anybody ever tell you the real reason why women are like angels?"
"I didn't know they were," said Faith laughing, and with something more of approximation to a crimson leaf.
"'They are all ministering spirits,'" he said looking at her. "But you must be content with that, Miss Faith, and not make your visits angelic in any other sense. What do you suppose I have been considering this afternoon?—while you have been spoiling the last Pattaquasset story by confessing that I am alive?"
"Did you hear them coming in?" said Faith. "I didn't know when they were going to let me get away.—What have you been considering, Mr. Linden?"
"The wide-spread presence and work of beauty. You see what a shock you gave my nervous system yesterday. Will you please to sit down, Miss Faith?"
Faith sat down, clearly in a puzzle; from which she expected to be somehow fetched out.
"What do you suppose is beauty's work in the world?—I don't mean any particular Beauty."