Say and Seal, Volume I

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

"No, mother—but could you learn?"

"Why—I suppose I could, child," said her mother, as if she disliked to admit even so much. "But I'd about as lieve have my own arm shot off—I'm so dreadfully afraid of hurting people, Faith—and I always was afraid of him. Why can't the doctor do it? he can come six times a day if he's wanted—I guess he don't do much else."

Faith said no more on the subject, but hurried through her tea and sat down by the lamp in the sitting-room to read her letter. A minute or two she sat thinking, deeply, with her cheek on her hand; then dismissing everything else she opened the precious paper at last.

It was another Italy letter, but took her a very different journey from the last. A little graver perhaps than that, a little more longing in the wish to use eyesight instead of pen and ink; and as if absence was telling more and more upon the writer. Yet all this was rather in the tone than the wording—that was kept in hand. But it was midway in some bright description, that the message to Faith broke forth.

"Tell Miss Faith," she said, "that I would rather have seen her roasting clams down at 'the shore,' than anything I have seen since I heard of it,—which is none the less true, that I should have wanted to stand both sides of the window at once. And tell her if you can (though I don't believe even you can, John Endy) how much I love her for taking such care of one of my precious things. I feel as if all my love was very powerless just now! However—you remember that comforting old ballad—

'Where there is no space
For the glow-worm to lye;
Where there is no space
For receipt of a fly;
Where the midge dares not venture,
Lest herself fast she lay;
If love come he will enter,
And soon find out his way!'

So, Miss Faith, you may expect to see me appear some time in the shape of a midge!—Endecott will tell you I am not much better than that now."

So far Faith got in reading the letter, and it was a long while before she got any further; that message to herself she went over again and again. It was incomprehensible, it was like one of Mr. Linden's own puzzles for that. It was so strange, and at the same time it was such a beautiful thing, that Mr. Linden's sister should have heard of her and in such fashion as to make her wish to send a message! Faith's head stooped lower and lower over the paper, from her mother and the lamp. It was such a beautiful message too—the gracious and graceful wording of it Faith felt in every syllable; and the lines of the old ballad were some of the prettiest she had ever seen. But that Faith should have love sent her from Italy—and from that person in Italy of all others!—that Mr. Linden's sister should wish to see her and threaten to do it in the shape of a midge!—and what ever could Mr. Linden have told her to excite the wish? And what of this lady's precious things had Faith taken care of?—'such care' of! "Mother!"—Faith began once by way of taking counsel, but thought better of it, and went on pondering by herself. One thing was undoubted—this message in this letter was a matter of great pleasure and honour! as Faith felt it in the bottom of her heart; but in the midst of it all, she hardly knew whence, came a little twinge of something like pain. She felt it—yes, she felt it, even in the midst of the message; but if Faith herself could not trace it out, of course it can be expected of nobody else.

CHAPTER XXII.

Phil Davids, taking his morning walk through the pleasant roads of Pattaquasset, engaged in his out-of-school amusements of hunting cats and frightening children, was suddenly arrested in the midst of an alarming face ('got up' for the benefit of Robbie Waters) by the approach of Sam Stoutenburgh. In general this young gentleman let Phil alone, 'severely,' but on the present occasion he stopped and laid hold of his shoulder.