And if ever a hearer was bewitched, that was Faith. She lent her ear to the music, her eye to the eye, her thought to the thought, in utter forgetfulness of all else. At first she listened quietly, sitting where she was, looking sometimes at the fire, sometimes at the reader; but then she abandoned herself to full enjoyment, left her chair for a low seat near Mr. Linden, almost at his feet; and with upraised face and intent eye and varying play of lip, devoured it all. Sometimes the poetry certainly got beyond the bounds of her stock of knowledge; but that mattered not; for whenever the reading failed, the reader filled up all the gap and Faith listened to him. Precisely what it was to have just such a hearer, was best known to the reader himself; but he closed the book silently. Faith's comment was peculiar.
It wasn't made at first. Her look had come round slowly to the fire and slowly subsided. After sitting a minute so, she made her remark.
"But Mr. Linden, none of that seemed much like Melancholy to me?"
"That may be called the ideal of Melancholy," he said smiling.
"What is an 'ideal'? But oh," said Faith starting up, "it is time to have tea!—What is an 'ideal,' Mr. Linden?"
It was impossible not to laugh a little—but equally impossible to take that laugh amiss.
"The particular mental standard of perfection by which every person measures other people and things; and as that is generally more perfect than reality, the ideal is supposed to exist only in the idea."
She stood pondering the answer, with a somewhat humbled brow.
"I think I know," she said shaking her head a little,—"but I shall have to ask what exactly you mean by a standard, Mr. Linden. By and by—I must see to Cindy now."
And she ran off. Cindy presently brought in the tray; and Faith followed, arranging and setting in order everything. The tea did not immediately follow, perhaps the fire had got low, or Mrs. Derrick was not ready, for Faith did not seem expectant. She stood on the rug before the fire, looking into it very soberly and consideratively. There was a little abstraction in her figure and air. Suddenly she faced round where she stood.