"Then you'll hold yourself engaged to me for Saturday morning,—and I'll hold myself engaged to give you some thing pleasant to do with it. The roads hereabout are good for nothing but riding—you can have the pleasure of motion, there isn't much to take your thoughts away from it."
"Except emotion?"
"If you're another Marvell of a man, and can send your soul into the boughs as you pass;—as good as stumbling on melons," said the doctor. "Unless your horse stumbles!"
"I see his character is coming out by degrees," said Mr. Linden smiling.
"He's as sure-footed—as you are! Here comes emotion—in the shape of my aunt Ellen. Isn't Mr. Linden a careful man?" he asked whimsically in a low voice, returning to his place by Faith. The question touched Faith's feeling of the ludicrous, and she only laughed at the doctor. Which he liked very well.
Mrs. Somers' errand was to invite the younger portion of the company to spend Christmas evening with her. And having succeeded in her mission, she made the doctor take her home.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The week thereafter passed with the usual quiet business of those days. Friday evening, however, when the lamp was lit, instead of opening her books at once, Faith took the doctor's station on the rug.
"Dr. Harrison has been here this afternoon, Mr. Linden; and asked me to go with you and him in the ride to-morrow."
"Well, Miss Faith?"