"You are thinking they 'waste their sweetness'?"
"O no, indeed! I don't think that."
"You are thinking something. Please let me be the better for it."
"One ought to be the better for it," said Faith.
"Then I hope you won't refuse it to me," said Dr. Harrison gently laughing at her.
"I was thinking, Dr Harrison, what the Bible says,—'He hath made everything beautiful in his time';—and, 'God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.'"
The doctor turned over the leaf to a new Rhododendron. Faith's thoughts went to Pequot, and her heart gave a bound of joy at the remembrance of the sick woman there.
Mrs. Stoutenburgh's crimson dress was so softly worn and managed, that the wearer thereof was close in Dr. Harrison's neighbourhood for a minute before he was aware of her presence; which quiet motions, it should be observed, were habitual to Mrs. Stoutenburgh, and not at all assumed for the occasion. Therefore it was with no idea of startling anybody, that she said presently, "My dear Faith, what are you looking at through those Rhododendrons?" Faith started, and looked up with a bit of a smile.
"What do you see, Mrs. Stoutenburgh?" said the doctor.
"O several things," said the lady, passing her hand softly over Faith's brow, and then with one of her sudden impulses putting her lips there. "Do you like them, Faith?"