"Well I did," said Faith smiling,—"I shewed you what I knew; but you shewed me what I had never known before."
"I'm sure you shewed me some things I had never known before," he said laughing a little. "Do you know where we are going now?"—they had left the beaten road, and entered a by-way where only footsteps marked the snow, and no sleigh before their own had broken ground. It seemed to be a sort of coast-way,—leading right off towards the dashing Sound and its low points and inlets. The shore was marked with ice as well as foam; the water looked dark and cold, with the white gulls soaring and dipping, and the white line of Long Island in the distance.
"No, I don't know. Where are we going? O how beautiful! O how beautiful!" Faith exclaimed. "Hasn't every time its own pleasure! Where are we going, Endecott?"
"To see one who Dr. Harrison 'fancies' may have 'something in him.'
Whatever made the doctor take such a dislike to Reuben?"
Faith did not answer, and instead looked forward with a sort of contemplative gravity upon her brow. Her cheeks were already so brilliant with riding in the fresh air that a little rise of colour could hardly have been noticed.
"Do you know?"
Faith presently replied that she supposed it was a dislike taken up without any sort of real ground.
"Well to tell you the truth, my little Mignonette," said Mr. Linden, "the doctor's twenty-five dollars gives me some trouble in that connexion. Reuben will take favours gladly from anybody that likes him, but towards people who do not (they are very few, indeed) he is as proud as if he had the Bank of England at his back. I might send him a dinner every day if I chose; but if Reuben were starving, his conscience would have a struggle with him before he would take bread from Dr. Harrison."
Faith listened very seriously and her conclusion was a very earnest "Oh, I am sorry!—But then," she went on thoughtfully,—"I don't know that Dr. Harrison dislikes Reuben.—He don't understand him, how should he?—and I know they have never seemed to get on well together.—"
"I chose to answer for him the other day," said Mr. Linden—"and I shall not let him refuse; but I have questioned whether I would tell him anything about the money till he is ready for the books. Then if he should meet the doctor, and the doctor should ask him!—"