Not a very long time had passed, when Faith heard sleigh bells again, and a person very different from the doctor came softly in; even Mrs. Derrick. She smiled at Reuben and Faith, and going close up to the bed folded her hands quietly together and stood looking at the sick child; the smile vanishing from her face, her lips taking a tender, pitiful set—her eyes in their experience gravely reading the signs. She looked for a few minutes in silence, then with a little sorrowful sigh she turned to Faith.
"Pretty child," she said, "can't you take a little rest? I'll sit by him now."
"O mother I'm not tired—much. I have not been very busy."
Mrs. Derrick however took the matter into her own hands, and did not
content herself till she had Faith on a low seat at her side, and
Faith's head on her lap; which was a rest, to mind and body both.
Reuben replenished the fire and went out, and the two sat alone.
"Faith," her mother said softly, "don't you think he'd be content with me to-night? I can't bear to have Mr. Linden sit up."
"I want to stay myself, mother, if he would let me."
"I don't believe he'll do that, Faith—and I guess he's right But you must make him go home to tea, child, and he might rest a little then; and I'll stay till he comes back, at least."
There was not much more to be said then, for Johnny woke up and wanted to be taken on Faith's lap, and talked to, and petted; answering all her efforts with a sort of grateful little smile and way; but moving himself about in her arms as if he felt restless and uneasy. It went to her heart. Presently, in the low tones which were music of themselves, she carried his thoughts off to the time when Jesus was a little child; and began to give him, in the simplicity of very graphic detail, part of the story of Christ's life upon earth. It was a name that Johnny loved to hear; and Faith went from point to point of his words, and wonders, and healing power and comforting love. Not dwelling too long, but telling Johnny very much as if she had seen it, each gentle story of the sick and the weary and the troubled, who came in their various ways to ask pity of Jesus, and found it; and reporting to Johnny as if she had heard them the words of promise and love that a little child could understand. Mrs. Derrick listened; she had never heard just such a talk in her life. The peculiarity of it was in the vivid faith and love which took hold of the things as if Faith had had them by eyesight and hearing, and in the simplicity of representation with which she gave them, as a child to a child. And all the while she let Johnny constantly be changing his position, as restlessness prompted; from sitting to kneeling and lying in her arms; sometimes brushing his hair, which once in a while he had a fancy for, and sometimes combing it off from his forehead with her own fingers dipped in the vinegar and water which he liked to smell. Nothing could be more winning—nothing more skilful, in its way, than Faith's talk to the sick child that half hour or more. And Johnny told its effect, in the way he would bid her "talk," if she paused for a minute. So by degrees the restless fit passed off for the time, and he lay still in her arms, with drooping heavy eyelids now.
Everything was subsiding;—the sun sank down softly behind the wavy horizon line, the clouds floated silently away to some other harbour, and the blasts of wind came fainter and fainter, like the music of a retreating army. Swiftly the daylight ebbed away, and still Faith rocked softly back and forth, and her mother watched her. Once in a while Reuben came silently in to bring wood or fresh water,—otherwise they had no interruption. Then Mr. Linden came, and sitting down by Faith as he had done before, asked about the child and about the doctor.
"He came very soon after you went away," said Faith. "He said that he was no better, and that to be no better was to be worse." It was plain that she thought more than she said. Faith had little experience, but there is an intuitive skill in some eyes to know what they have never known before.