"Which you please," she said gently, with the tone of a mind upon something else. Mr. Linden looked down at her in silence for a minute.
"Dear Faith," he said, "I told you truly that there is no need. This year's work has done quite as much as I thought it would. What are you afraid of?"
"I am not afraid of much," she said, looking up at him now with a clear brow. "But Endy, I have changed my mind about something. Could you easily come down and read with me a little while every morning?—or are you busy?"
"I am never too busy to spend time with you, my child,—that is one piece of pleasure I shall always allow myself. At what hour shall I come?"
"At six o'clock, can you?" said Faith. "If you gave me a quarter of an hour then, I should still have time enough for breakfast work. This morning I was afraid—but I was foolish. This evening I want all I can get. And when you read me a ladder of verses again," she said smiling, "I shall mark them in my Bible, and then I shall have them by and by—when you are gone."
"Yes, and I can send you more. It is good to go up a ladder of Bible verses when one is afraid—or foolish," he said gently and answering her smile. "One end of it always rests on earth, within reach of the weakest and weariest."
"That is just it! Oh Endy," she said, clasping her hands sadly and wishfully before her and her eyes tilling as she spoke—"I wish there were more people to tell people the truth!"
CHAPTER XV.
It was a fair, fair May morning when Mr. Linden and Faith set forth on their expedition to Kildeer river. After their early rising and early breakfast, they took their way down to the shore of the Mong, where the little sail-boat lay rocking on the incoming tide, her ropes and streamers just answering to the morning breeze. The soft spring sunlight glinted on every tree and hillside. The "Balm of a Thousand Flowers"—true and not spurious—was sprinkled through the air, under the influence of which unseen nectar the birds became almost intoxicated with joy; pouring out their songs with a sort of spendthrift recklessness,—the very fish caught the infection, and flashed and sparkled in the blue water by shoals at a time.
In the sailboat now stood baskets and shawls, a book or two, an empty basket for wild flowers, and by the tiller sat Faith—invested with her new dignity but not yet instructed therein. Mr. Linden stood on the shore, with the boat's detaining rope in his hand, looking about him as if he had a mind to take the good of things as he went along. Up the hill from the shore, trotted Jerry and Mr. Skip.