"I was thinking of somebody that I am afraid a butterfly will always remind me of,"—Faith answered with a slight colour;—"and of the time he got the name."
"He got it by favour of his office, you know—not otherwise."
"I know—"
But with that, Faith jumped up to see to the state of the fire; and then after some conjuration in her basket produced a suspicious-looking tin vessel, for which the proper bed of coals was found. Leaving it and the fire to agree together, Faith came back to the rock and Mr. Linden and stood a little while silently looking and breathing the sweetness.
"I always did love everything in the world, that my eyes could see," she said gravely. "But I love them so much more now!—now that the hand that made them is not such a strange far-off hand to me. It makes a kind of new world to me, Endecott."
"Yes—and you can understand how—even without physical changes—when we 'shall know as we are known,' the 'heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness' may be preëminently 'new'."
Faith stood without reply a few minutes longer, then ran back to her fire; and after a short space called to Mr. Linden to ask if he would like to come and see what the prince had been picking up wood for?
To which the prince responded with very un-royal alacrity, bringing a well-put-together knot of buttercups to adorn one side of Miranda's head; which he declared looked better than gold beads, if they didn't cost as much.
A napkin was spread on the rock, conveniently near to the fire; on which plates and bread and a bottle of cream and a dainty looking pasty were irregularly bestowed. Mr. Linden threw himself down on the moss; and Faith had got a cup and saucer out of her basket and was just sugaring and creaming the prince's reward before applying to her dish on the fire for the crowning coffee; when her eye was caught by a spectator lately come upon the scene. No other than a somewhat ragged little boy, who eyeing them from the bank had been irresistibly lured nearer and nearer, by the grace of the preparations and the steam of the hot coffee perhaps, till he now stood by the trunk of the nearest tree.
"What are you doin'?" he said.