"King Alfred's breakfast. I forgot you knew the way to the dairy!"
"Or could find it if I did not. What shape does my breakfast take in these regions?"
"It takes the shape—Let us go back to the kitchen and we will see."
It was spry work in the kitchen now! How Faith's fingers went about. But Mr. Linden could make nothing of the form his breakfast was taking—nothing of Faith's mysterious bowl, in which the cream he had seen her skim went into compound with the potatoes he had seen boiling and with also certain butter and eggs. The mixture went into the oven, and then Faith went off to set the table in the parlour. As they were alone to-day the fire in the dining-room was not to be kindled.
The storm beat so differently upon the windows now!—now, when it was only a barrier against people who were not wanted to come in. Mr. Linden followed Faith in her motions, sometimes with eye and voice, sometimes with his own steps; confusing both her and her arrangements, making her laugh, and himself the cause of various irregularities in the table-setting, which he was very quick to point out.
"Mignonette," he said, "I think it is a perfect day! Do you hear how it storms?"
"And aren't you glad Cindy went to a wedding? And oh, Endy!—how many people will be coming after you to-day?" Faith stopped, knife in hand.
"Did you suppose that I would come here to see you, and then be obliged to see half Pattaquasset instead? I stopped at Patchaug station,—there Reuben met me, and we had as pleasant a four mile drive in the rain as I ever remember. As to the wedding—I think there can never be more than one other so felicitous."
Faith ran off.
And presently the breakfast came in, variously, in her hands and in Mrs. Derrick's. It was broad light now, and the curtains drawn back, but the red firelight still gave the hue of the room; and the breakfast-table and the three people round it wanted for no element or means of comfort. There were the shortcakes, which Mr. Linden might more readily recognize now in their light brown flakiness—his coffee was poured upon the richest of cream; the potatoes came out of the oven in the shape of a great puff-ball, of most tender consistency; and the remains of a cold chicken had been mystified into such a dish of delicacy as no hands but a Frenchwoman's—or Faith's—could concoct. It's a pleasant thing to be catered for by hands that love you. Mr. Linden had found that pleasure this morning before. But both Faith and he were undoubtedly ready for their breakfast!