"Aint you ashamed!" said Miss Essie reproachfully. "Didn't such a confession deserve better? Who's next, Mr. Harrison?"
Some unimportant names followed, with commonplace forfeits according; then Faith's name came to Mr. Linden. Then was there an opening of eyes and a pricking of ears of all the rest of the company. Only Faith herself sat as still as a mouse, after one little quick glance over to where the person stood in whose hands she was. He stood looking at her,—then walked with great deliberation across the room to her low seat, and taking both her hands lifted her up.
"You need not be frightened," he said softly, as keeping one hand in his clasp he led her back to where he had been standing; then placed her in a great downy easy chair in that corner of the fireplace, and drew up a footstool for her feet.
"Miss Faith," he said, "you are to sit there in absolute silence for the next fifteen minutes. If anybody speaks to you, you are not to answer,—if you are longing to speak yourself you must wait. It is also required that you look at nobody, and hear as little as possible." With which fierce sentence, Mr. Linden took his stand by the chair to see it enforced.
"What a man you are!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh laughing.
"That's not fair play!" said Mrs. Somers. "She don't want to sit there—if you think she does, you're mistaken."
"She should have been more careful then," said Mr. Linden. "Dr.
Harrison, you have the floor."
Dr. Harrison did not appear to think that was much of a possession;—to judge by his face, which cast several very observant glances towards the chair, and by his manner which for a moment was slightly abstracted and destitute of the spirit of the game. Miss Essie's eyes took the same direction, with a steady gaze which the picture justified. Faith sat where she had been placed, in most absolute obedience to the orders she had received,—except possibly—not probably—the last one. The lids drooped over her eyes, which moved rarely from the floor, and never raised themselves. Her colour had risen indeed to a rich tint, where it stayed; but Mrs. Somers' declaration nevertheless was hardly borne out by a certain little bit-in smile which lurked there too, spite of everything. Otherwise she sat like an impersonation of silence, happily screened, by not looking at anybody, from any annoyance of the eyes that were levelled at her and at the figure that held post by her side.
"Mrs. Stoutenburgh," said the doctor, "you have my aunt Ellen."
Mrs. Stoutenburgh however was lenient in that quarter, and told Mrs. Somers they would require nothing of her but the three last items of Pattaquasset news—which she, as pastor's wife, was bound to know. And Mrs. Somers was not backward in declaring them; the first being the engagement of two people who hated each other, the second the separation of two people who loved each other; the third, that Mr. Linden shot himself—to make a sensation.