Faith looked at him in a sort of frightened mood of mind, discerning some earnest in the play. Mr. Linden's face did not reassure her, though he carried the play at that time no further.
CHAPTER XXIX.
If the fears of the night before had not quite been slept off, if the alarming ideas had not all been left in dreamland, still it was hard for anything but peace and pleasure to shew its head that morning. In at Faith's window came the sunbeams, the tiny panes of glass shewed each a patch of the bluest sky, and through some unseen open sash the morning air swept in full sweetness. When Faith opened her own window, the twitter and song of all manner of birds was something to hear, and their quick motions were something to see. From the sweetbriar on the house to the trees in the orchard,—from the mud nest under the eaves to the hole in the barn wall,—what darting and skimming and fluttering! Off in the orchard the apple trees were softly putting on their nonpareil dress of blossoms, feeding the air with nectar till it was half intoxicated; and down in the garden a little bevy of bells stood prim and soft and sweet, ringing their noiseless spring chimes under Faith's window.
Under her window too, that is within close sight of it, stood Reuben Taylor and Mr. Linden. Not watching for her just then as it appeared, but intent upon their own concerns. Or rather, Reuben—in his usual dark, neat dress and straw hat, with hands neither busy nor at rest, but waiting and ready—was intent upon Mr. Linden—and Mr. Linden upon his work. His hat was off, on the grass beside him, and he himself—half sitting half leaning upon an old crooked apple tree, had his hands full of cowslips—though what he was doing with them Faith could not tell. Only from a fluttering end of blue ribband that appeared, she could guess their destination. The two friends were talking busily and merrily, with little cowslip interludes, and the yellow blossoms sprinkled the grass all about the tree, some having dropped down, others been tossed off as not worthy a place in the ball. For that was the work in Mr. Linden's hands—something which Faith had never seen.
It was so very pretty a picture that Faith sat down to look at it, and thoughtless of being found out, looked on in a dream. Mr. Linden's threats of yesterday did come back to her shrinkingly, but she threw them off; the time was too happy to bear the shadow of anything weightier than apple blossoms. Faith looked out through them admiringly, marvelling anew how Mr. Linden had ever come to like her; and while her soft eyes were studying him, her heart made many a vow before the time. She only felt the birds fly past; her mind was taking strange glimpses into the future.
Stepping jauntily out from the house, Sam Stoutenburgh came next upon the scene, the springtime of his man's attire suiting well enough with his years but not so well with his surroundings; too desperately smart for the cowslips, bright and shining as they were there in the sun, too new for the tulips—though they had been out of the ground but a few days. For
In a little bit of garden ground
Where many a lovely plant was found,
Stood a tulip in gay attire!
His pantaloons green as ever were seen,
His cap was as red as fire.
But the tulip was at least used to his cap—which was more than could be said of Sam and his hat.
"Mrs. Derrick told me to come out here and find you, sir," he said.
"But what are you doing, Mr. Linden?"
"I am making a ball."