"Endecott!—If you don't want anything more of me," said Faith lifting up a face which was an array of peach-blossoms,—"I'll go back again."
"Will you?—" with a little tightening of his hold, and signification of his approval of peachblossoms. "Faith, you are a lovely child! Will it distress you very much if I go off and ride about the country alone?"
But now,—seeing she could not get away,—she stood graver; and the answer was very gentle, almost tender—"No."
"Then you will not confess that you were frightened out of your wits at the picture?" said Mr. Linden smiling, though with an answering change of tone.
"Did you think I was?"
"No—you are too much of a woman for that, even if you had believed it true."
"Then you were not frightened?—" she said with some comicality.
"I? desperately!—my note did not give you any idea of the state of my mind! Imagine me sitting down stairs and saying to myself—(words naturally suggested by the state of the weather)—
'O how this spring of love resembleth
Th' uncertain glories of an April day,
Which now shews all the beauties of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!'"
One of the soft flashes of Faith's eye came first to answer him; and then she remarked very coolly, (N.B. her face was not so,) "I think it will clear at noon, Endecott."