Did he really think she needed it, when she was rosy to her fingers' ends? But what could she do, but be very still and very happy Even as a flower whose head is heavy with dew,—never more fragrant than then, yet with the weight of its sweet burden it bends a little;—like that was the droop of Faith's head at this minute. Whither had the whirl of this evening whirled her? Faith did not know. She felt as if, to some harbour of rest, broad and safe; the very one where from its fitness it seemed she ought to be. But shyly and confusedly, she felt it much as a man feels the ground, who is near taken off it by a hurricane. Yet she felt it, for her head drooped more and more.
"Faith," Mr. Linden said, half smiling, half seriously, "what has made you so sober all this evening—so much afraid of me?"
The quick answer of the eye stayed not a minute; the blush was more abiding.
"You don't want me to tell you that!"—she said in soft pleading.
"Do you know now who I think has—
'A sweet attractive kind of grace'?"
"O don't, please, speak so, Mr. Linden!" she said bowing her face in her hands,—"it don't belong to me."—And pressing her hands closer, she added, "You have made me all I am—that is anything."
"There is one thing I mean to make you—if I live," he answered smiling, and taking down her hand. "Faith, what do you mean by talking to me in that style?—haven't you just given me leave to think what I like of you? You deserve another half hour's silent penance."
A little bit of smile broke upon her face which for an instant she tried to hide with her other hand. But she dropped that and turned the face towards him, rosy, grave, and happy, more than she knew, or she perhaps would have hidden it again. Her eyes indeed only saw his and fell instantly; and her words began and stopped.
"There is one comfort—"