"Must be!" said the Squire,—"always is a reason for every fact. You know what friends we used to be,—it was always, 'Hush, Mr. Stoutenburgh!' or, 'How do you know anything about it?' Ah, he's a splendid fellow!—My dear, I don't wish to ask any impertinent questions, but when you do hear that he's safe across, just let me know—will you?" And the Squire bowed himself off without waiting for an answer.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Faith found that sewing and housework and butter-making took not only her hands but her minutes, and on these little minute wheels the days glided off very fast. She had plenty of fresh air, withal, for Mrs. Stoutenburgh would coax her into a horseback ride, or the Squire take her off in his little wagon; or Mrs. Derrick and Jerry go with her down to the shore for clams and salt water. The sea breeze was more company than usual, this summer.
By the time August days came, there came also a letter from Europe; and thereafter the despatches were as regular and as frequent as the steamers. But they brought no special news as to the point of coming home. Mrs. Iredell lingered on in the same uncertain state, neither worse nor better,—there was no news to send. Everything else the letters had; and though Faith might miss that, she could not complain.
So the summer days slipped away peacefully; and when the mother and daughter sat sewing together in the afternoon, (for Mrs. Derrick often took some little skirt or sleeve) nobody would have guessed why the needles were at work.
There was one remarkable thing about the boy Reuben had found to supply Mr. Skip's place—he was never visible. Nor audible either, for that matter, except that Faith at her own early rising often heard the wood-saw industriously in motion. He was not to sleep in the house for the first month,—that had been agreed; but whether he slept anywhere seemed a matter of doubt. A doubt Faith resolved to set at rest; and one August morning, while the birds were a-twitter yet with their first getting up and the sun had not neared the horizon, Faith crossed the yard to the woodshed and stood in the open doorway,—the morning light shewing the soft outlines of her figure in a dark print dress, and her white ruffles, and gleaming on her faultlessly soft and bright hair.
The woodshed was in twilight yet; its various contents shewing dimly, the phoebe who had built her nest under the low roof just astir, but the wood work was going on briskly. Not indeed under the saw—that lay idle; but with the sort of noiseless celerity which was natural to him, Reuben Taylor was piling the sticks of this or yesterday's cutting: the slight chafing of the wood as it fell into place chiming with the low notes of a hymn tune which Faith well remembered to have heard Mr. Linden sing. She did not stir, but softly, as she stood there, her voice joined in.
For a minute Reuben did not hear her,—then in some pause of arrangement he heard, and turned round with a start and flush that for degree might have suited one who was stealing wood instead of piling it. But he did not speak—nor even thought to say good morning; only pushed the hair back from his forehead and waited to receive sentence.
"Reuben!"—said Faith, stepping in the doorway. And she said not another word; but in her eyes and her lips, even in her very attitude as she stood before him, Reuben Taylor might read it all!—her knowledge for whose love he was doing that work, her powerlessness of any present means of thanks, and the existence of a joint treasury of returned affection that would make itself known to him some day, if ever the chance were. The morning sun gleamed in through the doorway on her face, and Reuben could see it all there. He had raised his eyes at the first sound of her voice, but they fell again, and his only answer was a very low spoken "Good morning, Miss Faith."
Faith sat down on a pile of cut sticks and looked up at him.