Faith had never guessed—till her wondering fingers had persuaded the locket to open—she had never guessed what she should find there; at the utmost she looked to find a lock of hair; and the joy was almost as overwhelming as a little while ago pain had been. Faith could hardly see the picture for a long time; she called herself foolish, but she cried and laughed the harder for joy; she reproached herself for past ungratefulness and motions of discontent, which made her not deserve this treasure; and the joy and the tears were but enhanced that way. Faith could hardly believe her eyes, when they were clear enough to see; it seemed,—what they looked at,—too good to be true; too precious to be hers. But at last she was fain to believe it; and with blushes that nobody saw, and a tiny smile that it was a pity somebody didn't see, she put the blue ribband round her neck and hid the locket where she knew it was expected to find its place. But Faith forgot her work, and her mother found her sitting there doing nothing, looking with dreamy happy thoughtfulness into distance, or into herself; all Miss Bezac's silks and stuffs neglected around her.
And work, diligent, happy, contented, continued, was the order of the day, and of many days and weeks after. Miss Bezac giving out that she would take as much work as was offered her, she and Faith soon had both their hands completely full. The taste and skill of the little dressmaker were so well acknowledged that even from Pequot there was now many an application for her services; and many a lady from there and from Pattaquasset, came driven in a wagon or a sleigh to Miss Bezac's cottage door.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
It was the month
"When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue bird's warble know,"—
the month of the unbending of Nature—of softening skies and swelling streams and much underground spring work. As for instance, by the daffodils; which by some unknown machinery pushed their soft, pliant leaves up through frozen clods into the sunshine. Blue birds fluttered their wings and trilled their voices through the air, song sparrows sang from morning to night, and waxwings whistled for cherries in the bare tree tops. There the wind whistled too, "whiles," with the fall approbation of snow birds and chickadees,—the three going out of fashion together.
It was a busy month at Miss Bezac's—two weddings at Pequot and one in Pattaquasset kept her hands full,—and Faith's too. Just now the great point of interest was the outfit of Miss Maria Davids—the wedding dress, especially, being of the most complicate and ornamented description. Miss Bezac and Faith needed their heads as well as their hands, Miss Maria's directions with regard to flowers and furbelows being somewhat like the Vicar of Wakefield's in respect of sheep—only Miss Maria was willing to pay for all that went on, whereas the Vicar wanted the sheep for nothing.
Thus they stood, the two friends and co-workers, with the dress spread out on a table, contriving where the flowers should go and how many it would be possible to put on. Miss Maria's box of Pequot flowers on a chair near by, was as full as her directions.
"It would be better to take the box and turn it right over her after she's dressed, and let 'em stick where they would!" said Miss Bezac in some disgust. Whereupon, dropping her grave look of thought, Faith's laugh broke up the monotony of the occasion.
"Well that's good any way," said Miss Bezac. "And I'm sure everything's 'any way' about this dress. But I won't have you about it a bit longer,—you're tired to death standing up."