The elder woman returned the caress with an involuntary warmth, which, pure and natural though it might be, was yet at variance with the strict rule of her sect, which had taught her to avoid everything like compliment or caress, as savoring of the manners of the "world's people."
She therefore, after one kiss, gently repelled the girl, saying,—
"Nay, Faith, but it sufficeth. Go, then, if thee will, and make ready thy chamber for this sick man, while I prepare him some broth."
An hour later, a pung or box-sleigh drew up at the poor-house door, from which was lifted a long, gaunt figure, carefully enveloped in blankets and cloaks. As he was taken from the sleigh, he feebly murmured a few words, to which Phineas Coffin replied kindly,—
"Don't be scart,—it's all safe, and Nathaniel will fetch it right in after us."
"What! this 'ere?" queried the youth called Nathaniel, while he lifted from the sleigh, somewhat contemptuously, a long flat something, carefully enveloped in a cotton case.
"Yes. Fetch it along this way," replied Phineas; and Nathaniel followed the chair, in which the sick man was carried, into the pretty little maiden chamber which Faith had so quietly relinquished to one who she thought needed it more than herself.
Mother and daughter stood ready to receive their new charge, and see him comfortable in the warm, soft bed which they had prepared for him.
"Thee will soon get rested now, friend, and go to sleep,—won't thee?" said Mrs. Coffin, in her gentle voice, as she turned down the sheet a little more evenly.
"Where is it?" panted the exhausted sufferer, trying to look beyond his kind nurse into the room.