Edith came smiling out through the door. "Such a nice letter from Dick!" she said, giving it to her aunt. "And see, Carl, here is a little handful of sand from the Sahara, and here is an orange-blossom from Sorrento. It looks quite fresh."
Dick Rowan had that delightful way which so few letter-writing travellers know of making their descriptions more vivid by sending some illustrations of them. Writing from the south, he would say, "While you are in the midst of snow, there is a rose-tree in bloom outside my window. Here is one of the buds." He had emancipated himself from the letter-writers, and succeeded perfectly in his own way.
The next afternoon Mrs. Yorke sent for Mr. Griffeth, and saw him alone. "What have you done to Carl?" she exclaimed. "Are you making an infidel of him?"
The minister, confounded, tried to excuse Carl and defend himself.
The interview was not a pleasant one, and Mr. Griffeth was glad when it was over. He went out into the sitting-room where Melicent and Clara sat; but their constrained manners did not encourage him to stay long. They suspected the subject of the conversation he had been holding with their mother.
Edith sat on the piazza outside, studying. Her person was not in sight as he looked from the window, but a flutter of drapery on the breeze betrayed her presence. Mr. Griffeth merely bowed to the sisters in passing, and went out on to the piazza. Edith sat in a low chair with a book of German ballads on her knees. By her side were a grammar and dictionary. She was translating, watching thought after thought emerge from that imperfectly-known language, as stars emerge from the mists of heaven.
She glanced at the minister with a smile that was less for him than for the stanza she had just completed.
"Salve!" he exclaimed, bowing lowly.
"I am translating a song from the German," Edith said. "Is not translating delightful? It is like digging for gold, and finding it. I have just got a thought out whole."