Faith Gartney's Girlhood Part 23

By and by she reverted, at last, as she always did, to that question of its being a "leading," or not; and, taking down the old Bible from the corner shelf, she laid it with solemnity on the little light stand at her side, and opened it, as she had known her father do, in the important crises of his life, for an "indication."

The wooden saddle and the gun were not all that had come down to Aunt Faith from the primitive days of the Puritan settlers.

The leaves parted at the story of the Good Samaritan. Bible leaves are apt to part, as the heart opens, in accordance with long habit and holy use.

That evening, while Glory was washing up the tea things, Aunt Faith put on cloak and hood, and walked over to Cross Corners.

"No--I won't take off my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance of a.s.sistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do.

I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for him, and he'll come."

"That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr.

Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire."

"So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some kind of a Samaritan to come along."

Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to offer.

"She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!"

Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle.

April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong.

CHAPTER XX.

PAUL.

"Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet!"

LONGFELLOW.

Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once more, and to wonder how the minister would like it.

So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him, and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself.

In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let the pleasantness stray out across the pa.s.sage, and into the keeping room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in this world, and that even she was "in 'em!"

April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things, also, to pa.s.s.

The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe.

Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand, and would she not come down?

But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation--Faith's intimacy was with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons--that she could not escape its acceptance if she desired; and so--there was a great deal to be done in summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity, would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which this year could receive little addition.

One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa.

Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along the quiet road to the village church, together.

Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet, and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own newness and beauty.

"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting had pa.s.sed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?"

Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a deep rosiness that overspread her face.

The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing.

Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for, from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend.

"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously tinted sh.e.l.ls upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these, Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith!

It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!"

Faith had tears in her eyes.

"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct for things that other people are educated up to."

"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom G.o.d wills to send us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel ever an offense cometh!"

Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul Rushleigh came eagerly to her side.

"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile."

Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarra.s.sment, the rush of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply.

But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond mere words of course.

Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field daisy beside a garden rose.

Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet."

Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners.

Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries had not come yet?

When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing?

Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before?

On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it, for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting.

To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition, to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment.

The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might fear--he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that--but what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power--even the consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face.

What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew the shame was at having blushed at all.

Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it, almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also watch.