Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 105

"Suppose you sit there, and tell me what efforts they have made in the way of seeing, to-day."

"Efforts to see all before them, which was more than they could," said Faith.

"What did they see? not me, nor I them, that I know."

"That was another sort of effort they made," said Faith smiling--"efforts to see what was _not_ before them. I watched, whenever I thought there was a chance, but I couldn't see anything that looked like you. We must have gone half over the city, Endecott; Mrs.

Pulteney took me all the morning, and her daughters and Mr. Pulteney all the afternoon."

"Know, O little Mignonette," said Mr. Linden, "that in New York it is 'morning' till those people who dine at six have had their dinner.

"Like the swell of some sweet tune Morning rises into noon,--

was written of country hours."

"I guess that is true of most of the other good things that ever were written," said Faith.

Mr. Linden looked amused. "What do you think of this?--

And when the hours of rest Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, Hushing its billowy breast-- The quiet of that moment too is thine; It breathes of Him who keeps The vast and helpless city while it sleeps."

"I never saw the city when it was asleep," said Faith, smiling. "It didn't look to-day as if it could sleep. But, Endecott, I am sure all the pretty part of those words comes from where we have been."

"The images, yes. But connect any spot of earth with heaven, by any tie, and it must have a certain sort of grandeur. You have been working in brick and mortar to-day, Mignonette, to-morrow I must give you a bird's-eye view."

Faith was silent a minute; and then said, "It don't look a happy place to me, Endecott."

"No, it is too human. You want an elm tree or a patch of dandelions between every two houses."

"That wouldn't do," said Faith, "unless the people could be less ragged, and dirty, and uneasy; and their houses too. There's nothing like it in Pattaqua.s.set."

"I have great confidence in the comforting and civilizing power of elm trees and green gra.s.s," said Mr. Linden. "But Carlyle says 'Man is not what you can call a happy animal, his appet.i.te for sweet victual is so enormous;' and perhaps New York suffers as much from the fact that everybody wants _more_, as that some have too little and others too much."

"Do _these_ people want more?" said Faith softly.

"Without doubt! So does everybody in New York but me."

"But why must people do that in New York, when they don't do it in Pattaqua.s.set?" said Faith, who was very like mignonette at the moment.

"The appet.i.te grows with indulgence, or the possibility of it. Besides, little bird, in Pattaqua.s.set you take all this breeze of humanity winnowed through elm branches. There, you know, 'My soul into the boughs does glide.'"

"No," said Faith; "it is not that. When my soul glides nowhere, and there are no branches, either; in the Roscoms' house, Endecott--and poor Mrs. Dow's, and Sally Lowndes',--people don't look as they look here. I don't mean _here_, in Madison Square--though yes I do, too; there was that raspberry girl; and others, worse, I have seen even here. But I have been in other places--Mr. Pulteney and his sisters took me all the way to the great stone church, Endecott."

"Well, Sunbeam, it has been a bright day for every raspberry girl that has come in your way. What else did you see there."--"I saw the church."

"Not the invisible" said Mr. Linden, smiling, "remember that."

"Invisible! no," said Faith. "There was a great deal of this visible."

"What thoughts did it put in your head?"--"It was very--wonderfully beautiful," said Faith, thoughtfully.

"What else?"--"I cannot tell. You would laugh at me if I could.

Endecott, it didn't seem so much like a church to me as the little white church at home."

"I agree with you there--the less show of the instrument the sweeter the music, to me. But the street in front of the church, so specially filled with beggars and cripples, I never go by there, Faith, without a feeling of joy; remembering the blind man who sat at the Beautiful gate of the temple; knowing well that there is as 'safe, expeditious, and easy a way' to heaven from that dusty side-walk, as from any other spot of earth. The triumph of grace!--how glorious it is! _I_ cannot speak to all of them together, nor even one by one, but grace is free! 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.'

Faith, I have been thinking of that all day!"

She could see it in his face--in the flush on the cheek and the flash in the eye as he came and stood before her. She could see what had been all day before his eyes and mind; and how pain and sympathy and longing desire had laid hold of the promise and rested there--"Ask and ye shall receive." Unconsciously Faith folded her hands, and the least touch of a smile in the corners of her mouth was in no wise contradictory of her eyes' sweet gravity.

"I saw them too," she said, in a low tone. "Endecott, I would rather speak to them out there, under the open sky, if it wasn't a crowd--than in the church?"

"I should forget where I was, after I began to speak," said Mr. Linden; "though I do love 'that dome--most catholic and solemn,' better than all others."

"Mr. Pulteney asked me how I liked the church," said Faith.

"He did not understand your answer," said Mr. Linden smiling, "I know that beforehand. What was it?"--"I think he didn't like it," said Faith. "I told him it seemed to me a great temple that men had built for their own glory and pleasure, not for the glory and pleasure of G.o.d."

"Since when, you have been to Mr. Tom Pulteney like a fable in ancient Greek to one who has learned the modern language at school and forgotten it."

"He did not understand me," said Faith, laughing and blushing a little.

"And I was worse off; for I asked him several questions he could not answer me. I wanted to go to the top, but he was certain I would be too tired if I did. But I heard the chime, Endecott! that was beautiful.

Beautiful! I am very glad I was there."

"I'll take you to the top" said Mr. Linden, "it will not tire me.

Faith, I have brought you another wedding present--talking of 'ancient'

things."

"What is that, Endecott?" she said, with a bright amused face.--"Only a fern leaf. One that waved a few thousand years before the deluge, and was safely bedded in stone when the children of Israel pa.s.sed through the Red Sea. I went to see an old antiquarian friend this morning, and out of his precious things he chose one for mine." And Mr. Linden laid in her hand the little rough stone; rough on one side, but on the other where the hammer had split it through, the brown face was smooth, and the black leaf lay marked out in all its delicate tracery.

"Endecott, what is this?" Faith exclaimed, in her low tones of delight.--"A fossil leaf."

"Of a fern? How beautiful! Where did it come from?" She had risen in her delight, and stood by Mr. Linden at the dressing-table.--"This one from Bohemia. Do you see the perfection of every leafet?"

"How wonderful! how beautiful!" Faith repeated, studying the fossil.

"It brings up those words, Endecott:--'A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past; or as a watch in the night.'"

"Yes, and these--'The counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.' Compare this fern leaf with the mighty palaces of Babylon and Nineveh. Through untold ages this has kept its wavy fragile outline, _they_ are marked only by 'the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness.'"

Faith looked up, with such an eye of intelligence and interest as again would have puzzled Mr. Pulteney.

"Did your old antiquary send this to me, Endecott?" she said looking down at it again.--"To you, darling."

"I have seen nothing so good to-day, Endy. I am very glad of it."

"Do you remember, Sunbeam, the time when I told you I liked stones? and you looked at me. I remember the look now!" So did Faith, by the conscious light and colour that came into her face, different from those of three minutes ago, and the grateful recognition her eyes gave to Mr. Linden.

"I don't know much more now," she said, in very lowliness, "about stones, but you can teach me, Endecott."

"Yes, I will leave no stone unturned for your amus.e.m.e.nt," he said, laughing. "Faith, if I were not so much afraid of you I should tell you what you are like. What else have you seen?"