y not tell anybody what I think of my wife!"

Faith looked amused, and yet a soft glance left the charge and the
"reproof" standing.

"I feel so composed about you," Mr. Linden went on, drawing his white
bows--Faith did think the eyes flashed under the shading lashes--"so
sure that you will never over-estimate me, much less speak of it. But
then you know, Mignonette, I never did profess to follow Reason."

He was amused to see the little stir his words called up in Faith. He
could see it in the changing colour and rest less eye, and in one look
of great beauty which Faith favoured him with. Apparently the shy
principle prevailed, or Faith's wit got the better of her simplicity;
for she rose up gravely and laying her hand on the bunch of flowers
asked if she should put them on.

"Unless you prefer my services."

She sat down again immediately, with a face that very plainly preferred
them. Half smiling, with fingers that were in no haste about their
work, Mr. Linden adjusted the carnations; glancing from them to her,
trying them in different positions, playing over his dainty task as if
he liked it. The flowers in place, his full smiling look met hers, and
she was carried off to the glass "to see his wife." Hardly seen, after
all, but by himself.

"She looks ready for dinner," said Faith.

"Your eyes are only to look at," said Mr. Linden with a laughing
endorsement of _his_ thoughts, and putting her back in the dormeuse.
"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 re