rything that has happened. I
am."

"I fear, I fear," he said looking at her, "that your gladness and my
sorrow meet on common ground. Child, what shall I do with you?"--but
what he did with her then was to put her in that same cradle and carry
her softly upstairs, to the very door of her room.

CHAPTER VI.

The same soft snow-storm was coming down when Faith opened her eyes
next morning; the air looked like a white sheet; but in her room a
bright fire was blazing, reddening the white walls, and by her side sat
Mrs. Derrick watching her. Very gentle and tender were the hands that
helped her dress, and then Mrs. Derrick said she would go down and see
to breakfast for a little while.

"Wasn't it good your room was warm last night?" she said, stroking
Faith's hair.

Faith's eyes acknowledged that.

"And wasn't it good you were asleep!" she said laughing and kissing
Mrs. Derrick. "Mother!--I was so glad!"

"That's the funny part of it," said Mrs. Derrick. "Reuben's just about
as queer in his way as Mr. Linden. The only thing I thought from the
way he gave the message, was that somebody cared a good deal about his
new possession--which I suppose is true," she added smiling; "and so I
just went to sleep."

Mrs. Derrick went down; and Faith knelt on the rug before the fire and
bent her heart and head over her bible. In great happiness;--in great
endeavour that her happiness should stand well based on its true
foundations and not shift from them to any other. In sober endeavour to
lay hold, and feel that she had hold, of the happiness that cannot be
taken away; to make sure that her feet were on a rock, before she
stooped to take the sweetness of the flowers around her. And to judge
by her face, she had felt the rock and the flowers both, before she
left her room.

The moment she opened her door and went out into the hall, Mr. Linden
opened his,--or rather it was already open, and he came out, meeting
her at the head of the stairs. And after his first greeting, he held
her still and looked at her for a moment--a little anxiously and
intently. "My poor, pale little child!" he said--"you are nothing but a
snowdrop this morning!"

"Well that is a very good thing to be," said Faith brightly. But the
_colour_ resemblance he had destroyed.

She was lifted and carried down just as she had been carried up last
night, and into the sitting-room again; for breakfast was prepared
there this morning, and the sofa whee