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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
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