Amy" was sitting
on the sofa between the two little friends, and Faith was displaying
the new dresses that Aunt Prissy had helped her make for the doll.

"Father says he will buy me a doll," Louise announced, "and he's going
to get me a fine string of beads, too, when he goes away again;" for
the shoemaker went away frequently on mysterious business. Many of the
settlers were quite sure that he carried messages for the British
officers to other forts; but he came and went so stealthily that as
yet no proof was held against him.

"I have some blue beads. My father is going to bring them when he
comes to see me," said Faith. "I hope yours will be just like them."

Louise shook her head a little doubtfully. "I may never get them,
after all. Father forgets things," she said.

Before supper time Faith was in a much happier state of mind. She had
helped Louise with her reading lesson; they had played that the sofa
was a throne and Lady Amy a queen, and that they were Lady Amy's
daughters; and the unpleasantness of the early afternoon had quite
vanished when the candles were lighted, and supper on the table.

The supper seemed a feast to the shoemaker's daughter. Every time she
came to visit Faith Louise tasted some new dish, so daintily prepared
that she was at once eager to learn to make it. Faith was hungry, too,
and, as no reference was made to her trip to the fort, she enjoyed her
supper; and not until it was finished was she reminded of her
troubles.

"To-morrow Louise may go to church with us, and you may wear your blue
dress that you are so careful of," Aunt Prissy said.

Faith made no response. She did not know what to do or say. She was so
quiet that her aunt was sure her little niece was overtired, and soon
after supper sent the little girls off to bed.

"What is the matter, Faith?" questioned Louise, when they were safely
in the big chamber, with its high white bed, curtained windows, and
comfortable chairs, and which to Louise seemed the finest bedroom in
all the world.

Faith threw herself face down on the bed. "I don't know what to do! I
don't know what to do! I've spoiled my blue dress!" she sobbed. There!
That was one secret the less, she thought. And Louise would never
tell. "I can't go to church. I don't dare tell Aunt Prissy about the
dress. It was to be my best dress all winter," she added. "What shall
I do, Louise?"

Louise shook her head. That Faith Carew, who seemed to her to be the
most f