s no more delay of any kind after that. Wagons were ready, and
baskets, and boys; also Mrs. Derrick; and Faith was ready first of all.
So the two parties, now getting under weigh, went fairly homewards, by
an evening sky and a night full of stars. Only one incident need be
recorded.

The ferry was passed, and four of the six miles between that and the
central town of Pattaquasset, when Mr. Linden suddenly checked his
horses. Turning half round, and laying a pretty imperative hand on the
collar of Phil Davids, he dropped him outside the wagon--like a walnut
from its husk--remarking that he had seen enough of him for one day,
and did not wish to hear of him again till next morning.

CHAPTER XI.

Little Charles twelfth did not come to meet his Sunday school teacher,
as had been arranged, the Sunday preceding the Neanticut expedition.
Faith waited for him in the morning--waited and hoped,--but was not
greatly surprised to find that she had waited in vain. Charles the
twelfth, whether or not he was to follow during life the erratic and
wilful course of his namesake, was that day at least not to be led by
her. So Faith went to church, meditating a sometime descent upon Mrs.
Seacomb's shady domain, there to meet and recapture the heart of her
little charge. For so he seemed to her now. But on her return from the
morning service, she found Charles the twelfth, crest-fallen and
repentant, in his turn waiting for her. The matter was, his brother
Americus Vespucius had shut him up, so that he couldn't come; and as
soon as he was set free Charles the twelfth had used his freedom and
his legs in 'making tracks,' to use Mr. Simlins' expression, for Mrs.
Derrick's abode; and on this occasion he had made many fewer 'tracks'
than the afternoon of his previously recorded invasion; as being
somewhat burdened in spirit he had stopped for no somersets, and had
been lured aside by no tempting invitations of a dusty place or a
mudpuddle.

Faith heard his story gravely and sympathizingly; comforted him up;
encouraged him to hope that the discoverer of America would not prove
so adverse to _his_ making discoveries another Sunday; gave him a
little talk and a good dinner, and sent him home cheerful and
determined. The very mood for success; accordingly the next morning
after the return from Neanticut, being Sunday, Charles the twelfth
presented himself at the house in brave good time; and Faith and her
little charge, for the first t