tle
tinge into the cheeks,--that Dr. Harrison wished away.

"May I come and earn your forgiveness for yesterday's stupidity?"

"Certainly!" Faith said,--"but there needs no forgiveness--from me, Dr.
Harrison."

He left her with a graceful, reverential obeisance; and Faith went in.

CHAPTER XX.

Dr. Harrison had but little left Mr. Linden that morning, when Mr.
Simlins came in. He had hardly seen his guest yet that day, except,
like Mrs. Derrick, when he was asleep. For having watched himself the
greater part of the night, for the pure pleasure of it, Mr. Simlins'
late rest had brought him almost to the hour when the boys came to what
the doctor called Mr. Linden's levee.

"Well how do you find yourself?" said the farmer, standing at the foot
of the bed and looking at its occupant with a kind of grim satisfaction.

"I find myself tired, sir--and at the same time intending to get up.
Mr. Simlins, are you going down to church this afternoon?"

"Well, no," said the farmer. "I think it's as good church as I can do,
to look arter you."

"You can have both," said Mr. Linden smiling,--"I should go with you."

"You aint fit," said the farmer regretfully.

"Fit enough--I'll come back and stay with you another day, when I am
well, if you'll let me."

"Will you?" said the farmer. "I'll bottle that 'ere promise and cork it
up; and if it aint good when I pull the cork--then I'll never play
Syrian again, for no one. But s'pose I ain't goin' to church?"

"Then I shall have to take Reuben."

"You sha'n't take no one but me," growled Mr. Simlins. "I'd rather see
you out of my house than not--if I can't see you in it."

The bells were ringing out for the early afternoon service when they
set forth; not ringing against each other, as which should give the
loudest call for its own particular church, but with alternate strokes
speaking the same thing--the one stepping in when the other was out of
broath. The warm sunshine rested upon all--"the evil and the good," and
spoke its own message though not so noisily. Along the road Mr.
Simlins' little covered wagon (chosen for various reasons) went at an
easy pace; with one to drive, and one to bear the motion as best he
might; and a third who would almost have agreed to be a pillow or a
cushion for the rest of his life, if he could have been one for that
day. What there were of that sort in the wagon, or indeed in the house,
were to Reuben's eyes far too thin and ineffec