g.' You must not limit my power of eyesight."

"If you wouldn't limit my power of something else?"--she said with
gentle persistency.

He looked up at her.

"I will not, Miss Faith--then will you please perform your kind office
at once? It will be a great comfort to me, and I shall be the better
able to do something for you afterwards." And the manner almost made
Faith feel as if the proposition had come from her at first.

She went about it, not this first time without some trembling of heart,
but with also a spirit that rose above and quite kept down that. She
knew exactly and intelligently what was to be done; it was only the
hands that were unwonted, and therefore she feared unskilful. But there
are things that some women have by nature, and a skilful hand is one of
them; and it was Faith's. Her womanly love and care were enough for all
the rest; she made no mistakes, nor delays; and her soft fingers
inflicted no pain that it was in the power of fingers to spare. A
little longer than the doctor she was perhaps about it; not much, and
not more awkward; and that is saying enough.

So soon as that was done, Faith went for her exercise, and sat down as
yesterday to write it.

He too went on with the exercise; but watching her, lest relief might
be wanted in another quarter. There was nothing of that, though. Quiet
and very great satisfaction, was the result of the matter in Faith's
mind; at least it was all she permitted to be seen; and now she gave
herself happily to the connexion of her nouns and adjectives, and to
watching against the 'german' or 'sophisticated' letters in her
handwriting. The exercise indeed was fast taking a very compound
character; so much so, that Faith might well begin to suspect there had
been a two-fold reason for proposing it. But Mr. Linden had a peculiar
way of teaching--especially of teaching her; and made her almost forget
in the pleasure of learning, the fact that she had need to learn. And
as for his memory on the subject, or his perception of how it might
touch her,--they were out of sight: she might have been a little child
there at his side, for the grave simplicity and frankness of his
instructions. And so exercise and reading and philosophy followed on in
a quiet train, and the surface of the earth revealed new wonders, and
the little French book was closed at the end of a pretty chapter.

"Whenever I get about my duties again, Miss Faith," Mr. Linden said, "I
shall make on