he went on without answering
her,--"it has been on my mind ever since, that the other night"--and
the look was grave for a minute--"the trophy of a broken rosebud was
picked up where you fell. And I had not the heart to reclaim it, Miss
Faith," Mr. Linden said, with a submissive air of confession.

She looked at him with the prettiest look in the world, of grave, only
half conscious enquiry; and then the lost rosebud was more than
replaced in her cheeks.

"That is the state of the case," Mr. Linden said, as gravely as if both
rosebuds had been out of sight and mind, "but your mother refuses to
go. And it seems that I also am wanted on the 29th; so if you please,
Miss Faith, I will try to see that you make the journey both ways in
safety."

"I should like to go," said Faith quietly. "They are pleasant people."

The tea things were withdrawn, and Cindy was no more needed there, and
Mrs. Derrick also had gone into the other part of the house to attend
to some business. Faith stood before the fire looking meditatively into
it.

"I wish," she said slowly and soberly,--"Dr. Harrison would please to
talk to you instead of to me, Mr. Linden!"

"Talk to me?" Mr. Linden repeated, looking at her. "About professions?"

"No indeed!" said Faith, first astonished and then smiling,--"I mean
very different things. About religion, and what he thinks of it?"

Rather soberly the words were received, and soberly answered, not at
once.

"Do not let him say much to you on that last point, Miss Faith."

"How can I help it, Mr. Linden?" she said instantly.

"Forbid him, if need be. If he asks for information, and you choose to
give it, that is one thing,--you are not obliged to hear all the
skeptical views and arguments with which he is furnished. Your
statement of the truth has nothing to do with the grounds of his
unbelief."

"But--"

Faith got no further. She stood thinking of that afternoon's talk, and
of the certain possible hindrances to her following such advice.

"I am talking a little in the dark, you know," Mr. Linden said,--"I am
only supposing what he may say and ask you to say; and I do not think
much of such conversation between any parties. Press home the
truth--and like David's pebble it may do its work; but in a fencing
match David might have found it harder to maintain his ground. And his
overthrow would not have touched the truth of his cause, nor perhaps
his own faith--yet the Philistine would have triumph