would see nobody before dinner, except the doctor; nor anybody after
tea, save the same privileged individual. In the second place, when he
was able to be out of his room without too much fatigue, the lessons
were carried on down stairs,--in the dining-room generally, as being
more private. There could both parties come and go without observation;
and often when Mrs. Derrick was entertaining a roomful, a sudden fall
of the thin partition would have revealed the very people they were
discussing, deep in some pretty point of information. Pretty those
lessons were! Faith's steps,--arithmetical, geographical, or what
other,--were swift, steady, and sure; herself indefatigable, her
teacher no less. If Mr. Linden had not quite come to be in her eyes "an
old school book," she was yet enough accustomed to his teaching and
animadversions to merge the binding in the book; and as to him, she
might have been one of his school boys, for the straightforward way in
which he opened paths of knowledge and led her through. The leading was
more careful of her strength, more respectful of her timidity,--was
more strictly _leading_ than _pushing_,--that was all. Of course in two
weeks, or even in four, the best of teachers and scholars could make
but a beginning; but that was well made, and the work went steadily on
from thence--despite "teaching all day," despite the various other
calls for time and strength.

And Faith was as docile and obedient as Johnny Fax himself, and as far
as those qualities went, very much in the same way. If the denial of
Phil's _information_ and Mr. Linden's manner the day after her
overturn, had raised a doubt as to the real abstractness of his regard
for her, Faith's modesty and simplicity put the thought well into the
background. She did not care to look at it or bring it up; in the full,
happy, peaceful hours she was enjoying she had enough, for the present;
and so Faith went on very much after her old fashion. A little quieter,
perhaps, when not called out of it; a little shyer of even innocently
putting herself forward; but in speech or action, speaking and acting
with her wonted free simplicity.

The only breaks in these weeks were one or two visits to Mrs. Custers,
and the doctor's comings and goings. He could not be shut out.

The Monday evening after the doctor's absence at Quilipeak, the little
party were as usual in the sitting-room; and a pretty chapter of
Physical Geography was in process of read