repeated his question about faintness.

"O no, sir--I'm not faint. It's nothing," Faith said, but as if her
very voice was exhausted. And crossing her arms upon the table, close
to which the easy chair stood, she laid her head down upon them. Her
mother might well say she had a baby face. It looked so them.

Mr. Linden's next move was to get a glass of wine, and with gentle
force and persuasion to make her swallow it; that done, he stood
leaning upon the back of her chair, silently, but with a very, very
grave face.

She kept her position, scarcely stirring, for some length of time,
except that after a while she hid her face in her hands. And sitting
so, at last she spoke, in a troubled tone.

"What can be done, Mr. Linden?--to put a stop to this."

"I will try what can be done," he answered, though not as if that point
were uppermost in his mind. "I think I can find a way. I wish nothing
gave me more uneasiness than that!"

"Do you think there is any way that you can do it, thoroughly?"

"Yes, I think so," he repeated. "There are ways of doing most things. I
shall try. Do not you think about it, Miss Faith,--I have something now
to make me glad you are going to Pequot. Before, I could only remember
how much I should miss my scholar."

"Why are you glad now, Mr. Linden?" Faith's voice was in as subdued a
state of mind as her face.

"Change of air will be good for you--till this air is in a better
state."

She made no answer. In a few minutes she rose up, gathered her wrappers
into one hand, and turning to Mr. Linden held out the other to him;
with a very child's look, which however was rather doubtful about
meeting his. His look had lost none of its grave concern.

"Are you better?" he said. "Will you promise to go right to sleep, and
leave all troublesome matters where alone they can be taken care of?"

The faintest kind of a smile flitted across her face. "I don't
know"--she said doubtfully,--"I don't know what I can do, Mr. Linden."

"I have told you."

"I'll try--the last part," she said with a somewhat more defined smile
as she glanced up at him. It was as grave and gentle a smile as is
often known.

"You must try it all," he said, giving her hand the same touch it had
had once before. "Miss Faith, I may use your words--I think you will
never give me harder work to do than I have had to-night!"

She could not bear that. She stood with eyes cast down, and a
fluttering quiver upon her lip; still,