Are not my words true still?"

Gravity and shyness, all except the gravity that belonged to her and to
the subject, broke away from Faith. She rose up and stood beside Mr.
Linden, moved, happy, and glad with the gladness of full sympathy.

"It has been a pleasant two weeks, Mr. Linden!--though I would have
liked to be at home. Aunt Dilly has wanted the Bible, morning, noon,
and night;--and it was wonderful to read it to her! It has been my
business, all these days."

"My dear child! I am very glad!" he said, taking her hand.
"Wonderful?--yes, it is wonderful to read, to one who wants it."

"She wanted it so much,"--Faith said, catching her breath a little.
"And understood it, Mr. Linden. Very soon it was all--or mostly--clear
to her. I read to her sometimes till twelve o'clock at night--and
sometimes began at four in the morning."

Mr. Linden looked at her with a mingling of expressions.

"I am afraid that was not good for you,--if one dare say it of any work
done in that service. Do you know how much the Bible is like that
pillar of fire which guided the Israelites, but to those who were not
of Israel became a pillar of cloud,--from which 'the Lord looked out'
but 'to trouble them'?"

Faith's eye watched him as he spoke, and caught the power and beauty of
the illustration; but she did not speak. Until after thinking and
musing a while she said softly, "It don't trouble aunt Dilly."

Mr. Linden drew up a chair for her near his own, but made no other
comment upon her or her musings at first,--then abruptly--"And you
think she will want you again?"

"There is nobody else to do this for her," said Faith; and again was
silent. "How do you suppose it all began with aunt Dilly, Mr. Linden?"

"As to means?--I cannot tell."

"It began from a few words, which I dare say you have forgotten, but
which she and I remember,--words that you said one evening when she was
here last summer, about everybody's being precious in one sense.--You
repeated that passage--'They shall be mine, saith the Lord,'--you know."

Faith did not know what a soft illumination was in her eyes, or she
would probably not have turned the light of it so full upon Mr. Linden
as at one or two points of her speech she did. It was a grave, sweet
look that answered her; but then his eyes went off to the fire without
further reply.

Faith did not again interrupt the silence; a silence that to judge by
the faces of both was pleasant to both. Till Mrs. D