Faith went down stairs, a little afraid that she had been doing harm instead of good, and at the same time not seeing very well how she could have helped it. She found Dr. Harrison in the sitting-room, and gave her quiet reasons for not going out with him. The doctor declared "he should be in despair--but that he had hope!" and having made Faith confess that she would like to see his microscope, gently suggested the claims of the next two evenings; saying that he must be in Quilipeak for a day or two soon himself, and therefore was not impatient without reason. Faith did not know how to get off, and gave the doctor to understand that she might be disengaged the next night. Having which comfort he went up to see Mr. Linden. Then followed Mr. Linden's tea, with cresses and grapes which Dr. Harrison had brought himself. "Mother," said Faith, when the two ladies were seated at their own tea-table,--"did Dr. Harrison dress Mr. Linden's arm again to-night?" "Yes child--and I guess it was good he did. I think Mr. Linden was almost asleep when I went up." "Do you know how to do it, mother? if it was wanted when the doctor is not here?" "I don't know--" said Mrs. Derrick thoughtfully,--"no, child, I _don't_ know how--at least not so I'd like to try. Do you, Faith?" "No, mother--but could you learn?" "Why--I suppose I could, child," said her mother, as if she disliked to admit even so much. "But I'd about as lieve have my own arm shot off--I'm so dreadfully afraid of hurting people, Faith--and I always was afraid of _him_. Why can't the doctor do it? he can come six times a day if he's wanted--I guess he don't do much else." Faith said no more on the subject, but hurried through her tea and sat down by the lamp in the sitting-room to read her letter. A minute or two she sat thinking, deeply, with her cheek on her hand; then dismissing everything else she opened the precious paper at last. It was another Italy letter, but took her a very different journey from the last. A little graver perhaps than that, a little more longing in the wish to use eyesight instead of pen and ink; and as if absence was telling more and more upon the writer. Yet all this was rather in the tone than the wording--_that_ was kept in hand. But it was midway in some bright description, that the message to Faith broke forth. "Tell Miss Faith," she said, "that I would rather have seen her roasting clams down at 'the shore,' than anything I have seen since I heard of it,--which is none the less true, that I should have wanted to stand both sides of the window at once. And tell her if you can (though I don't believe even _you_ can, John Endy) how much I love her for taking such care of one of my precious things. I feel as if all my love was very powerless just now! However--you remember that comforting old ballad--