"And for looking so picturesque in the distance,--it was quite a thing to be grateful for. I think you will have no difficulty in finding where we are--there will be noise enough to guide you. I hope you have not brought a book along, Miss Faith." "Why, Mr. Linden?" "The 'running' brooks are good letter-press," he said--"and the grey stones, and that white oak in the meadow. And is not that woodpecker a pretty illustration?" "I have looked at them often," said Faith. "I don't know how to _read_ them as you do. There isn't any brook here, though, that I know of, but Kildeer river. You'll like Neanticut, Mr. Linden. I'm so glad you let us come. I'll read everything--that I can." "I don't know how long everything'll last you, child--at the rate you've gone on lately," said Mrs. Derrick who stood in the doorway. Faith smiled again, and shook her head a little at the same time as her eye went from the woodpecker to the green leaves above his head, then to the bright red of some pepperidge trees further off, to the lush grass of the meadow, and on to the soft brownish, reddish, golden hues of distant woodland. Her eye came back as from a book it would take long to read thoroughly. "I am so glad it is such a day!" she repeated. "I see my boys are coming back," Mr. Linden said, with a smile which hardly belonged to them,--"I must go and get their report. Au revoir, Miss Faith." And he went forward into the midst of the little swarm--so manageable in his hands, so sure to sting anybody else. "Child," said Mrs. Derrick, looking over Faith's head from her more elevated position of the door-sill (looking _at_ it too); "Child, why don't you get--" and there, for the first and last time in her life, Mrs. Derrick stopped short in the middle of a sentence. "What, mother?" But Mrs. Derrick replied not. "What do you want me to get, mother?" "I don't know as I want you to get anything,--child you've got enough now for me. Not that he wouldn't like it, either," said Mrs. Derrick musingly--"because if he wouldn't, _I_ wouldn't give much for him. But I guess it's just as well not." And Mrs Derrick stroked her hand fondly over Faith's head, and told her that if she stood out there without a bonnet she would get sunburnt. "But mother!" said Faith at this enigmatical speech, "what do you mean? _Who_ wouldn't like _what?_" "What does it signify, child?--since I didn't say it?" "But mother," persisted Faith gently, "what had I better get that I haven't?" "I don't know as you _had_ better get it, child--and I never said he wouldn't like it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Derrick with a little self-vindication. "Who, mother?" "Why--nobody," said Mrs. Derrick,--"who's talking of anybody?" "Dear mother," said Faith, "don't you mean to tell me what you mean?" "I guess it's just as well not," her mother repeated. "The fact that he'd like it don't prove anything." Faith looked at her, coloured a little, laughed a little, and gave up the point.