"Here comes Minister now and you can ask him," father said in all cravenness as Mr. Goodloe came in the door behind me and came and stood at my side. He had a huge yellow plume of goldenrod which he handed me without looking at me directly. I buried my nose in its crispness and watched to see him meet the issue. The boy put the question carefully just as he had put it to father, but there was a quaver in his voice as he ended with his plea. "Is they no fairies, 'cause you can't see 'em?" "Do you feel them in your heart?" was the counter question that came gravely from the lips of the Reverend Mr. Goodloe. "Yes, here," answered the pleader as he laid his hand carefully on the pit of his stomach, which is nearer the seat of heartache than many a perturbed older person has come. "Then for you there are fairies, right there in your heart, even if Charlotte has lost them out of hers," was the answer, with a theology that staggered me and set father smiling back into his youth. "I'll go tell her and maybe give her some of mine," exclaimed the boy as he ran from the room. CHAPTER XX THE COVERT OF WINGS "Oh, the faith of youth, the faith that reaches out to give itself," sighed father as he turned to his papers. "Can faith give itself?" I asked, as I raised my eyes to the stars under dull gold through which Gregory Goodloe was pouring a great smile down into my depths. "Sometimes--just sometimes I think that perhaps it can--it does," he answered me slowly and took my hands in his and held them with their palms together prayerwise, a thing he had done several times in the weeks past. Then he turned and walked over to father's desk and stood looking down at him. "I want to dedicate the chapel on Sunday, Mr. Powers, as that is your last Sunday before you go to Washington," he said, and as he spoke he smiled first down into father's eyes raised to his and then into mine--impersonally. I couldn't trust myself to speak but turned and went up to my room to weep with a hurt that soon sent me to my knees, blind for the comfort that came--that I knew always would come now, no matter what the hurt. "He knows it has come to me, and he's thankful--but he doesn't care," I sobbed and then laughed at my own contradictions. Martha found me kneeling beside my window seat when she came in with Mother Spurlock and she shielded me until I could wipe away the tears and be as glad to see them both as I really was. They were full of the plans for the dedication, which it gave me another stab to find they had been discussing with Mr. Goodloe for several days. In the hard weeks that had passed I had been their confidant, adviser and many times their helper in the reconstructing around the tragedies in the Settlement, but in this matter I had not been consulted. In fact, Mother Spurlock showed an embarrassed hesitation as she talked of it that still further hurt me and made me unenthusiastic and cold to their plans.