"No, my dear, seeing that Prince was the one that fell down the well, and Goodman Jennison spent the better part of a forenoon attempting to rescue the poor brute and had no white ear to be sure." "Rags?" "Faith, Rags was black, and was given to us by Mr. Riggs when his good wife was taken to the Lord, and was obliged for business reasons to go to Newport for some weeks, and certainly had no white ear, and was indeed rather ill-natured, in fact we were obliged to give him away, since he did not return from Newport until some damage had already been done to Goody Jennison's herb garden, the which I regret." Ben wondered how long Charity had been standing in the hallway, a paper clasped to her square breast and Sultan lying on her shoes. She might have been waiting for Ben to smile, since when he did she dislodged the dog with a backward step and brought him the paper, ignoring her elders. "My word, Charity!" Faith spoke kindly. "Mr. Cory doesn't wish to look at pictures." "He told me he did," said Charity flatly, and laid the paper on Ben's knee, leaning close. "This be the one with feathers restored." "Oh, I see." Confusedly, Ben saw more than that. It had never occurred to him that lines of ink on paper could move and sing. A stream glittered with fragmented ice. Ben could feel the vulnerable pride of the swallow twitching a pert forked tail, tilting a round head toward distant cloud. And how should Charity have made him actually hear the slow yielding of a brook to the coming of spring? Those naked things huddled under the water--swallows maybe, or squirming babies, ambiguous, blind. The eye clung to them, not in laughter. "Charity," said Madam Jenks, "I believe Mr. Carey would prefer to look at pictures another time." Charity tried to ignore that. In nearness she was all little-girl softness and warmth, electric. Little?--thirteen. "Charity," said Madam Jenks, "go and aid Clarissa with the refreshments. You should have remembered it before." Ben blurted: "Charity, this is beautiful." "Charity," said Madam Jenks. Charity inhaled carefully. "Very well, Mama, I will leave the room." The red comb popped. Ben had been half-prepared for that, and for the deferential scramble he now performed. Under cover of the commotion Charity vanished with the picture, Sultan gloomily following. "Thankful heart!" The comb restored, Madam Jenks fanned herself. "Ah well, a difficult time of life I suppose. You have no idea, Mr. Carey, the hours of grief and dismay, I have sought guidance on my knees, the which she'll be the death of me yet considering the palpitations of my heart, nevertheless when the Lord calls me to my long home I shall certainly go." "Mama!" Faith murmured. "I'm sure in a few years she'll learn poise and manners. 'Tis only a passing thing. Why, when I was her age I'm sure I was difficult too." "Nay, my darling, never intractable, never strange, alway a consolation to me. Faith is my great comfort, Mr. Carey, you've no idea."