my books, he said:  he’s mighty proud of my learning, though between you and me it’s little enough to be proud of; but the neighbors think I know ’most as much as the minister,—­and I let ’em think.  Well, while Mrs. Devereux was sick I was over there a good deal,—­for if Faith had one talent, it was total incapacity,—­and there had a chance of knowing the stuff that Dan was made of; and I declare to man ’twould have touched a heart of stone to see the love between the two.  She thought Dan held up the sky, and Dan thought she was the sky.  It’s no wonder,—­the risks our men lead can’t make common-sized women out of their wives and mothers.  But I hadn’t been coming in and out, busying about where Dan was, all that time, without making any mark; though he was so lost in grief about his mother that he didn’t take notice of his other feelings, or think of himself at all.  And who could care the less about him for that?  It always brings down a woman to see a man wrapt in some sorrow that’s lawful, and tender as it is large.  And when he came and told me what the neighbors said he must do with Faith, the blood stood still in my heart.

“Ask mother, Dan,” says I,—­for I couldn’t have advised him.  “She knows best about everything.”

So he asked her.

“I think—­I’m sorry to think, for I fear she’ll not make you a good wife,” said mother, “but that perhaps her love for you will teach her to be—­you’d best marry Faith.”

“But I can’t marry her!” said Dan, half choking; “I don’t want to marry her,—­it—­it makes me uncomfortable-like to think of such a thing.  I care for the child plenty——­Besides,” said Dan, catching at a bright hope, “I’m not sure that she’d have me.”

“Have you, poor boy!  What else can she do?”

Dan groaned.

“Poor little Faith!” said mother.  “She’s so pretty, Dan, and she’s so young, and she’s pliant.  And then how can we tell what may turn up about her some day?  She may be a duke’s daughter yet,—­who knows?  Think of the stroke of good-fortune she may give you!”

“But I don’t love her,” said Dan, as a finality.

“Perhaps——­It isn’t——­You don’t love any one else?”

“No,” said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all with reflection.  And then, as his eyes went wandering, there came over them a misty look, just as the haze creeps between you and some object away out at sea, and he seemed to be searching his very soul.  Suddenly the look swept off them, and his eyes struck mine, and he turned, not having meant to, and faced me entirely, and there came such a light into his countenance, such a smile round his lips, such a red stamped his cheek, and he bent a little,—­and it was just as if the angel of the Lord had shaken his wings over us in passing, and we both of us knew that here was a man and here was a woman, each for the other, in life and death; and I just hid my head in my apron, and mother turned on her pillow with a little moan.  How long that lasted I can’t say, but by-and-by I heard mother’s voice, clear and sweet as a tolling bell far away on some fair Sunday morning,—­