here."

"I'll come."

And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his
errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round
to Cross Corners, after going to his mills.

"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom
it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your
box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night."

"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never
complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I
can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I
won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh.

"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly.

But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river.

Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where
the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of
sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer
lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the
southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies
of vine and branch it wandered through.

Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch--turning the
fresh-cut leaves of the August _Mishaumok_--she forgot the wheels and
the spindles--the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir.

Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory
girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AT THE MILLS.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,--
Their wind comes in our faces,--
Till our hearts turn,--our head with pulses burning,--
And the walls turn in their places."
MRS. BROWNING.

Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool
content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along.

"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last--"do you know
how true a thing you said a little while ago?"

"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant.

"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?"

And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held,
along the line of factory buildings that lay before them.

A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow.
She sat and suffered it under his eye--utt