on. He was afraid, he said,
they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and
account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any
definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor
fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night
gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of
him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire."

Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of
the generous, Christian gentleman--of the coarse workman, who wore his
nature, like his garb--the worse part of an everyday.

Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them.

Her own recital was soon finished.

Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had
faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the
prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had
been in either mind.

At these thanks--at this praise--Faith shrank.

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled
entreaty--"don't speak so! Only forgive me--if you can!"

Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him.
He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly.

"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered,
meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control.
All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which
you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be
hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake--that it cannot
be."

But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he
said the words.

"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back
as it was, in the old days before all this!"

"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it
was before."

"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of
Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must
just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two
minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the
time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it."

"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong.
And there has been none here, I am sure."

Faith, with the half smile yet upon