aith turned away and said rather quickly, "Endy, how did you know?"

"From some lesson evidence. And I always hear you come down--and whiles
I see a face at breakfast which has not lately come from rest."

Faith's secret thought was that it was better than rest. But after
folding her hands with a grave face, she looked up at Mr. Linden with a
smile which yielded the whole question.

"To prove to you what a naughty child you have been," said Mr. Linden,
"I shall give you an increase of outdoor lessons, and take you off on
an expedition the first mild day. On which occasion you may study
me--if you have any of Miss Essie's curiosity."

"Don't I?" said Faith. "And I am going to do it more. What expedition
are you going on, Endecott?"

"Up to Kildeer river--I have business there. Will you trust yourself to
me in a boat--if I will let you steer?"

"I'll do anything to go," said Faith. "And I suppose if I steered
wrong, the helm would come about pretty quick!" And so ended her last
early morning studies.

It was in the afternoon of the same day that Faith put in practice what
she had been thinking of when she avowed her determination of further
studying Mr. Linden. He had come home from school, and it was the dusky
hour again; the pleasant interregnum between day and night when even
busy folk take a little time to think and rest. Mr. Linden was
indulging in both apparently; he was in one of those quiet times of
doing nothing which Faith chose for making any of her very gentle
attacks upon him. One seemed to be in meditation now. She stole up
behind him and leaned down on the back of his chair, after her wont.

"Endecott"--she said softly.

Faith's voice was in ordinary a pleasant thing to hear; but this name
from her lips was always a concretion of sweetness, flavoured
differently as the case might be. Sometimes with mere gladness,
sometimes with the spirit of fun, often enough with a little timidity,
and sometimes with a rose-drop from the very bottom of her heart's
well; with various compounds of the same. But this time it was more
than timidity; Faith's one word was spoken as from lips that were
positively afraid to follow it with others.

"That note," said Mr. Linden smiling, "seems to come from the top of a
primeval pine tree--with a hawk in sight! Little bird, will you please
come down into the lower regions of air?--where you can be
(comparatively) safe."

Faith laughed; but the hawk remained in sight--of