. I saw the chalk shells, Mr.
Linden!--and the circulation in a frog's foot; and different prepared
pieces of skin; and the moth's plumage! and the silver scale-armour of
the _Lepisma_, as Dr. Harrison called it; and more."

"And with very great delight--as I knew you would. I am very glad!"

"Yes," said Faith--"I know a little better now how to understand some
things you said the other day. I am very glad I went--only for one
thing.--"

"What was that?"

"Dr. Harrison asked such a strange thing of me as we were walking
home--at least it seems to me strange."

"May my judgment be brought to bear upon it?" Mr. Linden said after a
moment's silence.

"Yes indeed," said Faith; "that was what I was going to ask. He wants
me to go with him to see a woman, who is dying, he says, and
miserable,--and he wants me to talk to her. He says he does not know
how." And half modestly, half timidly, she added, "Is not that going
out of my way?"

A quick, peculiar smile on Mr. Linden's face, was succeeded by a very
deep gravity,--once or twice the lips parted, impulsively--then took
their former firm set; and shading his eyes with his hand he looked
into the fire in profound silence.

Very soberly, but in as absolute repose of face, Faith now and then
looked at him, and meanwhile waited for his thoughts to come to an end.

"Dr. Harrison said," she remarked after a little while, "that you once
told him he had but half learned his profession."

"What did you say, Miss Faith? I mean, not to that, but to the
question?"

"I didn't know what to say!--I didn't want to go at all--I don't know
whether that was wrong or right; but at last I said I would go. Do you
think I was right, Mr. Linden?"

"Did you promise to go _with him?_"

"I didn't know any other way to go," said Faith. "I don't know where
the woman lives, and he said I couldn't find it; and old Crab has a
lame foot. Dr. Harrison asked me to go with him. I don't think I should
have minded going alone."

"Neither should I mind having you," said Mr. Linden, with a look more
doubtful and anxious than Faith had often seen him wear, though it was
not bent upon her.

"Do you think I said wrong then, Mr. Linden? I did not like to go--but
I thought perhaps I ought."

"I don't think _you_ did wrong," was the somewhat definite answer. "I
wish I had been alongside of you when the request was made."

A wish which he had not been the first to know. Faith was silent.

"You mad