Volume Ii Part 105 (1/2)

”Suppose you sit there, and tell me what efforts they have made in the way of seeing, to-day.”

”Efforts to see all before them, which was more than they could,” said Faith.

”What did they see? not me, nor I them, that I know.”

”That was another sort of effort they made,” said Faith smiling--”efforts to see what was _not_ before them. I watched, whenever I thought there was a chance, but I couldn't see anything that looked like you. We must have gone half over the city, Endecott; Mrs.

Pulteney took me all the morning, and her daughters and Mr. Pulteney all the afternoon.”

”Know, O little Mignonette,” said Mr. Linden, ”that in New York it is 'morning' till those people who dine at six have had their dinner.

”Like the swell of some sweet tune Morning rises into noon,--

was written of country hours.”

”I guess that is true of most of the other good things that ever were written,” said Faith.

Mr. Linden looked amused. ”What do you think of this?--

And when the hours of rest Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, Hus.h.i.+ng its billowy breast-- The quiet of that moment too is thine; It breathes of Him who keeps The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.”

”I never saw the city when it was asleep,” said Faith, smiling. ”It didn't look to-day as if it could sleep. But, Endecott, I am sure all the pretty part of those words comes from where we have been.”

”The images, yes. But connect any spot of earth with heaven, by any tie, and it must have a certain sort of grandeur. You have been working in brick and mortar to-day, Mignonette, to-morrow I must give you a bird's-eye view.”

Faith was silent a minute; and then said, ”It don't look a happy place to me, Endecott.”

”No, it is too human. You want an elm tree or a patch of dandelions between every two houses.”

”That wouldn't do,” said Faith, ”unless the people could be less ragged, and dirty, and uneasy; and their houses too. There's nothing like it in Pattaqua.s.set.”

”I have great confidence in the comforting and civilizing power of elm trees and green gra.s.s,” said Mr. Linden. ”But Carlyle says 'Man is not what you can call a happy animal, his appet.i.te for sweet victual is so enormous;' and perhaps New York suffers as much from the fact that everybody wants _more_, as that some have too little and others too much.”

”Do _these_ people want more?” said Faith softly.

”Without doubt! So does everybody in New York but me.”

”But why must people do that in New York, when they don't do it in Pattaqua.s.set?” said Faith, who was very like mignonette at the moment.

”The appet.i.te grows with indulgence, or the possibility of it. Besides, little bird, in Pattaqua.s.set you take all this breeze of humanity winnowed through elm branches. There, you know, 'My soul into the boughs does glide.'”

”No,” said Faith; ”it is not that. When my soul glides nowhere, and there are no branches, either; in the Roscoms' house, Endecott--and poor Mrs. Dow's, and Sally Lowndes',--people don't look as they look here. I don't mean _here_, in Madison Square--though yes I do, too; there was that raspberry girl; and others, worse, I have seen even here. But I have been in other places--Mr. Pulteney and his sisters took me all the way to the great stone church, Endecott.”

”Well, Sunbeam, it has been a bright day for every raspberry girl that has come in your way. What else did you see there.”--”I saw the church.”

”Not the invisible” said Mr. Linden, smiling, ”remember that.”

”Invisible! no,” said Faith. ”There was a great deal of this visible.”

”What thoughts did it put in your head?”--”It was very--wonderfully beautiful,” said Faith, thoughtfully.

”What else?”--”I cannot tell. You would laugh at me if I could.

Endecott, it didn't seem so much like a church to me as the little white church at home.”