And Faith laid down the book, and went upstairs for a word with her mother.
Aunt Henderson, who had been brought up in times when all the doings of young girls were strictly supervised, and who had no high-flown scruples, because she had no mean motives, deliberately walked over and fetched the elegant little volume from the table, reseated herself in her armchair--felt for her glasses, and set them carefully upon her nose--and, as her grandniece returned, was just finishing her perusal of the freshly inscribed lines.
"Humph! A good fortune. Only you've got to earn it."
"Yes," said Faith, quite gravely. "And I don't see how. There doesn't seem to be much that I can do."
"Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your way. If the Lord's got anything bigger to give you, he'll see to it. There's your mother's mending basket brimful of stockings."
Faith couldn't help laughing. Presently she grew grave again.
"Aunt Henderson," said she, abruptly, "I wish something would happen to me. I get tired of living sometimes. Things don't seem worth while."
Aunt Henderson bent her head slightly, and opened her eyes wide over the tops of her glasses.
"Don't say that again," said she. "Things happen fast enough. Don't you dare to tempt Providence."
"Providence won't be tempted, nor misunderstand," replied Faith, an undertone of reverence qualifying her girlish repartee. "He knows just what I mean."
"She's a queer child," said Aunt Faith to herself, afterwards, thinking over the brief conversation. "She'll be something or nothing, I always said. I used to think 'twould be nothing."
"There's beauty waiting to be born, And harmony that makes no sound; And bear we ever, unawares, A glory that hath not been crowned."
Shall I try to give you a glimpse of quite another young life than Faith Gartney's? One looking also vaguely, wonderingly, for "something to happen"--that indefinite "something" which lies in everybody's future, which may never arrive, and yet which any hour may bring?
Very little likelihood there has ever seemed for any great joy to get into such a life as this has been, that began, or at least has its earliest memory and association, in the old poorhouse at Stonebury.
A child she was, of five years, when she was taken in there with her old, crippled grandmother.