She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell.
When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top.
Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed.
Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, she thought. It had been cunningly done.
And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt.
The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they were really living in a little bit of a house.
It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill the room with luxury and beauty.
Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were "close hauled" and comfortable.
Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners.
By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each household had drawn into its shell. And the huge drifts, lying defiant against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social excitement.