Mr. Gabriel'd had occasion to use it. He was a different man from any Dan'd ever met before, something finer, and he might have been better, and Dan's loyal soul was glad to acknowledge him master, and I declare I believe he felt just as the Jacobites in the old songs used to feel for royal Charlie. There are some men born to rule with a haughty, careless sweetness, and others born to die for them with stern and dogged devotion.

Well, and all this while Faith wasn't standing still; she was changing steadily, as much as ever the moon changed in the sky. I noticed it first one day when Mr. Gabriel'd caught every child in the region and given them a picnic in the woods of the Stack-Yard-Gate, and Faith was nowhere to be seen tiptoeing round everyone as she used to do, but I found her at last standing at the head of the table,——Mr. Gabriel dancing here and there, seeing to it that all should be as gay as he seemed to be,——quiet and dignified as you please, and feeling every one of her inches. But it wasn't dignity really that was the matter with Faith,——it was just gloom. She'd brighten up for a moment or two, and then down would fall the cloud again; she took to long fits of dreaming, and sometimes she'd burst out crying at any careless word, so that my heart fairly bled for the poor child,——for one couldn't help seeing that she'd some secret unhappiness or other,——and I was as gentle and soothing to her as it's in my nature to be. She was into our house a good deal; she kept it pretty well out of Dan's way, and I hoped she'd get over it sooner or later, and make up her mind to circumstances. And I talked to her a sight about Dan, praising him constantly before her, though I couldn't bear to do it; and finally, one very confidential evening, I told her that I'd been in love with Dan myself once a little, but I'd seen that he would marry her, and so had left off thinking about it; for, do you know, I thought it might make her set more price on him now if she knew somebody else had ever cared for him. Well, that did answer a while: whether she thought she ought to make it up to Dan, or whether he really did grow more in her eyes, Faith got to being very neat and domestic and praiseworthy. But still there was the change, and it didn't make her any the less lovely. Indeed, if I'd been a man, I should have cared for her more than ever: it was like turning a child into a woman: and I really think, as Dan saw her going about with such a pleasant gravity, her pretty figure moving so quietly, her pretty face so still and fair, as if she had thoughts and feelings now, he began to wonder what had come over Faith, and, if she were really as charming as this, why he hadn't felt it before; and then, you know, 

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