Faith’s teeth chattered,——I saw them. He turned to her, and as their
look met, a spot of carnation burned into his cheek almost as a brand
would have burned. He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching
her and sifting her; and Faith half rose, proudly, and pale, as if his
look pierced her with pain. The look was long,——but before it fell, a
glow and sparkle filled the eyes, and over his face there curled the
deep, strange smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes
dropped and made it sad. And Faith,——she started in a new surprise, the
darkness gathered and crept off her face as cream wrinkles from milk, and
spleen or venom or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and there was
nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness. Some souls are like
the white river-lilies,——fixed, yet floating; but Mr. Gabriel had no firm
root anywhere, and was blown about with every breeze, like a leaf on the
flood. His purposes melted and made with his moods.

The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell upon the waters or
blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the
cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was
so busy handling the boat,——and it’s rather risky, you have to wriggle up
the creek so,——that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood
up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it
aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning
against the mast, he stood so, many minutes.

"Dan," I said, "did your spiritual craft ever hang out a purple pennant?"

"No," said Dan.

"Well," says I. And we all saw a little purple ribbon running up the rope
and streaming on the air behind us.

"And why do we not hoist our own?" said Mr. Gabriel, putting on his hat.
And suiting the action to the word, a little green signal curled up and
flaunted above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the water
beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they looked like caves of
cool emerald, and wide off and over them the west burned smoulderingly
red like a furnace. Many a time since, I’ve felt the magical color
between those banks and along those meadows, but then I felt none of it;
every wit I had was too awake and alert and fast-fixed in watching.

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