The day that school began Faith returned home to find that a letter from her mother and father had arrived. It was a long letter, telling the little girl of all the happenings since her departure at the pleasant cabin in the Wilderness¹. Her father had shot a deer, which meant a good supply of fresh meat. Kashaqua had brought the good news of Faith’s arrival at her aunt’s house; and, best of all, her father wrote that before the heavy snows and severe winter cold began he should make the trip to Ticonderoga to be sure that his little daughter was well and happy.  
But there was one sentence in her mother’s letter that puzzled Faith. “Your father will bring your blue beads²,” her mother had written, and Faith could not understand it, for she was sure Esther had the beads. She had looked in the box in the sitting-room³ closet after Esther’s [Pg 101]departure, hoping that Esther might have put them back before starting for home, but the box had been empty.
 
“Who brought my letter, Uncle Phil?” she questioned, but her uncle did not seem to hear.
 
“Father got it from a man in a canoe when we were down at the shore. The man hid——”
 
“Never mind, Hugh. You must not repeat what you see, even at home,” said Mr. Scott.
 
So Faith asked no more questions. She knew that the Green Mountain Boys sent messengers through the Wilderness; and that Americans all through the Colonies were kept notified of what the English soldiers stationed in those northern posts were doing or planning. She was sure that some such messenger had brought her letter; and, while she wondered if it might have been her friend Ethan Allen, she had learned since her stay in her uncle’s house that he did not like to be questioned in regard to his visitors from across the lake.
 
“I’ll begin a letter to mother dear this very night, so it will be all ready when father comes,” she said, thinking of all she longed to tell her mother about Louise, the school and her pretty new dresses.
 
[Pg 102]“So you did not bring your beads,” said Aunt Prissy, as she read Mrs. Carew’s letter. “Did you forget them?”
 
Faith could feel her face flush as she replied: “No, Aunt Prissy.” She wished that she could tell her aunt just why she had felt obliged to give them to Esther Eldridge, and how puzzled she was at her mother’s reference to the beads. Faith was already discovering that a secret may be a very unpleasant possession.
 
As she thought of Esther, she recalled that her aunt had spoken of Louise as “mischievous,” and Faith was quite sure that Louise would never have accepted the beads or have done any of the troublesome things that had made the first days of Esther’s visit so difficult.
 
“Louise isn’t mischievous,” she declared suddenly. “What made you think she was, Aunt Prissy?”
 
Aunt Prissy was evidently surprised at this sudden change of subject, but she replied pleasantly:
 
“I ought not to have said such a thing; but Louise has improved every day since you became her friend. How does she get on in her learning to read?”
 
[Pg 103]For Faith stopped at the shoemaker’s house every day on her way home from school to teach Louise; and “Flibbertigibbet,” as her father generally called her, was making good progress.
 
“She learns so quickly,” replied Faith, “and she is learning to write. I do wish she would go to school, Aunt Prissy,” for Louise had become almost sullen⁴ at the suggestion.
 
Faith did not know that Louise had appeared at the schoolhouse several years before, and had been so laughed at by some of the rough children of the village that she had turned on them violently and they had not dared come near her since. They had vented⁵ their spite, however, in calling, “Witch! Witch! Fly home on your broomstick,” as Louise hobbled off toward home, vowing⁶ that never again would she go near a school, and sobbing⁷ herself to sleep that night.
 
Aunt Prissy had heard something of the unfortunate affair, and was glad that Louise, when next she appeared at school, would have some little knowledge to start with and a friend to help her.
 
“Perhaps she will go next term, now that she has a girl friend to go with her,” responded Mrs. Scott.
 
[Pg 104]Faith was making friends with two girls whose seats in the schoolroom were next her own. Their names were Caroline and Catherine Young. Faith was quite sure that they were two of the prettiest girls in the world, and wondered how it was possible for any one to make such beautiful dresses and such dainty white ruffled⁸ aprons⁹ as these two little girls wore to school. The sisters were very nearly of an age, and with their soft black curls and bright brown eyes, their flounced and embroidered¹⁰ dresses with dainty collars of lace, they looked very different from the more suitably dressed village children.
 
Caroline was eleven, and Catherine nine years old. But they were far in advance of the other children of the school.
 
They lost no time in telling Faith that their father was an English of............