es, the attitude in which Ruth
had stood with the young man who had just quitted her. Ruth's hand
had been lying in his arm, and fondly held there by his other hand.

Mrs Mason was careless about the circumstances of temptation into
which the girls entrusted to her as apprentices were thrown, but
severely intolerant if their conduct was in any degree influenced by
the force of these temptations. She called this intolerance "keeping
up the character of her establishment." It would have been a better
and more Christian thing, if she had kept up the character of her
girls by tender vigilance and maternal care.

This evening, too, she was in an irritated state of temper. Her
brother had undertaken to drive her round by Henbury, in order to
give her the unpleasant information of the misbehaviour of her eldest
son, who was an assistant in a draper's shop in a neighbouring town.
She was full of indignation against want of steadiness, though not
willing to direct her indignation against the right object--her
ne'er-do-well darling. While she was thus charged with anger (for
her brother justly defended her son's master and companions from her
attacks), she saw Ruth standing with a lover, far away from home,
at such a time in the evening, and she boiled over with intemperate
displeasure.

"Come here directly, Miss Hilton," she exclaimed, sharply. Then,
dropping her voice to low, bitter tones of concentrated wrath, she
said to the trembling, guilty Ruth:

"Don't attempt to show your face at my house again after this
conduct. I saw you, and your spark, too. I'll have no slurs on the
character of my apprentices. Don't say a word. I saw enough. I shall
write and tell your guardian to-morrow."

The horse started away, for he was impatient to be off, and Ruth was
left standing there, stony, sick, and pale, as if the lightning had
torn up the ground beneath her feet. She could not go on standing,
she was so sick and faint; she staggered back to the broken
sand-bank, and sank down, and covered her face with her hands.

"My dearest Ruth! are you ill? Speak, darling! My love, my love, do
speak to me!"

What tender words after such harsh ones! They loosened the fountain
of Ruth's tears, and she cried bitterly.

"Oh! did you see her--did you hear what she said?"

"She! Who, my darling? Don't sob so, Ruth; tell me what it is. Who
has been near you?--who has been speaking to you to make you cry so?"

"Oh, Mrs Mason." And there was