save her from being sent into the
workhouse."

"That's right. Won't you have another cup of tea?"

"I have had two. However, I think I'll take another."

Mr Benson could not refrain from a little sigh as he poured it out.
He thought he had never seen his sister so deliberately hungry and
thirsty before. He did not guess that she was feeling the meal rather
a respite from a distasteful interview, which she was aware was
awaiting her at its conclusion. But all things come to an end, and so
did Miss Benson's tea.

"Now, will you go and see her?"

"Yes."

And so they went. Mrs Hughes had pinned up a piece of green calico,
by way of a Venetian blind, to shut out the afternoon sun; and in the
light thus shaded lay Ruth, still, and wan, and white. Even with her
brother's account of Ruth's state, such death-like quietness startled
Miss Benson--startled her into pity for the poor lovely creature who
lay thus stricken and felled. When she saw her, she could no longer
imagine her to be an impostor, or a hardened sinner; such prostration
of woe belonged to neither. Mr Benson looked more at his sister's
face than at Ruth's; he read her countenance as a book.

Mrs Hughes stood by, crying.

Mr Benson touched his sister, and they left the room together.

"Do you think she will live?" asked he.

"I cannot tell," said Miss Benson, in a softened voice. "But how
young she looks! Quite a child, poor creature! When will the doctor
come, Thurstan? Tell me all about her; you have never told me the
particulars."

Mr Benson might have said, she had never cared to hear them before,
and had rather avoided the subject; but he was too happy to see this
awakening of interest in his sister's warm heart to say anything in
the least reproachful. He told her the story as well as he could;
and, as he felt it deeply, he told it with heart's eloquence; and, as
he ended and looked at her, there were tears in the eyes of both.

"And what does the doctor say?" asked she, after a pause.

"He insists upon quiet; he orders medicines and strong broth. I
cannot tell you all; Mrs Hughes can. She has been so truly good.
'Doing good, hoping for nothing again.'"

"She looks very sweet and gentle. I shall sit up to-night and watch
her myself; and I shall send you and Mrs Hughes early to bed, for you
have both a worn look about you I don't like. Are you sure the effect
of that fall has gone off? Do you feel anything of it in your back
still? After all