the time when days and days would elapse without her seeing that
little darling countenance. Miss Benson would wonder to her brother
that Mr Bradshaw did not propose that Leonard should accompany his
mother; he only begged her not to put such an idea into Ruth's head,
as he was sure Mr Bradshaw had no thoughts of doing any such thing,
yet to Ruth it might be a hope, and then a disappointment. His sister
scolded him for being so cold-hearted; but he was full of sympathy,
although he did not express it, and made some quiet little sacrifices
in order to set himself at liberty to take Leonard a long walking
expedition on the day when his mother left Eccleston.

Ruth cried until she could cry no longer, and felt very much ashamed
of herself as she saw the grave and wondering looks of her pupils,
whose only feeling on leaving home was delight at the idea of
Abermouth, and into whose minds the possibility of death to any of
their beloved ones never entered. Ruth dried her eyes, and spoke
cheerfully as soon as she caught the perplexed expression of their
faces; and by the time they arrived at Abermouth, she was as much
delighted with all the new scenery as they were, and found it hard
work to resist their entreaties to go rambling out on the seashore at
once; but Elizabeth had undergone more fatigue that day than she had
had before for many weeks, and Ruth was determined to be prudent.

Meanwhile, the Bradshaws' house at Eccleston was being rapidly
adapted for electioneering hospitality. The partition-wall between
the unused drawing-room and the school-room was broken down, in order
to admit of folding doors; the "ingenious" upholsterer of the town
(and what town does not boast of the upholsterer full of contrivances
and resources, in opposition to the upholsterer of steady capital and
no imagination, who looks down with uneasy contempt on ingenuity?)
had come in to give his opinion, that "nothing could be easier than
to convert a bathroom into a bedroom, by the assistance of a little
drapery to conceal the shower-bath," the string of which was to be
carefully concealed, for fear that the unconscious occupier of the
bath-bed might innocently take it for a bell-rope. The professional
cook of the town had been already engaged to take up her abode for a
month at Mr Bradshaw's, much to the indignation of Betsy, who became
a vehement partisan of Mr Cranworth, as soon as ever she heard of the
plan of her deposition from sovereign