happy."

Suddenly Ruth's beautiful eyes were raised to him, full of lucid
splendour, but grave and serious in their expression; and her cheeks,
heretofore so faintly tinged with the tenderest blush, flashed into a
ruddy glow.

"I was happy. I do not deny it. Whatever comes, I will not blench
from the truth. I have answered you."

"And yet," replied he, secretly exulting in her admission, and not
perceiving the inner strength of which she must have been conscious
before she would have dared to make it--"and yet, Ruth, we are not
to recur to the past! Why not? If it was happy at the time, is the
recollection of it so miserable to you?"

He tried once more to take her hand, but she quietly stepped back.

"I came to hear what you had to say about my child," said she,
beginning to feel very weary.

"_Our_ child, Ruth."

She drew herself up, and her face went very pale.

"What have you to say about him?" asked she, coldly.

"Much," exclaimed he--"much that may affect his whole life. But it
all depends upon whether you will hear me or not."

"I listen."

"Good Heavens! Ruth, you will drive me mad. Oh! what a changed person
you are from the sweet, loving creature you were! I wish you were not
so beautiful." She did not reply, but he caught a deep, involuntary
sigh.

"Will you hear me if I speak, though I may not begin all at once
to talk of this boy--a boy of whom any mother--any parent, might
be proud? I could see that, Ruth. I have seen him; he looked like
a prince in that cramped, miserable house, and with no earthly
advantages. It is a shame he should not have every kind of
opportunity laid open before him."

There was no sign of maternal ambition on the motionless face, though
there might be some little spring in her heart, as it beat quick and
strong at the idea of the proposal she imagined he was going to make
of taking her boy away to give him the careful education she had
often craved for him. She should refuse it, as she would everything
else which seemed to imply that she acknowledged a claim over
Leonard; but yet sometimes, for her boy's sake, she had longed for a
larger opening--a more extended sphere.

"Ruth! you acknowledge we were happy once;--there were circumstances
which, if I could tell you them all in detail, would show you how
in my weak, convalescent state I was almost passive in the hands of
others. Ah, Ruth! I have not forgotten the tender nurse who soothed
me in my delirium. When I