s to refuse;
that it was, in fact, owing to the Bensons for her and her child's
subsistence. She went wherever her services were first called for.
If the poor bricklayer, who broke both his legs in a fall from the
scaffolding, sent for her when she was disengaged, she went and
remained with him until he could spare her, let who would be the next
claimant. From the happy and prosperous in all but health, she would
occasionally beg off, when some one less happy and more friendless
wished for her; and sometimes she would ask for a little money
from Mr Benson to give to such in their time of need. But it was
astonishing how much she was able to do without money.

Her ways were very quiet; she never spoke much. Any one who has been
oppressed with the weight of a vital secret for years, and much more
any one the character of whose life has been stamped by one event,
and that producing sorrow and shame, is naturally reserved. And yet
Ruth's silence was not like reserve; it was too gentle and tender
for that. It had more the effect of a hush of all loud or disturbing
emotions, and out of the deep calm the words that came forth had a
beautiful power. She did not talk much about religion; but those
who noticed her knew that it was the unseen banner which she was
following. The low-breathed sentences which she spoke into the ear of
the sufferer and the dying carried them upwards to God.

She gradually became known and respected among the roughest boys of
the rough populace of the town. They would make way for her when she
passed along the streets with more deference than they used to most;
for all knew something of the tender care with which she had attended
this or that sick person, and, besides, she was so often in connexion
with Death that something of the superstitious awe with which the
dead were regarded by those rough boys in the midst of their strong
life, surrounded her.

She herself did not feel changed. She felt just as faulty--as far
from being what she wanted to be, as ever. She best knew how many
of her good actions were incomplete, and marred with evil. She did
not feel much changed from the earliest Ruth she could remember.
Everything seemed to change but herself. Mr and Miss Benson grew old,
and Sally grew deaf, and Leonard was shooting up, and Jemima was
a mother. She and the distant hills that she saw from her chamber
window, seemed the only things which were the same as when she first
came to Eccleston. As