room in a full blaze. Ruth
gave a quick glance, and saw that it was not Mrs. Grey, but Mrs. Grey's
maid.

"Miss Ruth," said the maid, "I am sent to bid you go down stairs: the
first course is come out of the room, and Mrs. Grey bids me tell you to
go down to see the sweet things. You are to go at once."

Poor Ruth! what did she feel _then_? She took hold of the maid's hand,
and said,

"Oh, do not, do not let me go! pray do not let me go!"

"You must go, and go at once too, Miss Ruth," said the maid, as she
drew her near the door. "You must come, miss. And see, here is James
sent to take you down."

There was no help for it: down stairs she went, and soon she found that
she was in the room. _There she stood!_ full of shame and deep grief!
And there was spread out each dish of sweets, just as she had left
it--each dish spread out with as much care as if it had been right. The
eyes of all were on Ruth--in vain did she try to shrink from their
gaze.

There was a pause; then Mrs. Grey said, "Ruth, come here, and stand
where all my friends can see you."

She came with slow step, her head bent down, and her eyes cast on the
ground.

"I grieve to tell you, my friends," said Mrs. Grey, "that it is
Ruth--that it is this child whom I love so much--that it is _she_ who
has made all this wreck."

There was a pause once more; and there stood Ruth! All had their eyes
on her. At length Mrs. Grey said,

"Now leave the room, Ruth."

Ruth did not stay, she was too glad to be gone at once.

The next day, nor the next, did Mrs. Grey speak of the past, and all
things went on as they were wont to do. But on the third day, when the
first course was gone, a dish that had been in the green-house room was
put near her. It was just in the same state in which Ruth had left it.
Ruth could not bear the sight of it, so she got up and ran out of the
room.

"Poor Ruth!" said Mr. Grey to his wife, "she feels this so much! and to
a child like her, who _can_ feel, I think that your plan seems the best
way to cure her."

It _was_ the best way. Ruth felt all this much more than she would have
felt the stroke of a whip: she felt it _in her mind_.

For a long time, for months and for years, she could not bear to see a
jam cake or a turn-out, nor one of the things like those that had been
in the green-house room. When she _did_ see them, she felt a sting of
mind that gave her a great deal of pain. Ruth had one young friend who
knew what sh