," said he, and added to himself, "My God, this is
going to be one of the loveliest things in creation!" Still, as she
bent her eyes to the coin on the table, he ran his appraising glance
over her neck and shoulders, judging--so far as the ugly shawl
permitted--the head's poise, the set of the coral ear, the delicate wave
of hair on the neck's nape.

"Why is she turning you out?"

"A window curtain took fire. She said it was my fault."

"But it was not your fault at all!" cried Dicky. "Papa, the curtain
took fire in my room, and she beat it out. The whole house might have
been burnt down but for her. She beat it out, and made nothing of it,
though it hurt her horribly. Look at her hands, papa!"

"Hold out your hands," his father commanded.

She stretched them out. The ointment, as she turned them palms upward,
shone under the candle rays.

"Turn them the other way," he commanded, after a long look at them.
The words might mean that the sight afflicted him, but his tone scarcely
suggested this. She turned her hands, and he scrutinised the backs of
them very deliberately. "It's a shame," said he at length.

"Of course it's a shame!" the boy agreed hotly. "Papa, won't you ring
for the landlady and tell her so, and then she won't be sent away."

"My dear Dicky," his father answered, "you mistake. I was thinking that
it was a shame to coarsen such hands with housework." He eyed the girl
again, and she met him with a straight face--flushed a little and
plainly perturbed, but not shrinking, although her bosom heaved--for his
admiration was entirely cool and critical. "What is your name?" he
asked.

"Ruth Josselin."

He appeared to consider this for a moment, and then, reaching out a hand
for the decanter, to dismiss the subject. "Well, pick up your guinea,"
he said. "No doubt the woman outside has treated you badly; but I can't
intercede for you, to keep you a drudge here among the saucepans; no,
upon my conscience, I can't. The fact is, Ruth Josselin, you have the
makings of a beauty, and I'll be no party to spoiling 'em. What is
more, it seems you have spirit, and no woman with beauty and spirit need
fail to win her game in this world. That's my creed." He sipped his
wine.

"If your Honour pleases," said the girl quietly, picking up the coin,
"the woman called me bad names, and I was not wanting you at all to
speak for me."

"Oho!" The Collector set down his glass and laughed. "So that's t