ything
like this happens"--mounted the stairs to his room.

"Don't worry, Miss Ruth," said Jack in comforting tones as he returned
to where she sat. "We will all pull out yet."

"It is good of you to say so," she replied, lifting her head and leaning
back so that she could look into his eyes the better, "but I know
you don't think so. Daddy was just getting over his losses on the
Susquehanna bridge. This work would have set him on his feet. Those were
his very words--and he was getting so easy in his mind, too--and we had
planned so many things!"

"But you can still go to Newport," Jack pleaded. "We will be here some
months yet, and--"

"Oh--but I won't go a step anywhere. I could not leave him now--that is,
not as long as I can help him."

"But aren't you going to the Fosters' and Aunt Felicia's?" She might not
be, but it was good all the same to hear her deny it.

"Not to anybody's!" she replied, with an emphasis that left no doubt in
his mind.

Jack's heart gave a bound.

"But you were going if we went to Morfordsburg," he persisted. He was
determined to get at the bottom of all his misgivings. Perhaps, after
all, Peter was right.

Ruth caught her breath. The name of the town had reopened a vista which
her anxiety over her father's affairs had for the moment shut out.

"Well, but that is over now. I am going to stay here and help daddy."
Again the new fear tugged at her heart. "You are going to stay, too,
aren't you, Mr. Breen?" she added in quick alarm. "You won't leave him,
will you?--not if--" again the terrible money loss rose before her. What
if there should not be money enough to pay Jack?

"Me! Why, Miss Ruth!"

"But suppose he was not able to--" she could not frame the rest of the
sentence.

"You can't suppose anything that would make me leave him, or the work."
This also came with an emphasis of positive certainty. "I have never
been so happy as I have been here. I never knew what it was to be
myself. I never knew," he added in softened tones, "what it was to
really live until I joined your father. Only last night Uncle Peter and
I were talking about it. 'Stick to Mac,' the dear old fellow said." It
was to Ruth, but he dared not express himself, except in parables. "Then
you HAD thought of going?" she asked quickly, a shadow falling across
her face.

"No--" he hesitated--"I had only thought of STAYING. It was you who were
going--I was all broken up about being left here alone, and Uncle Pe