m, was left often alone. No one ever called
her beautiful, nor stroked her hair, nor kissed her brow; and when she
stood by the side of the twin sisters at the gate, and the people, in
passing, praised the flaxen curls of Grace and Jessie, then they would
turn towards her, and, their smiles vanishing, they would regard her
with a pitiful air, turning silently away. Then she would creep off by
herself into some favorite nook of the garden, thoroughly ashamed that
she should so far have forgotten herself as to stand by the side of her
beautiful sisters.

Her mother, too, often took her in her lap, and, kissing her brow
sorrowfully, would exclaim, in sad tones:

"My poor, plain child,--my dear homely Ruth!"

Her father never caressed her. His love seemed to be kept for the twins,
whose two bright faces peered over his chair, and whose glad voices were
always ready to greet him on his return home.

And still Ruth loved her father so much, and, nestling close in the
corner of the garden away off by herself, mourned that he never kissed
her, nor called her his dear, pretty Ruth.

"O," thought the child, "how I do wish I could do something for my
father, which might please him, so that only once he might call me his
dear child! O, why was not I made a twin?" Thus the poor child mourned
to herself.

She had a doll, which she made her constant companion, and she played it
was very lovely like Grace and Jessie; she told it all her griefs, and
really came to feel that the doll understood all she said to it.

She had also another pleasure; it was that of reading. Her mother had
given her many books, and she loved to sit among the rose-bushes, and
read their beautiful stories. She liked to read about a man who lived
off alone upon an island, and had only some cats and monkeys for his
companions; how the cave was his house, and the skins of beasts were his
garments; how he looked off upon the ocean, and saw not one sail, and
wandered about upon his island, without hearing one human sound.

This story had a wild fascination for our little Ruth, so that she read
it again and again; yet still the book was as new to her in its interest
as at first.

Then there were other stories she loved to read; some about lonely,
patient, lovely young girls, who went out into the world alone to seek
their fortunes, and returned home with wealth and honor. She often
wished she might go forth in this way, so that when she came back no one
sho