looks during the last
few days, with her annoying celerity that afternoon in the garden. It
was all the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused
and interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality
of being genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or
self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real.
Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant
unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so
closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would
come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown
accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in
the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of
the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all
over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get much
change out of Ruth."

If only she had not been asked to Atherstone on purpose to meet him. If
only Lady Mary had not arranged it; if only Evelyn did not know it; if
only Ralph had not guessed it; if only he himself had not seen it from
the first instant! Ruth and Molly were the only two unconscious persons
in the house.

"I wonder," said Charles to himself, "why people can't allow me to
manage my own affairs? Oh, what a world it is for unmarried men with
money! Why did I not marry fifteen years ago, when every woman with a
straight nose was an angel of light; when I felt a noble disregard for
such minor details as character, mind, sympathy, if the hair and the
eyes were the right shade? Why did I not marry when I was out of favor
with my father, when I was head over ears in debt, and when at least I
could feel sure no one would marry me for my money? Molly," as that
young lady came running towards him with lingering traces of jam upon
her flushed countenance, "you have arrived just in time. Uncle Charles
was getting so dull without you. What have you been after all this
time?"

"Cook and me have made thirty-one pots and a little one," said Molly,
inserting a very sticky hand into Charles's. "And your Mr. Brown helped.
Cook told him to go along at first, which wasn't kind, was it? but he
stayed all the same; and I skimmed with a big spoon, and she poured it
in the pots. Only they aren't covered up with paper yet, if you want to
see them. And oh! Uncle Charles, what _do_ you think? Father and mother
have come back from their rid