ice? Dear me, Ruth, what beautiful
hair you have; and mine coming off so! And, talking of hair, did you
ever see anything like Mr. Dare's? Somebody must really speak to him
about it. If he would keep his hands still, and not talk so quick, and
let his hair grow a little, I really think he would not look so like a
foreigner."

"I don't suppose he minds looking like one."

"My _dear_!"

"His mother was a Frenchwoman, wasn't she? I am sure I have heard so
fifty times since his uncle died."

"And if she was," said Evelyn, reprovingly, "is not that an extra reason
for his giving up anything that will remind people of it? And we ought
to try and forget it, Ruth, and behave just the same to him as if she
had been an Englishwoman. I wonder if he is a Roman Catholic?"

"Ask him."

"I hope he is not," continued Evelyn, taking up her candle to go. "We
never had one to stay in the house before. I don't mean," catching a
glimpse of Ruth's face, "that Catholics are--well--I don't mean _that_.
But still, you know, one would not like to make great _friends_ with a
Catholic, would one, Ruth? And he is so nice and so amusing that I do
hope, as he is going to be a neighbor, he is a Protestant." And after a
few more remarks of about the same calibre from Evelyn, the two cousins
kissed and parted for the night.

"Will he do it?" said Ruth to herself, when she was alone. "Has he
character enough, and perseverance enough, and money enough? Oh, I wish
Uncle John would talk to him!"

Ruth was not aware that one word from herself would have more weight
with a man like Dare than any number from an angel of heaven, if that
angel were of the masculine gender. If at the other side of the house
Dare could have known how earnestly Ruth was thinking about him, he
would not have been surprised (for he was not without experience), but
he would have felt immensely flattered.

Vandon lay in a distant part of Mr. Alwynn's parish, and a perpetual
curate had charge of the district. Mr. Alwynn consequently seldom went
there, but on the few occasions on which Ruth had accompanied him in his
periodical visits she had seen enough. Who cares for a recital of what
she saw? Misery and want are so common. We can see them for ourselves
any day. In Ruth's heart a great indignation had kindled against old Mr.
Dare, of Vandon, who was inaccessible as a ghost in his own house,
haunting the same rooms, but never to be found when Mr. Alwynn called
upon him to "p