re--only went once last Sunday, and then
late--I shall just tell Ruth that she is to come back to me to-morrow. A
few days won't make any difference to her, and it will fit in so nicely
her coming back the day you go to the palace. After all I've done for
Ruth--new curtains to her room, and the piano tuned and everything--I
don't think she would like to stay there with friends, and me all by
myself, without a creature to speak to. Ruth may be only a niece by
marriage, but she will see in a moment--"

And in fact she did. When Mrs. Alwynn took her aside after church, and
explained the case in the all-pervading whisper for which she had
apparently taken out a patent, Ruth could not grasp any reason why she
should return to Slumberleigh three days before the time, but she saw at
once that return she must if Mrs. Alwynn chose to demand it; and so she
yielded with a good grace, and sent Mrs. Alwynn back smiling to the
lych-gate, where Mr. Alwynn and Mabel Thursby were talking with Dare and
Molly, while Charles interviewed the village policeman at a little
distance.

"No news of the tramp," said Charles, meeting Ruth at the gate; and they
started homeward in different order to that in which they had come, in
spite of a great effort at the last moment on the part of Dare, who
thought the old way was better. "The policeman has seen nothing of him.
He has gone off to pastures new, I expect."

"I hope he has."

"Mrs. Alwynn does not want you to leave Atherstone to-morrow, does she?"

"I am sorry to say she does."

"But you won't go?"

"I must not only go, but I must do it as if I liked it."

"I hope Evelyn won't allow it."

"While I am living with Mrs. Alwynn, I am bound to do what she likes in
small things."

"H'm!"

"I should have thought, Sir Charles, that this particularly feminine and
submissive sentiment would have met with your approval."

"It does; it does," said Charles, hastily. "Only, after the stubborn
rigidity of your--shall I say your--week-day character, especially as
regards money, this softened Sabbath mood took me by surprise for a
moment."

"You should see me at Slumberleigh," said Ruth, with a smile half sad,
half humorous. "You should see me tying up Uncle John's flowers, or
holding Aunt Fanny's wools. Nothing more entirely feminine and young
lady-like can be imagined."

"It must be a great change, after living with a woman like Lady
Deyncourt--to whose house I often went years ago, when he