politely, down the table.

Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to
be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.

Lady Mary was annoyed, or, more properly speaking, she was "moved in the
spirit," which in a Churchwoman seems to be the same thing as annoyance
in the unregenerate or unorthodox mind. She regretted Ruth's departure
more than any one, except perhaps Ruth herself. She had watched the girl
very narrowly, and she had seen nothing to make her alter the opinion
she had formed of her; indeed, she was inclined to advance beyond it.
Even she could not suspect that Ruth had "played her cards well;"
although she would have aided and abetted her in any way in her power,
if Ruth had shown the slightest consciousness of holding cards at all,
or being desirous of playing them. Her frank yet reserved manner, her
distinguished appearance, her sense of humor (which Lady Mary did not
understand, but which she perceived others did), and the quiet _savoir
faire_ of her treatment of Dare's advances, all enhanced her greatly in
the eyes of her would-be aunt. She bade her good-bye with genuine
regret; the only person who bore her departure without a shade of
compunction being Dare, who stood by the carriage till the last moment,
assuring Ruth that he hoped to come over to the rectory very shortly;
while Charles and Molly held the gate open meanwhile, at the end of the
short drive.

"I know that Frenchman means business," said Lady Mary wrathfully to
herself, as she watched the scene from the garden. Her mind, from the
very severity of its tension, was liable to occasional lapses of this
painful kind from the spiritual and ecclesiastical to the mundane and
transitory. "I saw it directly he came into the house; and with _his_
opportunities, and living within a stone's-throw, I should not wonder if
he were to succeed. Any man would fetch a fancy price at Slumberleigh;
and the most fastidious woman in the world ceases to be critical if she
is reduced to the proper state of dulness. He is handsome, too, in his
foreign way. But she does not like him now. She is inclined to like
Charles, though she does not know it. There is an attraction between the
two. I knew there would be. And he likes her. Oh, what fools men are! He
will go away; and Dare, on the contrary, will ride over to Slumberleigh
every day, and by the time he is engaged to her Charles will see her
again, and find out that he is in love with