sacrifice
the soul's dearest offering, as the chrysalis, brown and unbeautiful,
gives the radiant creature within to the light and freedom of day.

When the whistle sounded for the ten o'clock train, Ruth said it was
late and they must go. Miss Ainslie went to the gate with them, her
lavender scented gown rustling softly as she walked, and the moonlight
making new beauty of the amethysts and pearls entwined in her hair.

Ruth, aglow with happiness, put her arms around Miss Ainslie's neck and
kissed her tenderly. "May I, too?" asked Winfield.

He drew her toward him, without waiting for an answer, and Miss Ainslie
trembled from head to foot as she lifted her face to his.

Across the way the wedding was in full blast, but neither of them cared
to go. Ruth turned back for a last glimpse of the garden and its gentle
mistress, but she was gone, and the light from her candle streamed out
until it rested upon a white hollyhock, nodding drowsily.

To Ruth, walking in the starlight with her lover, it seemed as if the
world had been made new. The spell was upon Winfield for a long time,
but at last he spoke.

"If I could have chosen my mother," he said, simply, "she would have
been like Miss Ainslie."

XV. The Secret and the Dream

Ruth easily became accustomed to the quiet life at Miss Ainslie's, and
gradually lost all desire to go back to the city. "You're spoiling me,"
she said, one day. "I don't want to go back to town, I don't want to
work, I don't want to do anything but sit still and look at you. I
didn't know I was so lazy."

"You're not lazy, dear," answered Miss Ainslie, "you were tired, and you
didn't know how tired you were."

Winfield practically lived there. In the morning, he sat in the garden,
reading the paper, while Ruth helped about the house. She insisted
upon learning to cook, and he ate many an unfamiliar dish, heroically
proclaiming that it was good. "You must never doubt his love," Miss
Ainslie said, "for those biscuits--well, dear, you know they were--were
not just right."

The amateur cook laughed outright at the gentle criticism. "They were
awful," she admitted, "but I'm going to keep at it until I learn how."

The upper part of the house was divided into four rooms, with windows on
all sides. One of the front rooms, with north and east windows, was Miss
Ainslie's, while the one just back of it, with south and east windows,
was a sitting-room.

"I keep my prettiest things up here,