_ARTHUR ARUNDEL._
AFTERNOON tea was scarcely over when the telephone bell was heard. And
in a few moments, the parlourmaid came in to say the doctor was wanted
at once.
"Oh, dear!" said Ruth. "I did hope you would have had a little peace!
However, that's the way, isn't it? There's James with the carriage; I
expect he and Dobbin have had a cup of tea, too!"
She laughed merrily, and her father, with a hasty kiss, hurried off,
and she was again alone.
Presently, after a slight knock, a pleasant elderly person entered and
came forward.
"I thought you must be lonely this wet afternoon, Miss Ruth, so I came
to see if I could do anything for you."
"No, Morris, I do not think I am. I was just going to practise my
violin."
"Master has been down on his way out to ask me what you would like for
your birthday present, miss. He's really put about that he has nothing
ready. I told him if he'd excuse my saying so, I expect you would like
to be consulted better than to have something as a surprise that you
did not exactly want."
"Yes," said Ruth, looking up, "that is just what I do feel; but I do
not know what my father would like to spend upon it! Do sit down,
Morris. Will it be too cold for you with this window open? It has
almost left off raining. But see, I will shut it. Can you spare time to
have a chat?"
The housekeeper had intended nothing else. When Ruth had no other
visitors, she often came up and did her best to pass away some of the
long, lonely afternoons.
So she sat down by the window and answered comfortably, "Well, Miss
Ruth, if I might suggest, I think it would be a good plan for the
master to tell you what he thought of spending, and then for you and me
to go to Worcester to-morrow to buy it."
Ruth smiled. "All right," she said: "that would be lovely. But you must
tell him, Morris, because if I did—well, it would seem like asking him
for a present, would it not?"
It was long past seven before the wheels were heard again, and the
carriage came up the drive. Dinner had been kept back, and Ruth had sat
with her fancy work, waiting and wondering.
To her astonishment, she heard two voices in the hall, and a great
bustle of hanging up coats. Then her father threw open the drawing-room
door, and said cheerfully, "Dr. Arundel, my dear! Dr. 'Arthur' Arundel,
as he likes to be called. I have brought him to stay with us. I thought
it was dull for him in a new place this first evening."
Ruth shook hands, and privately hoped Morris would have arranged enough
dinner for three, and that the room was ready.
It came out that her father had driven to meet his new partner at the
junction, and thinking it would be but lonely in lodgings that first
evening, he had decided to get to know him at once. Ruth was accustomed
to chance guests, and took it all calmly, listening to the conversation
very quietly, but following it with interest, her bright eyes sparkling
at anything that amused her, while her father said a word now and then
in a fond, teasing way to include her, but otherwise was absorbed in
his guest and his politics.
When dinner was over, Dr. Brown turned to her. "You have your German
to prepare, my dear, I expect. We will join you in the drawing-room
presently."
Ruth made her escape, and sat down by her little table, and tried to
busy herself with her preparation, but she found it hard work. She
forgot for a moment about the new partner, and her thoughts flew to her
birthday to-morrow, and of this time last year, when she had not been
motherless.
It seemed like a dream. She wondered if she had done everything she
could to make home happy for her father. Had she done all she could?
Morris thought she had, but then Morris could not know how often her
father gave those weary sighs. Besides, Morris thought "religion" could
ease every care under the sun, and Ruth did not see that; she could
not understand it. Her father and she did very well without it, she
thought. And even if her mother had been influenced by Morris to think
of such things, why, of course, invalids always must, and that was only
natural.
She did not know that Morris would have been shocked if she had been
told that in Ruth's thoughts what was her joy and comfort could be
called "religion!"
"It's just having Christ in your heart and in your life," she would say
to herself, as she sat in her sitting-room downstairs, "and I can but
pray that they may understand it for themselves; for it is eternal life
to them that know Him!"