Poor Ruth! her sky so soon overcast! As the door closed on the prim,
retreating figure of her mother-in-law, she burst into tears. But she
was too sensible a girl to weep long. She wiped her eyes, and began
to consider what was to be done. It would never do to complain to
Harry--dear Harry. He would have to take sides; oh no, that would never
do; she could never complain to him of his _own_ mother. But why did he
bring them together? knowing, as he must have known, how little likely
they were to assimilate. This thought she smothered quickly, but not
before it had given birth to a sigh, close upon the heels of which love
framed this apology: It was so long since Harry had lived under the
same roof with his mother he had probably forgotten her eccentricities;
and then she was so dotingly fond of him, that probably no points of
collision ever came up between the two.
In the course of an hour, what with cold bathing and philosophy,
Ruth's eyes and equanimity were placed beyond the suspicion even of a
newly-made husband, and when she held up her lips to him so temptingly,
on his return, he little dreamed of the self-conquest she had so
tearfully achieved for his sake.