"You will be happy here, dear Ruth," said Harry; "you will be your own
mistress."
Ruth danced about, from room to room, with the careless glee of a happy
child, quite forgetful that she was a wife and a mother; quite unable to
repress the flow of spirits consequent upon her new-found freedom.
Ruth's new house was about five miles from the city. The approach to it
was through a lovely winding lane, a little off the main road, skirted
on either side by a thick grove of linden and elms, where the wild
grape-vine leaped, clinging from branch to branch, festooning its ample
clusters in prodigal profusion of fruitage, and forming a dense shade,
impervious to the most garish noon-day heat; while beneath, the wild
brier-rose unfolded its perfumed leaves in the hedges, till the bees and
humming-birds went reeling away, with their honeyed treasures.
You can scarce see the house, for the drooping elms, half a century old,
whose long branches, at every wind-gust, swept across the velvet lawn.
The house is very old, but Ruth says, "All the better for that." Little
patches of moss tuft the sloping roof, and swallows and martens twitter
round the old chimney. It has nice old-fashioned beams, running across
the ceiling, which threaten to bump Harry's curly head. The doorways,
too, are low, with honeysuckle, red and white, wreathed around the
porches; and back of the house there is a high hill (which Ruth says
must be terraced off for a garden), surmounted by a gray rock, crowned
by a tumble-down old summer-house, where you have as fine a prospect of
hill and valley, rock and river, as ever a sunset flooded with rainbow
tints.
It was blessed to see the love-light in Ruth's gentle eyes; to see the
rose chase the lily from her cheek; to see the old spring come back to
her step; to follow her from room to room, while she draped the pretty
white curtains, and beautified, unconsciously, everything her fingers
touched.
She could give an order without having it countermanded; she could kiss
little Daisy, without being called "silly;" she could pull out her
comb, and let her curls flow about her face, without being considered
"frivolous;" and, better than all, she could fly into her husband's
arms, when he came home, and kiss him, without feeling that she had
broken any penal statute. Yes; she was free as the golden orioles, whose
hanging nests swayed to and fro amid the glossy green leaves beneath her
window.
But not as thoughtless.
Ruth had a strong, earnest nature; she could not look upon this wealth
of sea, sky, leaf, bud, and blossom; she could not listen to the little
birds, nor inhale the perfumed breath of morning, without a filling eye
and brimming heart, to the bounteous Giver. Should she revel in all this
loveliness,--should her heart be filled to its fullest capacity for
earthly happiness, and no grateful incense go up from its altar to
Heaven?
And the babe? Its wondering eyes had already begun to seek its mother's;
its little lip to quiver at a harsh or discordant sound. An unpracticed
hand must sweep that harp of a thousand strings; trembling fingers must
inscribe, indelibly, on that blank page, characters to be read by the
light of eternity: the maternal eye must never sleep at its post, lest
the enemy rifle the casket of its gems. And so, by her child's cradle,
Ruth first learned to pray. The weight her slender shoulders could not
bear, she rolled at the foot of the cross; and, with the baptism of holy
tears, mother and child were consecrated.