Ruth Read Online Free Page A

flowers still bloomed, and fires crackled, and comforts and
luxuries were piled around them like fairy gifts. What did they know
of the meaning of the word, so terrific to the poor? What was winter
to them? But Ruth fancied that Mr Bellingham looked as if he could
understand the feelings of those removed from him by circumstance
and station. He had drawn up the windows of his carriage, it is true,
with a shudder.
    Ruth, then, had been watching him.
    Yet she had no idea that any association made her camellia precious
to her. She believed it was solely on account of its exquisite beauty
that she tended it so carefully. She told Jenny every particular of
its presentation, with open, straight-looking eye, and without the
deepening of a shade of colour.
    "Was it not kind of him? You can't think how nicely he did it, just
when I was a little bit mortified by her ungracious ways."
    "It was very nice, indeed," replied Jenny. "Such a beautiful flower!
I wish it had some scent."
    "I wish it to be exactly as it is; it is perfect. So pure!" said
Ruth, almost clasping her treasure as she placed it in water. "Who is
Mr Bellingham?"
    "He is son to that Mrs Bellingham of the Priory, for whom we made the
grey satin pelisse," answered Jenny, sleepily.
    "That was before my time," said Ruth. But there was no answer. Jenny
was asleep.
    It was long before Ruth followed her example. Even on a winter day,
it was clear morning light that fell upon her face as she smiled in
her slumber. Jenny would not waken her, but watched her face with
admiration; it was so lovely in its happiness.
    "She is dreaming of last night," thought Jenny.
    It was true she was; but one figure flitted more than all the rest
through her visions. He presented flower after flower to her in that
baseless morning dream, which was all too quickly ended. The night
before, she had seen her dead mother in her sleep, and she wakened,
weeping. And now she dreamed of Mr Bellingham, and smiled.
    And yet, was this a more evil dream than the other?
    The realities of life seemed to cut more sharply against her heart
than usual that morning. The late hours of the preceding nights, and
perhaps the excitement of the evening before, had indisposed her to
bear calmly the rubs and crosses which beset all Mrs Mason's young
ladies at times.
    For Mrs Mason, though the first dressmaker in the county, was human
after all; and suffered, like her apprentices, from the same causes
that affected them. This morning she was disposed to find fault
with everything, and everybody. She seemed to have risen with the
determination of putting the world and all that it contained (her
world, at least) to rights before night; and abuses and negligences,
which had long passed unreproved, or winked at, were to-day to
be dragged to light, and sharply reprimanded. Nothing less than
perfection would satisfy Mrs Mason at such times.
    She had her ideas of justice, too; but they were not divinely
beautiful and true ideas; they were something more resembling
a grocer's, or tea-dealer's ideas of equal right. A little
over-indulgence last night was to be balanced by a good deal of
over-severity to-day; and this manner of rectifying previous errors
fully satisfied her conscience.
    Ruth was not inclined for, or capable of, much extra exertion; and it
would have tasked all her powers to have pleased her superior. The
work-room seemed filled with sharp calls. "Miss Hilton! where have
you put the blue Persian? Whenever things are mislaid, I know it has
been Miss Hilton's evening for siding away!"
    "Miss Hilton was going out last night, so I offered to clear the
workroom for her. I will find it directly, ma'am," answered one of
the girls.
    "Oh, I am well aware of Miss Hilton's custom of shuffling off her
duties upon any one who can be induced to relieve her," replied Mrs
Mason.
    Ruth reddened, and tears sprang to her eyes; but she was so conscious
of the falsity of the accusation, that she rebuked herself for being
moved by it, and,