To this end he himself had endeavored to teach her to read and translate Hebrew. She would not learn. Even now as a woman she understood but a very few words, and this scanty knowledge was mechanical. A parrot might have learned as much. She had an aversion to Jewish society. As a child, when she was necessarily in leading strings, she was taken by Rachel to the synagogue on every Sabbath day, but when she began to have intelligent ideas she rebelled; she would not go, and Rachel walked to the house of God alone. It was a grief to her that Ruth would not follow in her footsteps, and she and Aaron had frequently conversed upon the subject. "It was so with many Jewish women," Aaron said. "It would be wrong to force her; she will find out her error by and by." But Ruth never did, and Rachel suffered in silence. There was another sorrow. Between their son Joseph and Ruth did not exist that love which brother and sister should bear each other. Joseph was ready with demonstrative affection, but Ruth did not respond. Aaron had taken note of this, but he was powerless to remedy it, and the lad, who was as solicitous as his father to spare the dear mother pain, made no trouble of it. Ruth respected and admired her reputed father, and in the feelings she entertained toward him there was an element of fear, because of his strength of character, but she did not love him as a child should. He, knowing what he knew, found excuses for her. "It is in her blood," he said to himself. All this was hidden from Rachel, to whom Ruth was tender and kind. Who could be otherwise to so sweet a woman? But Rachel did not know of what she was deprived until Rose Moss began to make long visits to their home. "Rose is like a daughter to me," she said, and only Aaron was aware of the depth of meaning these simple words conveyed. But now he had to consider the matter, not from his or Rachel's point of view, but from Ruth's. She was a woman in her springtime, and love had come to her, and she had held out her arms to it. And the man she loved was a Christian. It was not within his right to take into consideration that the man she loved was a spendthrift and a scapegrace. The question had often intruded itself, since she was grown to womanhood, whether he would not be adding sin to sin by encouraging her to marry a Jew. She had answered the question herself. What right had he to gainsay her? He might, as a true and sincere friend, say to her: "This man will not make you happy. He has vices and defects which will bring misery upon your home. You must not marry him." But he had no right to say to her: "You must not marry this man, because he is a Christian." It would be a detestable argument for one in his position, and in hers, to advance.