When Ruth wanted a thing she wanted it very much, and at once. With strangers she always got it. Her beauty, combined with her manner--when she chose--were irresistible, it appeared, to all human males between the ages of ten and one hundred. She could smile the smile that routed reason and paralyzed all powers of resistance. This smile, as she grew older, with the sensitive mouth and conquering eyes, never lost its charm. And the unsuspecting Cyrus was either brave or timid, patient or angry, happy or unhappy, at the witch's will. Moreover, his mental processes were quite different from those of Ruth. He was slower in reaching conclusions. Her own swift decisions amazed him. She dazzled him at times, by a mysterious intuitive agency whose lightning turns he did not pretend to follow. Cyrus, more than other boys, was a lover of beautiful things. Flowers, pictures, music, color, all gave him pleasure. In the presence of an American sunset he would sit in solemn adoration. To this lover of beautiful things Ruth's eyes were as windows of heaven. Into them he could look and wonder; quit the earth and imagine all things. They soothed and stirred his fancy like summer skies and solemn woods--or flowers and thunderstorms. And when they rested on him, in reproach, they filled him with delectable guilt. Ruth and Truth were one and inseparable. Truth was part of herself. Truth and Cyrus, on the other hand, sometimes parted company. And they parted easily. Truth was a good thing--he knew that. But there seemed to be occasions when Truth and Wisdom did not pull together; when the immediate results were disastrous. When those moments came he preferred the exercise of his own wits; the triumphs of his own invention. And his invention was rich and ready. On one occasion, when rebuked by his father for telling a lie, he replied, after a moment's thought, and with earnest conviction: "I don't see any fun in telling the truth all the time. Anybody can do it." However, aside from this little matter of despising Truth, he was a reliable boy. He kept his promises. And it should be said in justice that, while an easy and successful liar, his mind was open to reason and he could be made to realize the sin and folly of his ways. His interview with Uncle Hector, for instance, showed a willingness to see the light. Uncle Hector kept the store. He was seventy-five years old, tall, very erect, wore a green wig and was a bachelor. The wig was not really green, but certain tints of its original golden brown had changed, in the passing years, to a peculiar greenish yellow. His own original virtues, however, had not deteriorated. He was honest and true. Everybody liked him, and all the children called him Uncle. He wore dark clothes, and a stiff, old fashioned collar--a sort of dickey--for he had a hired man to do the rough work about the place.