Ruth had put it in a very nice filial way. She had pleaded that she could not bear to be separated from her parents or to leave them in their old age, and that, as Ned was agreeable, it would be so nice for them all to live together. ‘And besides, mamma,’ she added, ‘look what a saving it will be to us all to have a nice large house between us.’ ‘Ah, yes, that’s all very well,’ answered Mrs. Adrian; ‘but who’s to be mistress? You know, my dear, I have my little fancies, and so have you. It won’t do for me to tell the servants one thing and you to tell them another. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and perhaps cause words between you and your husband.’ ‘Oh, nonsense, mamma!’ said Ruth, with a little laugh. ‘You shall have your own apartments, and one day I’ll be mistress and the next day you shall. There—won’t it be fun!’ ‘I don’t know, my dear. I’m too old to play at keeping house.’ Ruth persisted in her attempts to make the old lady enter into her plans, and at last she succeeded. Mrs. Adrian was secretly gratified by her daughter’s unwillingness to be separated from her, and she was flattered by Marston’s plea that she would be so useful to two young housekeepers. A new house was to be taken, and she was asked to fix the locality. She was to help choose the furniture, and her voice was to be paramount in everything. Their plan succeeded admirably. In about a fortnight the old lady was heard to talk about ‘my new house,’ and in three weeks it was Ruth and Marston who were to be specially favoured by being allowed to live in it. Marston was delighted. He was positively enthusiastic over curtains and carpets, and he ran about with long lists of domestic requirements in his pockets with the glee of a child who is buying ornaments for a Christmas-tree. He was in the first glow of a new happiness—the happiness of doing something to benefit his fellow-creatures. He was secretly delighted that the Adrians were ruined. It would be a pleasure to him to support them, to make their later days happy. As to Ruth, he worshipped her. Never had damsel more devoted swain; and she, thinking of his many deeds of kindness to her and hers, would often lift up her eyes with thankfulness to heaven and thank God for giving her the love of so loyal and devoted a man. And to think she had once doubted him, believed him a bad, wicked man at the very time when he was nobly atoning for the follies of his neglected, over-tempted youth! Marston saw a good deal of Gertie now, and he took a new interest in the child. Now and then she would talk of the old life in Little Queer Street, and of her grandfather, and the animals, and of the strange gentlemen who used to come there. Seeing the child so constantly, Marston’s thoughts often reverted to her strange career and the life histories bound up in it. What he knew of Gertie he had never breathed to Ruth. His shot at Gurth Egerton had been a chance one, but it had evidently hit home.