Ruth did not lift up her eyes, but she spoke with a firmness which showed that she had considered the subject. "I think I could make dresses. I know I did not learn as much as I might, but perhaps I might do for servants, and people who are not particular." "Servants are as particular as any one," said Miss Benson, glad to lay hold of the first objection that she could. "Well! somebody who would be patient with me," said Ruth. "Nobody is patient over an ill-fitting gown," put in Miss Benson. "There's the stuff spoilt, and what not!" "Perhaps I could find plain work to do," said Ruth, very meekly. "That I can do very well; mamma taught me, and I liked to learn from her. If you would be so good, Miss Benson, you might tell people I could do plain work very neatly, and punctually, and cheaply." "You'd get sixpence a day, perhaps," said Miss Benson, "and who would take care of baby, I should like to know? Prettily he'd be neglected, would not he? Why, he'd have the croup and the typhus fever in no time, and be burnt to ashes after." "I have thought of all. Look how he sleeps! Hush, darling;" for just at this point he began to cry, and to show his determination to be awake, as if in contradiction to his mother's words. Ruth took him up, and carried him about the room while she went on speaking. "Yes, just now I know he will not sleep; but very often he will, and in the night he always does." "And so you'd work in the night and kill yourself, and leave your poor baby an orphan. Ruth! I'm ashamed of you. Now, brother" (Mr Benson had just come in), "is not this too bad of Ruth; here she is planning to go away and leave us, just as we--as I, at least, have grown so fond of baby, and he's beginning to know me." "Where were you thinking of going to, Ruth?" interrupted Mr Benson, with mild surprise. "Anywhere to be near you and Miss Benson; in any poor cottage where I might lodge very cheaply, and earn my livelihood by taking in plain sewing, and perhaps a little dressmaking; and where I could come and see you and dear Miss Benson sometimes and bring baby." "If he was not dead before then of some fever, or burn, or scald, poor neglected child; or you had not worked yourself to death with never sleeping," said Miss Benson. Mr Benson thought a minute or two, and then he spoke to Ruth. "Whatever you may do when this little fellow is a year old, and able to dispense with some of a mother's care, let me beg you, Ruth, as a favour to me--as a still greater favour to my sister, is it not, Faith?" "Yes; you may put it so if you like."