"Pooh! pshaw! stuff! no such thing. You are well enough, or will be, before long. Now, there's a girl's board to begin with. Servant girls eat like boa-constrictors. Then, there's the soap and oil she'll waste;--oh, the thing isn't to be thought of; it is perfectly ruinous. If you hadn't made a fool of Harry, he never could have dreamed of it. You ought to have sense enough to check him, when he would go into such extravagances for you, but some people _haven't_ any sense. Where would all the sugar, and starch, and soap, go to, I'd like to know, if we were to have a second girl in the house? How long would the wood-pile, or pitch-kindlings, or our new copper-boiler last? And who is to keep the back gate bolted, with such a chit flying in and out?" "Will you please hand me that camphor bottle?" said Ruth, laying her hand upon her throbbing forehead. * * * * * "How's my little snow-drop to-day?" said Harry, entering Ruth's room as his mother swept out; "what ails your eyes, Ruth?" said her husband, removing the little hands which hid them. "A sudden pain," said Ruth, laughing gaily; "it has gone now; the camphor was too strong." Good Ruth! brave Ruth! Was Harry deceived? Something ails _his_ eyes, now; but Ruth has too much tact to notice it. Oh Love! thou skilful teacher! learned beyond all the wisdom of the schools. CHAPTER X "You will be happy here, dear Ruth," said Harry; "you will be your own mistress." Ruth danced about, from room to room, with the careless glee of a happy child, quite forgetful that she was a wife and a mother; quite unable to repress the flow of spirits consequent upon her new-found freedom. Ruth's new house was about five miles from the city. The approach to it was through a lovely winding lane, a little off the main road, skirted on either side by a thick grove of linden and elms, where the wild grape-vine leaped, clinging from branch to branch, festooning its ample clusters in prodigal profusion of fruitage, and forming a dense shade, impervious to the most garish noon-day heat; while beneath, the wild brier-rose unfolded its perfumed leaves in the hedges, till the bees and humming-birds went reeling away, with their honeyed treasures.