"Thank God for that news, Ruth. I hoped after that poaching business you would see it in that light, and that he wasn't fit for a mate for one like you. Your mother will be glad, child. She ain't like the same woman as she was, is she?" "No, indeed, father, I do not seem to know her." "I don't know as I was ever so knocked over in my life as I was yesterday, Ruth, when your mother came downstairs in her bonnet and shawl, and said, 'I am going to church with you, Hiram.' I didn't open my lips until we were half-way, and then she said as how it had been borne in on her as how her not being here when you was brought in was a judgment on her for being away at Dareport instead of being at church with us; and she said more than that, as how, now she thought over it, she saw as she hadn't done right by me and you all these years, and hoped to make a better wife what time she was left to us. I wasn't sure at church time as it wasn't a dream to see her sitting there beside me, and joining in the hymns, listening attentive to the parson as she has always been running down. She said on the way home she felt just as she did when she was a girl, five-and-twenty years ago, and used to come over here to church, afore she took up with the Methodies." Ruth kissed her father. "Then my fall has done good after all," she said. "It makes me happy to know it." "I shall be happy when I see you quite yourself again, Ruth. Come back to us soon, dear." "I will, father; in the spring I will come home again for good, I promise you," and so Ruth returned for a time to The Hold. "I am glad you are back again, Ruth," Miss Carne, who had been down several times to see her, said. "I told you not to hurry yourself, and I would have done without you for another month, but you know I am really very glad to have you back again. Mary managed my hair very well, but I could not talk to her as I do to you." Ruth had not been many hours in the house before she learnt from her fellow-servants that Mr. Gulston had been over two or three times since the shooting party, and that the servants in general had an opinion that he came over to see Miss Carne. "It's easy to see that with half an eye," one of the girls said, "and I think Miss Margaret likes him too, and no wonder, for a properer-looking man is not to be seen; but I always thought she would have married her cousin. Every one has thought so for years." "It's much better she should take the sailor gentleman," one of the elder women said. "I am not saying anything against Mr. Ronald, who is as nice a young gentleman as one would want to see, but he is her cousin, and I don't hold to marriages among cousins anyhow, and especially in a family like ours." "I think it is better for us not to talk about it at all," Ruth said, quietly; "I don't think it right and proper, and it will be quite time enough to talk about Miss Margaret's affairs when we know she is engaged."