"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her--she and I are old friends--she might make an exception in favor of the crescent." And she did. * * * * * SIR CHARLES DANVERS. CHAPTER I. "Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more--and as hardly hears a body speak from morning till night." "Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I expect to see the latch go every minute." "Well, and if they do; and some folks are always a-dropping in, and a-setting theirselves down, and a clack-clacking till a body can't get a bit of peace! And the things they say! Eh? Miss Ruth, the things I have heard folks say, a setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in." To the uninitiated, Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to photography. But Ruth knew better; a visitation from the Lord being synonymous in Slumberleigh Parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning late from the Blue Dragon "not quite hisself." "Lor'!" resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, "there's a deal of talk in the village now," glancing inquisitively at the visitor, "about him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales." They made a pleasant contrast to each other, the neat old woman, with her shrewd spectacled eyes and active, hard-worked fingers, and the young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender ungloved hands in her lap. They were not sitting in the front parlor, because Ruth was an old acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles _had_ a front parlor--a front parlor with the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in the fireplace. Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the books; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax-flowers; she had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the price of the "real Brussels" carpet, and so she might safely be permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's socks.