The two women were about to lift Ruth between them, for the length of the flower-garden was more than she could hope to walk, when Mrs. Smith came through the gate followed by her husband, who approached the house with evident hesitation, which his wife was eagerly reproving. “Come along, they don’t hold malice, I tell you, besides, they know that you didn’t mean it,” she said. “No wonder you are ashamed of yourself, but that scamp might have imposed on Sampson—no, Solomon—hisself. So just walk in, as if nothing was the matter, and never seem to mind it.” Smith did walk in, looking humble and confused, but his reception was so frank and cordial that he found no difficulty in offering to carry Ruth to the carriage, which had been the object of his visit. So the girl was taken out triumphantly in the powerful arms of their old neighbor, while the other females followed smiling, chatting, and congratulating each other, like a brood of robins, when the strongest fledgling begins to fly. Mrs. Smith shook up the cushions which formed a sort of couch in the carriage, on which the gentle girl was placed in a half recumbent position by Smith, while all the neighborhood looked on from doors and windows, wondering what would happen next to that Laurence family, and if they had really made up with Smith, after that affair about the robbery. There would be no doubt on that subject after that dainty nest of a carriage drove away, for Eva shook hands with Smith before she raised her whip from its socket, and Mrs. Laurence stood talking with him in the most cordial manner by the gate, full ten minutes after it drove off. One of the nearest neighbors heard him say, “You can always depend on me to carry her in and out, Mrs. Laurence. It is the least I can do.” Then all the curious people that had been anxious about the matter, saw Mr. Smith and Mrs. Laurence shake hands over the fence, and they knew that cordial relations had been established between the cottage and the corner grocery. This pleasant thought perhaps served to deepen the exquisite sense of enjoyment that pervaded the whole being of that gentle invalid, as she found herself moving in the open air for the first time almost in her life. The easy motion; for Eva kept her ponies down to a soft unbroken trot; calmed her into a state of dreamy happiness. At first she was a little frightened by the noise of heavy wheels and the rush of life all around her; but Ruth had not won for herself such abiding faith in God’s mercy without putting some trust in human strength. She wondered at the cool dexterity with which Eva guided her pretty equipage through the streets, and shuddered a little now and then, as a carriage rushed by them, so near that it seemed as if there must be a clash of wheels; but this soon wore off, for, with a graceful sweep and a swifter trot the ponies turned into the park, and Ruth found herself in paradise.