"Now we must stop talking, and act," he went on. "I must get William Menire to lend me his trap, and I must drive over to see mother." "That will be lovely, for then I can ride with you, for I must be in by seven o'clock." "What?" "This is an extra day off, you know." "Are you cook, or housemaid, or what?" "I am sewing maid," she answered. "The Varcoes have a big family of children, you know, and I have really as much as I can do with the making and mending." "What, Varcoes the Quakers?" "Yes. And they have really been exceedingly kind to me. They took me without references, and have done their best to make me comfortable. There are some good people in the world, Ralph." "It would be a sorry world if there weren't," he answered. And then William Menire and his mother entered. A few minutes later a substantial dinner was served, and for the next hour William fluttered about his guests unmindful of how his customers fared. Had not Ralph been so busy with his own thoughts, and Ruth so taken up with her brother, they would have both seen in what direction William's inclinations lay. He would gladly have kept them both if he could, and hailed their presence as a dispensation of Providence. Ruth looked lovelier in William's eyes than she had ever done, and to be her friend was the supreme ambition of his life. He insisted on driving them to St. Hilary, but demanded as a first condition that Ralph should return with him to St. Goram. "You can stay here," he said, "until you can get work or suit yourself with better lodgings. You can't sleep in the open air, and you may as well stay with me as with anybody else." This, on the face of it, seemed a reasonable enough proposition, and with this understanding Ralph climbed into the back of the trap, Ruth riding on the front seat with William. Never did a driver feel more proud than William felt that afternoon. It was not that he was doing a kindly and neighbourly deed; there was much more in his jubilation than that. He had by his side, so he believed, the fairest girl in the three parishes. William watched with no ordinary interest and curiosity the face of everyone they met, and when he saw some admiring pairs of eyes resting upon his companion, his own eyes sparkled with a brighter light. William thought very little of Ralph, who was sitting at his back, and who kept up a conversation with Ruth over his left shoulder. It was Ruth who filled his thoughts and awakened in his heart a new and strange sensation. He did not talk himself. He was content to listen, content to catch the sweet undertone of a voice that was sweeter and softer than St. Goram bells on a stormy night; content to feel, when the trap lurched, the pressure of Ruth's arm against his own. He did not drive rapidly. Why should he? This was a red-letter day in the grey monotony of his life, a day to be remembered when business was bad and profits small, and his mother's temper had more rough edges in it than usual.