know!" said Ruth with quick sympathy, "I saw. And you want to get home
quickly and cry. I feel that way myself. But you see I didn't have
anybody there and I'd like to do a little something just to be in it.
Won't you please get in? You'll get home sooner if I take you; and see!
We're blocking the way!"

The woman cast a frightened glance about and assented:

"Of course. I didn't realize!" she said climbing awkwardly in and sitting
bolt upright as uncomfortable as could be in the luxurious car beside the
girl. It was all too plain she did not wish to be there.

Ruth manoeuvred her car quickly out of the crowd and into a side street,
gliding from there to the avenue. She did not speak until they had left
the melting crowd well behind them. Then she turned timidly to the woman:

"You--are--his--_mother_?"

She spoke the words hesitatingly as if she feared to touch a wound. The
woman's eyes suddenly filled again and a curious little quiver came on
the strong chin.

"Yes," she tried to say and smothered the word in her handkerchief
pressed quickly to her lips in an effort to control them.

Ruth laid a cool little touch on the woman's other hand that lay in her
lap:

"Please forgive me!" she said, "I wasn't sure. I know it must be
awful,--cruel--for you!"

"He--is all I have left!" the woman breathed with a quick controlled
gasp, "but, of course--it was--right that he should go!"

She set her lips more firmly and blinked off at the blur of pretty homes
on her right without seeing any of them.

"He would have gone sooner, only he thought he ought not to leave me till
he had to," she said with another proud little quiver in her voice, as if
having once spoken she must go on and say more, "I kept telling him I
would get on all right--but he always was so careful of me--ever since
his father died!"

"Of course!" said Ruth tenderly turning her face away to struggle with a
strange smarting sensation in her own eyes and throat. Then in a low
voice she added:

"I knew him, you know. I used to go to the same school with him when I
was a little bit of a girl."

The woman looked up with a quick searching glance and brushed the tears
away firmly.

"Why, aren't you Ruth Macdonald? _Miss_ Macdonald, I mean--excuse me! You
live in the big house on the hill, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm Ruth Macdonald. Please don't call me Miss. I'm only nineteen
and I still answer to my little girl name," Ruth answered with a charming
smile