heir lives into harmony with the will of God, they often
erred and fell short; but, somehow, the very errors and faults of one
individual served to call out higher excellences in another, and so
they reacted upon each other, and the result of short discords was
exceeding harmony and peace. But they had themselves no idea of the
real state of things; they did not trouble themselves with marking
their progress by self-examination; if Mr Benson did sometimes, in
hours of sick incapacity for exertion, turn inwards, it was to cry
aloud with almost morbid despair, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
But he strove to leave his life in the hands of God, and to forget
himself.

Ruth sat still and quiet through the long first day. She was languid
and weary from her journey; she was uncertain what help she might
offer to give in the household duties, and what she might not. And,
in her languor and in her uncertainty, it was pleasant to watch the
new ways of the people among whom she was placed. After breakfast,
Mr Benson withdrew to his study, Miss Benson took away the cups
and saucers, and, leaving the kitchen door open, talked sometimes
to Ruth, sometimes to Sally, while she washed them up. Sally had
upstairs duties to perform, for which Ruth was thankful, as she kept
receiving rather angry glances for her unpunctuality as long as Sally
remained downstairs. Miss Benson assisted in the preparation for the
early dinner, and brought some kidney-beans to shred into a basin of
bright, pure spring-water, which caught and danced in the sunbeams
as she sat near the open casement of the parlour, talking to Ruth of
things and people which as yet the latter did not understand, and
could not arrange and comprehend. She was like a child who gets a few
pieces of a dissected map, and is confused until a glimpse of the
whole unity is shown him. Mr and Mrs Bradshaw were the centre pieces
in Ruth's map; their children, their servants, were the accessories;
and one or two other names were occasionally mentioned. Ruth wondered
and almost wearied at Miss Benson's perseverance in talking to her
about people whom she did not know; but, in truth, Miss Benson heard
the long-drawn, quivering sighs which came from the poor heavy heart,
when it was left to silence, and had leisure to review the past;
and her quick accustomed ear caught also the low mutterings of the
thunder in the distance, in the shape of Sally's soliloquies, which,
like the asides at a th