he watched
her sleeping child, she spoke to Miss Benson, with whom she happened
to be alone.

"Do you know of any cottage where the people are clean, and where
they would not mind taking me in?" asked she.

"Taking you in! What do you mean?" said Miss Benson, dropping her
knitting, in order to observe Ruth more closely.

"I mean," said Ruth, "where I might lodge with my baby--any very poor
place would do, only it must be clean, or he might be ill."

"And what in the world do you want to go and lodge in a cottage for?"
said Miss Benson, indignantly.

Ruth did not lift up her eyes, but she spoke with a firmness which
showed that she had considered the subject.

"I think I could make dresses. I know I did not learn as much as I
might, but perhaps I might do for servants, and people who are not
particular."

"Servants are as particular as any one," said Miss Benson, glad to
lay hold of the first objection that she could.

"Well! somebody who would be patient with me," said Ruth.

"Nobody is patient over an ill-fitting gown," put in Miss Benson.
"There's the stuff spoilt, and what not!"

"Perhaps I could find plain work to do," said Ruth, very meekly.
"That I can do very well; mamma taught me, and I liked to learn from
her. If you would be so good, Miss Benson, you might tell people I
could do plain work very neatly, and punctually, and cheaply."

"You'd get sixpence a day, perhaps," said Miss Benson, "and who would
take care of baby, I should like to know? Prettily he'd be neglected,
would not he? Why, he'd have the croup and the typhus fever in no
time, and be burnt to ashes after."

"I have thought of all. Look how he sleeps! Hush, darling;" for just
at this point he began to cry, and to show his determination to be
awake, as if in contradiction to his mother's words. Ruth took him
up, and carried him about the room while she went on speaking.

"Yes, just now I know he will not sleep; but very often he will, and
in the night he always does."

"And so you'd work in the night and kill yourself, and leave your
poor baby an orphan. Ruth! I'm ashamed of you. Now, brother" (Mr
Benson had just come in), "is not this too bad of Ruth; here she is
planning to go away and leave us, just as we--as I, at least, have
grown so fond of baby, and he's beginning to know me."

"Where were you thinking of going to, Ruth?" interrupted Mr Benson,
with mild surprise.

"Anywhere to be near you and Miss Benson; in any poor co