d you not say it would do them
both good to see something of each other?"

Mr Benson sat thinking.

"If you had not known Ruth as well as you do--if during her stay
with us you had marked anything wrong, or forward, or deceitful, or
immodest, I would say at once, 'Don't allow Mr Bradshaw to take her
into his house;' but still I would say, 'Don't tell of her sin and
her sorrow to so severe a man--so unpitiful a judge.' But here I
ask you, Thurstan, can you, or I, or Sally (quick-eyed as she is),
say, that in any one thing we have had true, just occasion to find
fault with Ruth? I don't mean that she is perfect--she acts without
thinking, her temper is sometimes warm and hasty; but have we any
right to go and injure her prospects for life, by telling Mr Bradshaw
all we know of her errors--only sixteen when she did so wrong, and
never to escape from it all her many years to come--to have the
despair which would arise from its being known, clutching her back
into worse sin? What harm do you think she can do? What is the risk
to which you think you are exposing Mr Bradshaw's children?" She
paused, out of breath, her eyes glittering with tears of indignation,
and impatient for an answer, that she might knock it to pieces.

"I do not see any danger that can arise," said he at length, and with
slow difficulty, as if not fully convinced. "I have watched Ruth, and
I believe she is pure and truthful; and the very sorrow and penitence
she has felt--the very suffering she has gone through--has given her
a thoughtful conscientiousness beyond her age."

"That and the care of her baby," said Miss Benson, secretly delighted
at the tone of her brother's thoughts.

"Ah, Faith! that baby you so much dreaded once, is turning out a
blessing, you see," said Thurstan, with a faint, quiet smile.

"Yes! any one might be thankful, and better too, for Leonard; but how
could I tell that it would be like him?"

"But to return to Ruth and Mr Bradshaw. What did you say?"

"Oh! with my feelings, of course, I was only too glad to accept the
proposal, and so I told Mrs Bradshaw then; and I afterwards repeated
it to Mr Bradshaw, when he asked me if his wife had mentioned their
plans. They would understand that I must consult you and Ruth, before
it could be considered as finally settled."

"And have you named it to her?"

"Yes," answered Miss Benson, half afraid lest he should think she had
been too precipitate.

"And what did she say?" aske