n her face, an indefinable want,
that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely,
where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly
parted, betrays it most.

Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good
deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of _gaucherie_, is
nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very
charming, and apt to linger in the memory.

She is an only child, and all through her young life has been petted
and caressed rather more than is good for any one. Her father had
married, somewhat late in life, a woman in every way his superior,
and, she dying two years after her marriage, he had fallen back for
consolation upon the little one left to his sole care. To him, she was
a pride, a delight, a creature precious beyond words, on whom the sun
must shine gently and the rain fall not at all.

A shy child from the first, Ruth had declined acquaintance with the
villagers, who would, one and all, have been glad to succor the
motherless girl. Perhaps the little drop of gentle blood inherited
from her mother had thriven in her veins, and thus rendered her
distant and somewhat repellent in her manners to those in her own rank
of life.

She had been sent early to a private school, had been carefully
educated far above her position, and had come home again to her
father, with all the pretty airs and unconscious softness of manner
that, as a rule, belong to good birth.

She is warm-hearted, passionate, impulsive, and singularly
reserved,--so much so that few guess at the terrible power to love, or
hate, or suffer, in silence, that lies within her. She is a special
favorite with Miss Peyton and the vicarage people (Mr. and Mrs Redmond
and their five children), with those at Hythe, and indeed with most of
the country people, Miss Scrope excepted, who gives it freely as her
opinion that she will come to no good "with her books and her high
society and general fiddle-faddling." Nobody knows what this last
means, and every one is afraid to ask.

Just now, with her pretty head bare, and her hand shading her eyes,
she is gazing down the dusty road. Her whole attitude denotes
expectancy. Every feature (she is off her guard) expresses intense and
hopeful longing,--

"Fiery Titan, who
----with his peccant heat
Has dried up the lusty liquor new
Upon the herbis in the greene mead,"

has plainly fallen in love with