ord held music, though Miss
Quiney's touch upon it was formal and lifeless. . . . In these eighteen
months Ruth Josselin had been learning eagerly, teaching herself in a
hundred ways and by devices of which she wist not. Yet always she was
conscious of the final purpose of this preparation; nay, it possessed
her, mastered her. For whatever fate her lord designed her, she would
be worthy of it.

He never came. For eighteen months she had not seen him. Was it
carelessly or in delicacy that he withheld his face? Or peradventure in
displeasure? Her heart would stand still at times, and her face pale
with the fear of it. She could not bethink her of having displeased
him; but it might well be that he repented of his vast condescension.
Almost without notice, and without any reason given, he had deported her
to this house on the hill. . . . Yet, if he repented, why did he
continue to wrap her around with kindness? Why had she these good
clothes, and food and drink, servants to wait on her, tutors to teach
her--everything, in short, but liberty and young companions and his
presence that most of all she desired and dreaded?

On the slope to the south-west of the house, in a dingle well screened
with willow and hickory, a stream of water gushed from the living rock
and had been channelled downhill over a stairway of flat boulders, so
that it dropped in a series of miniature cascades before shooting out of
sight over the top of a ferny hollow. The spot was a favourite one with
Dicky, for between the pendent willow boughs, as through a frame, it
overlooked the shipping and the broad bosom of the Charles. Ruth and he
stole away to it, unperceived of Miss Quiney; to a nook close beside the
spray of the fall, where on a boulder the girl could sit and read while
Dick wedged his back into a cushion of moss, somewhat higher up the
slope, and recumbent settled himself so as to bring (luxurious young
dog!) her face in profile between him and the shining distance.

She had stipulated for silence while she read her lesson over; but he at
once began to beg off.

"If you won't let me talk," he grumbled, "the least you can do is to
read aloud."

"But it's the Bible," she objected.

"Oh, well, I don't mind. Only choose something interesting. David and
Goliath, or that shipwreck in the Acts."

"You don't seem to understand that this is a lesson, and I must read
what Mr. Hichens sets. To-day it's about Hagar and Ishmael."