rn to them again, by-and-by.
But at Sweetwater she could think things out, and she had great need of
thinking.

He yielded. He was passionately in love and could deny her nothing.
He would ride over and pay his respects once a week.

So he took his leave, and Ruth abode with the Corderys and Miss Quiney.
Disloyal though she felt it, she caught herself wishing, more than once,
that her lord could have taken dear Tatty back with him to Boston.

I desire to depict Ruth Josselin here as the woman she was, not as an
angel.

Now Tatty, when Sir Oliver had led Ruth indoors and presented her as his
affianced wife, had been taken aback; not scandalised, but decidedly--
and, for so slight a creature, heavily--taken aback. It is undoubted
that she loved Ruth dearly; nay, so dearly that in a general way no
fortune was too high to befall her darling. What dreams she had
entertained for her I cannot tell. Very likely they had been at once
splendid and vague. Miss Quiney was not worldly-wise, yet her wisdom
did not transcend what little she knew of the world. She had great
notions of Family, for example. She had imagined, may be--still in a
vague way--that Sir Oliver would some day provide his _protegee_ with a
mate of good, or at least sufficient, Colonial birth. She had been
outraged by Lady Caroline's suggestions. Now this, while it
triumphantly refuted them, did seem to show that Lady Caroline had not
altogether lacked ground for suspicion.

In fine, the dear creature received a shock, and in her flurry could not
dissemble it.

Sir Oliver did not perceive this. In the first flush of conquest all
men are a trifle fatuous, unobservant. No woman is. Miss Quiney's arms
did not suddenly go out to Ruth. Ruth noted it. She was just: she
understood. But (I repeat) she was a woman, and women remember
indelibly whatever small thing happens at this crisis of their lives.

In the end Miss Quiney stretched forth her arms; but at first she seemed
to shrivel and grow very small in her chair. Nor can her first comment
be called adequate,--

"Dear sir--oh, but excuse me!--this is so sudden!"

Later, when she and Ruth were left alone, she explained, still a little
tremulously, "You took me all of a heap, my dear! I can hardly realise
it, even now. . . . Such a splendid position! You will go to London,
I doubt not; and be presented at Court; and be called Lady Vyell. . . .
Have you thought of the responsibilities?"

Sh