ourse," said Ruth, simply. "I told him
I knew you and William would like to thank him. He is coming to-day. I
hope, uncle Robert, that you will be here when he does come."

"I shall be here to thank him," said William. "Uncle need take no
trouble in the matter. I will do all that is necessary."

A woman must be deeply in love before she likes to hear the note of
ownership in a man's voice when speaking of herself. Ruth was not at all
in love--in that way--although she did not yet know that she was not.
The delicate roses of her cheeks deepened suddenly to the tint of the
rich red ones which she held again in her hands. Her blue eyes darkened
with revolt, and she gave William a clear, level look, throwing up her
head. Then her soft heart smote her, and her gentle spirit reproached
her. She believed William Pressley to be a good man, and she was ever
ready to feel herself in the wrong. She got up in a timid flurry and
went to the door and stood a moment looking out at the sun-lit river.
Presently she quietly returned, and shyly pausing behind William's
chair, rested her hand on the back of it. There was a timid apology in
the gesture. She was thinking only of her own shortcomings. Had she been
critical of him or even observant, she would have seen that there was
something peculiarly characteristic in the very way that he handled his
knife and fork; a curious, satisfied self-consciousness in the very
lift of his wrists which seemed to say that this, and no other, was the
correct manner of eating, and that he disapproved of everybody else's
manner. But she saw nothing of the kind, for hers was not the poor
affection that stands ever ready to pick flaws. He did not know that she
was near him until the judge spoke to her; and then he sprang to his
feet at once. He was much too fine a gentleman to keep his seat while
any lady stood. Ruth smilingly motioned him back to his chair, and going
round the table, leant over the judge's shoulder. He had been examining
a packet of legal papers, and he laid a yellow document before her,
spreading it out on the table-cloth.

"You were asking the other day about the buffalo--when they were here,
and so on. Now, listen to this old note of hand, dated the fifteenth of
October, seventeen hundred and ninety-two, just nineteen years ago. Here
it is: 'For value Rec'd, I promise to pay Peter Wilson or his Agent,
twenty pounds worth of good market Buffalo Beef free from Boone, to be
delivered at