Broadnax were always governed entirely by
hers. But they, also, went at last with Ruth to assist the stouter lady
in getting up the stairs.

The girl came flying down again, with her eyes dancing and her heart
playing a tune. Philip Alston rose as she approached, and stood awaiting
her with a look on his face that she had never seen before.

"You are tired, dear uncle Philip," she said, taking his hand and
holding it against her cheek as she raised her radiant eyes to his face.
"Come to the fire and take this big chair. I will sit on the footstool
at your knee. There, now! You can rest and be happy. Isn't it sweet to
be alone--just you and I--together like this! I love you so dearly, dear
uncle Philip. It seems as if I had never before really known just how
much I do love you. It seems as if my heart couldn't hold quite all the
happiness that fills it to-night. And the tenderness filling it to the
brim brings a new feeling of your goodness to me."

She had taken the low seat by his side, and now laid her head down on
his knee. He stroked her hair with an unsteady hand; sorely troubled and
not knowing what to say. He suddenly looked very old, and felt more
helpless than ever before in his life. Looking down on this beautiful
head he realized in every sensitive fibre of his soul and body that this
lovely young creature, clinging to his knee, was the one thing in the
whole world that he had ever loved--deeply, truly, purely, and
unselfishly; that her gentle heart was the only heart out of all the
hearts beating on the earth that had ever loved him as the innocent love
the good. Thinking of this he shrank and trembled, feeling that he held
in his grasp a fragile treasure precious beyond all price, which a rude
touch might destroy forever. He knew the evil reputation which rumor had
given him, and he had seen that Paul Colbert believed the worst. There
had been no disguise in the expression of the young doctor's eyes. His
gaze bold and keen as an unhooded falcon's, had frankly proclaimed his
dislike and mistrust, making it only too plain that he asked no favor by
pretending ignorance or on the score of any friendliness that he did not
feel. His look and attitude had indeed been so unmistakable that Philip
Alston now wondered in sudden terror if she had not already observed
them, and he--who had feared nothing in all his life--quailed and
quivered before this sudden fear with abject cowardice. In another
moment he knew that