urt. Cynical people are
never disappointed in others, as I so often am, because they expect the
worst. In theory I respect and admire my fellow-creatures, but they
continually exasperate me because they won't allow me to do so in real
life. I have still--I blush to own it--a lingering respect for women,
though they have taken pains to show me, time after time, what a fool I
am for such a weakness."

Charles looked intently at Ruth. Women are so terribly apt in handling
any subject to make it personal. Would she fire up, or would she, like
so many women, join in abuse of her own sex? She did neither. She was
looking straight in front of her, absently watching the figures of Dare
and Molly in the next field. Then she turned her grave, thoughtful
glance towards him.

"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of
strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in
cunning people who are never taken in. The best people I have known, the
people whom it did me good to be with, have been those who respected
others and themselves. Do not be in too great a hurry to get rid of any
little fragment that still remains. You may want it when it is gone."

Charles's apathetic face had become strangely earnest. There was a keen,
searching look in his tired, restless eyes. He was about to make some
answer, when he suddenly became aware of Dare and Molly sitting perched
on a gate close at hand waiting for them. Never had he perceived Molly's
little brown face with less pleasure than at that moment. She scrambled
down with a noble disregard of appearances, and tried to take his hand.
But it was coolly withdrawn. Charles fell behind on some pretence of
fastening the gate, and Molly had to content herself with Ruth's and
Dare's society for the remainder of the walk.

Ruth had almost forgotten, until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic
for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday
morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed"
several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin
respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to
consider unsuited to the ears of that lady's niece.

"But if you go away, Cousin Ruth, we can't have the picnic. Can we,
Uncle Charles?"

"Impossible, Molly. Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit
in the open air without Miss Deyncourt."

"Is Mrs. Alwynn suffering?" asked Lady Mary,