into the
nursery, for something to amuse her. It was full of all sorts of
toys--dolls, and dolls' houses elegantly furnished, pictures and books
and many pretty things; but in spite of all these she often found
nothing to please her, for what she wanted more than anything else was a
companion of her own age, and she had no brothers or sisters.

The dolls, however much she pretended, were never glad, or sorry, or
happy, or miserable--they could not answer her when she talked to them,
and their beautiful bright eyes had a hard unfeeling look which became
very tiring, for it never changed.

There was certainly Nurse Smith. She was alive and real enough; there
was no necessity to "pretend" anything about her. She was always there,
sitting upright and flat-backed beside her work-basket, frowning a
little, not because she was cross, but because she was rather
near-sighted. She had come when Ruth was quite a baby, after Mrs.
Lorimer's death, and Aunt Clarkson often spoke of her as "a treasure".
However that might be, she was not an amusing companion; though she did
her best to answer all Ruth's questions, and was always careful of her
comfort, and particular about her being neatly dressed.

Perhaps it was not her fault that she did not understand games, and was
quite unable to act the part of any other character than her own. If she
did make the attempt, she failed so miserably that Ruth had to tell her
what to say, which made it so flat and uninteresting that she found it
better to play alone. But she often became weary of this; and there were
times when she was tired of her toys, and tired of Nurse Smith, and did
not know what in the world to do with herself.

Each day passed much in the same way. Ruth's governess came to teach her
for an hour every morning, and then after her early dinner there was a
walk with Nurse, generally in one direction. And after tea it was time
to go and see her father--quite a long journey, through the silent
house, down the long stairs to the dining-room where he sat alone at
his dessert.

Ruth could not remember her mother, and she saw so little of her father
that he seemed almost a stranger to her. He was so wonderfully busy, and
the world he lived in was such a great way off from hers in the nursery.

In the morning he hurried away just as she was at her breakfast, and all
she knew of him was the resounding slam of the hall door, which came
echoing up the staircase. Very often in the eve