aven't had the chance to learn."

CHAPTER IX

A fault recognized, it was Ruth's nature to be lavish of atonement, and
by way of further expiation she consented a day or two later to make
one of a driving party of Mrs. Hilliard's to hear Shelby speak in a
village located "down north," as the local vernacular had it, near the
shore of Lake Ontario. Ruth cared little for Mrs. Hilliard. She saw
her through feminine eyes, and Mrs. Hilliard was not popular with
women. But Shelby had privily told her of the project and begged her
to accept.

"I had planned to rent the Tuscarora House tallyho and go with some
eclat," the lady lamented at the eleventh hour, "but the way people
have disappointed me is positively harrowing. There was Bernard
Graves--I pinned my childlike faith on him; but he sent regrets. And
Mr. and Mrs. Bowers. Wouldn't you think that they, of all people,
would wish to go? But no; Mrs. Bowers said it did her rheumatic
shoulder no good to traipse around nights,--that was her
expression,--and Mr. Bowers actually told me that he was too busy
organizing political meetings to want to attend them. Isn't he droll?
Then Mr. Hewett had a sermon to prepare; and Dr. Crandall had a case of
diphtheria to watch; and Volney Sprague--well, I really did not dare
ask him, he was so horrid in his paper about Mr. Shelby's splendid
speech. So one and all they began to make excuses, as the Bible says,
till it has simmered down to you, dear Ruth, and Joe, and Mr. Shelby,
and me."

"Oh," said Ruth, with misgiving.

"A sort of survival of the fittest, don't you know, as somebody or
other says. Was it Shakespeare? He really seems to have written all
the clever things."

"No," Ruth replied with gravity; "it wasn't Shakespeare."

"Really? I thought it sounded Shakespearian. Well, as I was telling
you, it has come to a jolly little company of four in my surrey, which,
after all, is perhaps nicer than a dozen in a tallyho, though of course
it won't impress the voters as much."

Ruth's eyebrows arched.

"Is that the object of our going?"

"What an idea, my dear!" Nevertheless, she colored. "We'll start
early enough for a fish supper at the Lakeview Inn," she rattled on.
"You know how good their fish suppers are. And perhaps we shall have
time to stop at the camp-meeting of those ridiculous Free Methodists
which is in full swing at the grove behind the hotel. Joe says that it
will be the last night of the c