e and the two new arrivals, walking with an air
of exaggerated dignity. Reuben, returning to his seat, had to make great
play with his pocket-handkerchief to cover the signs of confusion
which arose at this rebuff. Miss Blythe could scarcely have expressed a
livelier contempt for him if he had been a convicted pick-pocket.

His share of the music went so ill after this that he excited something
like consternation in the minds of his friends.

"What's come to the lad, 'Saiah," asked Sennacherib.

"Bist a bit out o' sorts, Reuben, bisent?" said Isaiah, mildly anxious.

"I can't play to-day," Reuben answered, almost fretfully. "Let us try
again. No. There's nothing the matter. Nothing in the world. Let us try
again."

They tried again, and by dint of great effort Reuben kept control
over himself and escaped further disgrace, although at one time Ruth's
sympathetic, shy look almost broke him down, and at another, Rachel's
stony gaze so filled him with wonderment and anger that he had much ado
to save himself from falling.

Ruth retired to superintend the preparation of the tea-table
within-doors, and Rachel followed her. In their absence he got on
better, but it was almost as great a relief as he had ever known to find
that the concert at last was over, and that he could give unrestrained
attention to the thoughts which pressed upon him.

"Tea is ready," said Ruth, standing in the doorway, and shading her eyes
from the afternoon sunlight with one hand. Rachel surveyed the quartette
party from the window, but Reuben could see that she was held in talk by
Mrs. Sennacherib.

"This may be my only chance to-day," said the lover to himself, with
one great heart-beat and a series of flutterings after it. He controlled
himself as well as he might, and with a single glance towards Ruth stood
a little behind the rest and feigned to arrange the music on the table.

Isaiah and Sennacherib went first, and Fuller waddled in their rear.
Reuben, after as long a pause as he dared to make, followed them, and
raising his eyes saw that Ruth stood just without the door-way making
room for her guests to pass. "Would she give him a chance for a word?
The girl saw the unconscious pleading in his eyes, and blushing, looked
on the ground. But she kept her place, and Reuben coming up to her just
as Fuller's burly figure rolled out of sight through the door of the
sitting-room, took both her hands in his, not knowing in his eagerness
that he