father, holding his hands a few
inches from her shoulders, said, one morning, with a drolly puzzled
look, "I am afraid to touch you; sparks might fly."

Arnold surprised her standing in the gloaming by a window, her hands
clasped over her head, a smile parting her lips, her eyes haunting in
the witchery of their expression. By some occult power her glance
fell unconsciously on him; and he beheld, with mingled amazement and
speculation, a rosy hue overspread her face and throat; her hands went
swiftly to her face as if she would hide something it might reveal, and
she passed quickly from the room. Arnold sat down to solve this problem
of an unknown quantity.

Ruth's birthday came in its course, a few days after her meeting with
Rose Delano.

The family celebrated it in their usual simple way, which consisted
only in making the day pass pleasantly for the one whose day of days it
was,--a graceful way of showing that the birth has been a happy one for
all concerned.

On this evening of her twenty-second birthday, Ruth seemed to be in her
element. She had donned, in a spirit of mischief, a gown she had worn
five years before on the occasion of some festivity. The girlish fashion
of the white frock, with its straight, full skirt to her ankles, the
round baby waist, and short puffs on her shoulders made a very child of
her.

"Who can imagine me seventeen?" she asked gayly as she entered the
library, softly lighted by many wax candles. Her mother, who was again
enjoying the freedom of the house, and who was now snugly ensconced in
her own particular chair, looked up at her.

"That little frock makes me long to take you in my lap," said she,
brightly.

"And it makes me long to be there," answered Ruth, throwing herself into
her mother's arms and twining her arms about her neck.

"How now, Mr. Arnold, you can't scare me tonight with your sarcastic
disapproval!" she laughed, glancing provokingly over at her cousin
seated in a deep blue-cushioned chair.

"I have no desire to scare you, little one," he answered pleasantly. "I
only do that to children or grown-up people."

"And what am I, pray, good sir?"

"You are neither; you are neither child or woman; you are neither flesh
nor spirit; you are uncanny."

"Dear me! In other words, I am a conundrum. Who will guess me?"

"You are the Sphinx," replied her cousin.

"I won't be that ugly-faced thing," she retorted; "guess again."

"Impossible. Once acquire a sphinx