g this air at a leisurely trot or stride as his habit may be.
You, Miss Levice, should get on your walking togs instantly."

"Yes, but not conveniently. My father and I never failed to take our
morning constitutional together when all was well. Father always gave me
the dubious compliment of saying I walked as straight and took as long
strides as a boy. Being a great lover of the exercise, I was sorry my
pas was not ladylike."

"You doubtless make a capital companion, as your father evidently
remembered what a troublesome thing it is to conform one's length of
limb to the dainty footsteps of a woman."

"Father has no trouble on that score," said Ruth, laughing.

The doctor smiled in response, and raising his hat, said, "That is where
he has the advantage over a tall man."

Going over several such scenes, Ruth could remember nothing in his
manner but a sort of invigorating, friendly bluntness, totally at
variance with the peculiarities of the "lady's man" that Louis had
insinuated he was accounted. She resolved to scrutinize him more
narrowly the next morning.

Mrs. Levice's room was handsomely furnished and daintily appointed.
Even from her pillows she would have detected any lapse in its exquisite
neatness, and one of Ruth's duties was to leave none to be detected.
The house was large; and with three servants the young girl had to do a
great deal of supervising. She took a natural pride in having things go
as smoothly as under her mother's administration; and Mr. Levice said it
was well his wife had laid herself on the shelf, as the new broom was a
vast improvement.

Ruth had given the last touches to her mother's dark hair, and was
reading aloud the few unexciting items one finds in the morning's paper.
Mrs. Levice, propped almost to a sitting position by many downy pillows,
polished her nails and half listened. Her cheeks were no longer brightly
flushed, but rather pale; the expression of her eyes was placid, and her
slight hand quite firm; the strain lifted from her, a great weariness
had taken its place. The sweet morning air came in unrestrained at the
open window.

Ruth's reading was interrupted by the entrance of the maid, carrying a
dainty basket of Duchesse roses.

"For Madame," she said, handing it to Ruth, who came forward to take it.

"Read the card yourself," she said, placing it in her mother's hand as
the girl retired. A pleased smile broke over Mrs. Levice's face; she
buried her face in the