uld like to have of which you forgot to
tell him?"

"I never tell him anything I wish," replied the boy, proudly. "He knows
beforehand. Did you never draw up close to a delicate flower, lay your
cheek softly upon it, so,--close your eyes, so,--and listen to the tale
it's telling? Well, that is what my good friend does always."

It was like listening to music to hear the slow, drawling words of the
invalid. Ruth's hand closed softly over his.

"I have some pretty stories at home about flowers," she said; "would you
like to read them?"

"I can't read very well," answered Bob, in unabashed simplicity.

Yet his spoken words were flawless.

"Then I shall read them to you," she answered pleasantly, "to-morrow,
Bob, say at about three."

"You will come again?" The heavy mouth quivered in eager surprise.

"Why, yes; now that I know you, I must know you better. May I come?"

"Oh, lady!"

Ruth went out enveloped in that look of gratitude. It was the first
directly personal expression of honest gratitude she had ever received;
and as she walked down the hill, she longed to do something that would
be really helpful to some one. She had led, on the whole, so far, an
egotistic life. Being their only child, her parents expected much of
her. During her school-life she had been a sort of human reservoir for
all her father's ideas, whims, and hobbies. True, he had made her take
a wide interest in everything within the line of vision; hanging on
his arm, as they wandered off daily in their peripatetic school, he had
imbued her with all his manly nobility of soul. But theorizing does not
give much hold on a subject, the mind being taken up with its own clever
elucidations. For the past six months, after a year's travel in Europe,
her mother had led her on in a whirl of what she called happiness. Ruth
had soon gauged the worth of this surface-life, and now that a lull had
come, she realized that what she needed was some interest outside of
herself,--an interest which the duties of a mere society girl do not
allow to develop to a real good.

A plan slowly formed itself in her mind, in which she became so
engrossed that she unconsciously crossed the cable of the Jackson Street
cars. She did not turn till a hand was suddenly laid upon her arm.

"What are you doing in this part of town?" broke in Louis Arnold's voice
in evident anger.

"Oh, Louis, how you startled me! What is the matter with this part of
town?"

"You are on a