the threshold of Cedar House, looking into the great room. Philip Alston
saw them almost at once. He had been watching and waiting for Ruth, as
he always was when she was out of his sight even for a moment. He sprang
up, quickly and alertly, like a strong young man, and went to meet her
with his gallant air. She held up her cheek smilingly; he bent and
kissed it, and taking her hand with his grand bow, led her across the
room. The judge and his nephew also arose, as they always did when she
came in or went out. The judge did this unconsciously, without thinking,
and scarcely knowing that he did do it; for he was a plain man, rather
awkward and very absent-minded, and deeply absorbed in the study of his
profession. William Pressley did it with deliberate intention and
self-consciousness, as he did everything that he deemed fitting. It was
his nature to give grave thought to the least thing that he said or did.
It was his sincere conviction that the smallest matter affecting himself
was of infinitely greater importance than the greatest that could
possibly concern any one else. There are plenty of people who believe
this as sincerely as he believed it, but there are few who show the
belief with his candor. When he now stood up to place a chair for Ruth
beside his own, he did the simple service as if the critical eyes of the
world had been upon him. And his manner was so consciously correct that
no one observed that the chair which he gave her was not so comfortable
as his own. He was uncommonly good-looking, also, and tall and shapely,
yet there was something about his full figure--that vague,
indescribable something--which unmistakably marks the lack of virility
in mind or body, no matter how large or handsome a man may be. He stood
for a moment after Ruth was seated, and then, seeing that Philip Alston
was about to lift a candle-stand which was heaped with parcels, he went
to aid him, and the two men together set the little table before her.
She looked at it with soft, excited cries of surprise and delight,
instantly divining that the unopened parcels and sealed boxes contained