Ruth went off, laughing, happy. She knew she had gamed the home-half
of her point.

Her heart beat a good deal, though, when she went into Mrs.
Marchbanks's library alone, and sat waiting for the lady to come down.

She would rather have gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and
old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her
justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she
must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew
right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had
happened to think of it.

"Good morning," said the great lady, graciously, wondering not a
little what had brought the child, in this unceremonious early
fashion, to ask for her.

"I came," said Ruth, after she had answered the good morning, "because
I heard what you were so kind as to say last night about liking my
playing; and that you had nobody just now to teach Lily. I thought,
perhaps, you might be willing to try me; for I should like to do it,
and I think I could show her all I know; and then I could take lessons
myself of Mr. Viertelnote. I've been thinking about it all night."

Ruth Holabird had a direct little fashion of going straight through
whatever crust of outside appearance to that which must respond to
what she had at the moment in herself. She had real _self-possession_;
because she did not let herself be magnetized into a false
consciousness of somebody else's self, and think and speak according