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