Warham groaned, "Oh, Lord, I don't know _what_ to do! But--it
ain't fair to our Ruth."

"I don't see it that way. . . . Kiss her, George."

Warham kissed one of the soft cheeks, swelling like a ripening
apple. The baby opened wide a pair of wonderful dark eyes, threw
up its chubby arms and laughed--such a laugh!. . . There was no
more talk of sending her away.



CHAPTER II


NOT quite seventeen years later, on a fine June morning, Ruth
Warham issued hastily from the house and started down the long
tanbark walk from the front veranda to the street gate. She was
now nineteen--nearer twenty--and a very pretty young woman,
indeed. She had grown up one of those small slender blondes,
exquisite and doll-like, who cannot help seeming fresh and
sweet, whatever the truth about them, without or within. This
morning she had on a new summer dress of a blue that matched her
eyes and harmonized with her coloring. She was looking her best,
and she had the satisfying, confidence-giving sense that it was
so. Like most of the unattached girls of small towns, she was
always dreaming of the handsome stranger who would fall in
love--the thrilling, love-story kind of love at first sight. The
weather plays a conspicuous part in the romancings of youth; she
felt that this was precisely the kind of day fate would be most