"
"You don't mean to say you have sat upon that old fellow's knee?"
"Oh, yes! many and many a time."
Mr. Bellingham looked graver than he had done while witnessing
Ruth's passionate emotion in her mother's room. But he lost his
sense of indignity in admiration of his companion as she wandered
among the flowers, seeking for favourite bushes or plants, to
which some history or remembrance was attached. She wound in and
out in natural, graceful, wavy lines between the luxuriant and
overgrown shrubs, which were fragrant with a leafy smell of
spring growth; she went on, careless of watching eyes, indeed
unconscious, for the time, of their existence. Once she stopped
to take hold of a spray of jessamine, and softly kiss it; it had
been her mother's favourite flower.
Old Thomas was standing by the horse-mount, and was also an
observer of all her goings-on. But, while Mr. Bellingham's
feeling was that of passionate admiration mingled with a selfish
kind of love, the old man gazed with tender anxiety, and his lips
moved in words of blessing--
"She's a pretty creature, with a glint of her mother about her;
and she's the same kind lass as ever. Not a bit set up with yon
fine manty-maker's shop she's in. I misdoubt that young fellow
though, for all she called him a real gentleman, and checked me
when I asked if he was her sweetheart. If his are not
sweetheart's looks, I've forgotten all my young days.
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