Here!
they're going, I suppose. Look! he wants her to go without a word
to the old man; but she is none so changed as that, I reckon."
Not Ruth, indeed! She never perceived the dissatisfied expression
of Mr. Bellingham's countenance, visible to the old man's keen
eye; but came running up to Thomas to send her love to his wife,
and to shake him many times by the hand.
"Tell Mary I'll make her such a fine gown, as soon as ever I set
up for myself; it shall be all in the fashion, big gigot sleeves,
that she shall not know herself in them! Mind you tell her that,
Thomas, will you?"
"Ay, that I will, lass; and I reckon she'll be pleased to hear
thou hast not forgotten thy old merry ways. The Lord bless
thee--the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee."
Ruth was half-way towards the impatient Mr. Bellingham when her
old friend called her back. He longed to give her a warning of
the danger that he thought she was in, and yet he did not know
how. When she came up, all he could think of to say was a text;
indeed, the language of the Bible was the language in which he
thought, whenever his ideas went beyond practical everyday life
into expressions of emotion or feeling. "My dear, remember the
devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour;
remember that, Ruth."
The words fell on her ear, but gave no definite idea. The utmost
they suggested was the remembrance of the dread she felt as a
child when this verse came into her mind, and how she used to
imagine a lion's head with glaring eyes peering out of the bushes
in a dark shady part of the wood, which, for this reason, she had
always avoided, and even now could hardly think of without a
shudder.
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