Chapter I: Lonely

"WELL, my dear!" said a quick, rather pleasant voice. "Here you are!"

"Yes, father, always here," answered another voice, as a young girl emerged from behind the curtains of the bay window, where she had been standing gazing out on the pretty garden. "What a wet day you have had!"

"Pretty well," he answered, as he came forward to the fire, "but I do not feel it in the carriage as other folks do who have to trudge along in the mud."

"No," she assented, helping him off with his coat and carrying it into the hall; "are you ready for your tea, father?"

"I should think 'you' are," he answered, glancing at the clock. "Such a list of patients as I have had to-day. I thought I should never get through."

"I suppose it is the wet weather," she remarked as she rang the bell. "It is wonderfully cold for April!"

Her father sat down in the armchair she had placed for him, and warmed his hands in a placid way, looking round on his daughter with contented eyes.

"Is Dr. Arundel come, father?"

"Not yet; he arrives this evening. Heigho! I'd sooner have rubbed along by myself, I do believe, than to undertake to get someone else into the work."

"Oh! But, then, see how the work keeps on increasing, and now we live up the hill, it is such a long way from the town. You could not do it all."

He smiled a little. "You know best, don't you?" he said fondly. "Here is the teapot; pour out a cup, there's a dear; I'm weary."

She handed it to him, pressing him with pretty persuasion to take something to eat.

She was a dainty little thing, with wavy hair, small hands and feet, and an engaging manner.

He watched her as she moved quickly and noiselessly about, and then he sighed.

She turned her head quickly.

"Is the tea not good?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, perfectly. Very nice, my dear."

She sat down by his side, with her own cup in her hand, and looked into the fire. She was always disturbed if her father sighed. "I was thinking, Ruth, that it was a mistake to have come up here to live; I wish we had not."

"Then we will go to the town again," she answered decidedly; "it is nothing to move."

"Nothing!" he responded. "That is all you know!"

"Why do you regret it, particularly?" asked Ruth.

"I came up here for your mother's sake, and after all, it did not save her. Nothing could, as far as that went; but I wish I had not moved from the town."

There was an instant's pause.

"Oh, well!" she said brightly. "We can think it over. I like being at The Firs ten times as much as in the old frowsy town, but if you do not, we'll go back there. I love the dear old house! See, your tea is getting cold; let me give you another cup. Perhaps Dr. Arundel's coming will make ever so much difference."

"I should not wonder." Then there was another sigh, and after a moment he asked, "Let me see, how old are you, Ruth?"

"I am seventeen—" she hesitated an instant—"to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he exclaimed, rousing himself. "Why did no one tell me, or remind me?" Then, with the heaviest sigh he had yet given, he went on, "It was your mother who always thought of these things."

Ruth had privately wondered if he would remember. He was so clever in all outside things. But as long as she was cheerful, and in her place to welcome him, he seemed to think very little about her, or so she thought.

Perhaps she was mistaken. But sometimes when she had finished a long day of pretty ministry to him, and was shut up in her own room at night, she would lay her head in her mother's chair and cry bitterly for the want of she knew not what. Whether it was the lack of mother-love or sympathy, or simple desolateness, she could not tell.

"What would you like me to give you, my dear?" asked her father, turning round abruptly.

And Ruth's thoughts came back to the present.

"I do not know, father," she answered colouring. "Anything you like—or nothing—"

"That is likely, is it not, my precious?" he said fondly. "Well, I must 'cudgel my brains,' as people say; girls are curious creatures. I expect you will have to help me?"