Chapter II: Arthur Arundel

AFTERNOON tea was scarcely over when the telephone bell was heard. And in a few moments, the parlourmaid came in to say the doctor was wanted at once.

"Oh, dear!" said Ruth. "I did hope you would have had a little peace! However, that's the way, isn't it? There's James with the carriage; I expect he and Dobbin have had a cup of tea, too!"

She laughed merrily, and her father, with a hasty kiss, hurried off, and she was again alone.

Presently, after a slight knock, a pleasant elderly person entered and came forward.

"I thought you must be lonely this wet afternoon, Miss Ruth, so I came to see if I could do anything for you."

"No, Morris, I do not think I am. I was just going to practise my violin."

"Master has been down on his way out to ask me what you would like for your birthday present, miss. He's really put about that he has nothing ready. I told him if he'd excuse my saying so, I expect you would like to be consulted better than to have something as a surprise that you did not exactly want."

"Yes," said Ruth, looking up, "that is just what I do feel; but I do not know what my father would like to spend upon it! Do sit down, Morris. Will it be too cold for you with this window open? It has almost left off raining. But see, I will shut it. Can you spare time to have a chat?"

The housekeeper had intended nothing else. When Ruth had no other visitors, she often came up and did her best to pass away some of the long, lonely afternoons.

So she sat down by the window and answered comfortably, "Well, Miss Ruth, if I might suggest, I think it would be a good plan for the master to tell you what he thought of spending, and then for you and me to go to Worcester to-morrow to buy it."

Ruth smiled. "All right," she said: "that would be lovely. But you must tell him, Morris, because if I did—well, it would seem like asking him for a present, would it not?"

It was long past seven before the wheels were heard again, and the carriage came up the drive. Dinner had been kept back, and Ruth had sat with her fancy work, waiting and wondering.

To her astonishment, she heard two voices in the hall, and a great bustle of hanging up coats. Then her father threw open the drawing-room door, and said cheerfully, "Dr. Arundel, my dear! Dr. 'Arthur' Arundel, as he likes to be called. I have brought him to stay with us. I thought it was dull for him in a new place this first evening."

Ruth shook hands, and privately hoped Morris would have arranged enough dinner for three, and that the room was ready.

It came out that her father had driven to meet his new partner at the junction, and thinking it would be but lonely in lodgings that first evening, he had decided to get to know him at once. Ruth was accustomed to chance guests, and took it all calmly, listening to the conversation very quietly, but following it with interest, her bright eyes sparkling at anything that amused her, while her father said a word now and then in a fond, teasing way to include her, but otherwise was absorbed in his guest and his politics.

When dinner was over, Dr. Brown turned to her. "You have your German to prepare, my dear, I expect. We will join you in the drawing-room presently."

Ruth made her escape, and sat down by her little table, and tried to busy herself with her preparation, but she found it hard work. She forgot for a moment about the new partner, and her thoughts flew to her birthday to-morrow, and of this time last year, when she had not been motherless.

It seemed like a dream. She wondered if she had done everything she could to make home happy for her father. Had she done all she could? Morris thought she had, but then Morris could not know how often her father gave those weary sighs. Besides, Morris thought "religion" could ease every care under the sun, and Ruth did not see that; she could not understand it. Her father and she did very well without it, she thought. And even if her mother had been influenced by Morris to think of such things, why, of course, invalids always must, and that was only natural.

She did not know that Morris would have been shocked if she had been told that in Ruth's thoughts what was her joy and comfort could be called "religion!"

"It's just having Christ in your heart and in your life," she would say to herself, as she sat in her sitting-room downstairs, "and I can but pray that they may understand it for themselves; for it is eternal life to them that know Him!"